!!!Burschenschaft Burschenschaft: 1) Association of unmarried young men in rural areas; subject to strict rules; responsible for the maintenance of local customs such as Maskentreiben; also called "Bursch", "Zechen", "Irten", "Ruden" and "Passen"; while largely secularized and modified by modern developments in society, even today a large number of sports clubs, denominational and political youth organizations in rural areas take the form of a Burschenschaft. 2) Student organization, fraternity; Burschenschaften bear traditional heraldic colours, most of them engage in combat (duelling fraternities) and many hold nationalist and right wing views; originally founded in Jena in 1814; in Austria established under Metternich; repeatedly forbidden by the police; officially permitted since 1859; (oldest Burschenschaft: Olympia Wien 1859); in 1994 Austria counted approximately 30 Burschenschaften, some of which are partly associated with the umbrella organization Deutsche Burschenschaft (abbr. DB). !Literature W. Galler, Die B. des oestlichen und mittleren Weinviertels, doctoral thesis, Vienna 1971; R. Wolfram, B.-Brauchtum, in: Oesterr. \\ Volkskundeatlas, 3%%sup rd/% instalment, 1968. %%language [Back to the Austrian Version|AEIOU/Burschenschaft|class='wikipage austrian'] %% [{FreezeArticle author='AEIOU' template='Lexikon_1995_englisch'}] [{ALLOW view All}][{ALLOW comment All}][{ALLOW edit FreezeAdmin}]