Kroatisch Minihof

Kroatisch Minihof lies south of the Kreutzer Forest near the Hungarian border in Burgenland. It grew as a broad village with a wide green common, a form typical of the region. In 1971 it became part of the municipality of Nikitsch in the district of Oberpullendorf. The village still keeps the long street pattern shaped by its early settlers. The place is worth visiting for its layered past. Excavations show people lived here from the New Stone Age, leaving tools and pottery from 5500–5000 BC. Roman remains include a farmstead and a silvered bronze eagle found in the 1930s. The first written mention in 1195 links it to the Cistercian monastery at Marienberg, which built a grange here. After Ottoman raids in the 16th century the village was resettled with Croat families from Slavonia, giving the village its present name and language. By 1880 almost every inhabitant spoke Croatian as their mother tongue. Visitors walk along the broad main street lined with modernised farmhouses. At the centre stands the church built in 1731 with its surrounding graveyard and the old village square. A few metres away the former poorhouse and school recall the community’s self-built institutions. The village keeps its quiet rural atmosphere, framed by fields and the distant forest.