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Ostmark ("Eastern March") is a modern German term to translate the term "Ostarrîchi" a vernacular for marchia orientalis that appears in a single later 10th century document.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Middle Ages 1.2 Modern age 2 External links

It is often thought that this term was used in Carolingian times and during the early Middle Ages for the core territory of Austria, more or less modern Lower Austria. However, this German-language term in not ascertained in any documents written in that time, but only the Latin form march(i)a orientalis, as almost all documents were written in Latin.

The first march was created against the Avars and is sometimes called the Awarenmark. It corresponded to a front along the Danube from the Traungau to the Szombathely and Raba rivers and including the Vienna basin. The first known margraves (comes terminalis) were the brothers William and Engelschalk I of the Wilhelminer dynasty. Their descendants contested the region with the imperial nominee Aribo in the Wilhelminer War (882 – 884). After the death of Aribo, the title seems to have passed into abeyance until revived later in the tenth century for one Burchard.

The famous Ostarrichi document of 996 describes the march ruled by the Babenberg family since 976 as regione vulgari vocabulo Ostarrichi, i.e. the region known as Ostarrichi ("Eastern Realm") in the vernacular. The common term Ostarrichi became the linguistic ancestor of the German name for Austria, Österreich.

The Margraviate of Austria was one of the Eastern border areas of the Holy Roman Empire during the early Middle Ages. In Charlemagne's time, much what is today Eastern and Central Austria was already populated by Slavs, who had migrated to the area at the end of the Völkerwanderung and mixed with the indigenous population. The indigenes apparently were speaking Rhaeto-Romance languages, remnants of which remain today in parts of northern Italy (Friulian, Ladin) and in Switzerland (Romansh). In the Austrian Alps some valleys retained their Rhaeto-romanic speakers until the 17th century.

During the 800s and 900s, Germanic settlers from the Duchy of Bavaria began to expand eastward along the Danube and into the Alps. Austria was elevated to a duchy independent from Bavaria only in the Privilegium Minus of 1156. The Margraviate of Austria, and the Duchies of Styria and Carinthia (the latter two characterized by partly Slavic populations) developed from this eastward expansion.

The term "Ostmark" itself, a concise but ahistorical 19th century translation of Marchia Orientalis, was revived by the Nazis after the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, as they wanted to purge any Austrian identity separate from the Altreich. In 1942, the term was officially replaced by Alpen und Donaugaue (Alpine and Danube Territories) in order to avoid any connotation of Austrian particularity and specific relationship among the territories making up Austria.

• AEIOU Encyclopedia on "Ostmark"
• Information on the Ostarrichi document (in German)