Bavarians

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Bavarians (Bavarian: Boarn, Standard German: Baiern) are an ethnographic group of Germans of the Bavaria region, a state within Germany. The group's dialect or speech is known as the Bavarian language, native to Altbayern ("Old Bavaria"), roughly the territory of the Electorate of Bavaria in the 17th century.

Like the neighboring

There is no ethno-linguistic distinction between Bavarians and

The Bavarian language is divided into three main dialects:

• Upper Palatinian (Oberpfälzisch) is spoken in northern Bavaria (Bohemian Forest, Regensburg).
• Danube Bavarian (Donaubairisch) is spoken in central and south-eastern Bavaria and in Central and Lower Austria (Munich, Salzburg, Vienna).
• Alpine Bavarian is spoken in south-western Bavaria, in southern
  Carinthia, Styria) and in South Tyrol
  .

Origins

.

Bavarians are first mentioned in the mid-6th century, in the foothills north of the

Theoderic and Odoacer had come to an end, creating a new power vacuum in the Alpine region. They seem to have been closely related to the Lombards who were developing as a force to the east of them. Their legal system shows heavy Roman influence, and their unification appears to have been under a Duke installed by the Franks (Old Bavarian law codes refer to five main lineages).^[5]

The Danubian frontier between the Roman empire and "

East Germanic groups such as the Goths had entered the Pannonian region east of the Bavarians in the generations leading up to the empire of Attila. These peoples had not only contributed to the Hunnic empire, but also sometimes been settled peacefully as Roman foederati

.

Also entering the area, more contemporary with the Bavarians and Lombards, were Slavs, who particularly settled the Upper Palatinate as well as around Regensburg itself (distr. Großprüfening).^{[7][8][9][10]}

Neighboring the emerging Bavarian people in the 6th to 7th centuries were the Alamanni to the west (with the river

Slavs and Magyars

.

Much like was the case in neighboring

Bishopric of Regensburg was founded in 739 by Boniface. The Lex Baiuvariorum was a codex of Germanic law, comprising 23 articles of traditional law recorded in the 740s. Bavaria within the Carolingian Empire was bordering on Swabia in the west, Thuringia in the north, Lombardy in the south and Slavic Carinthia

in the east.

Holy Roman Empire

The Duchy of Bavaria was a stem duchy of the Holy Roman Empire, established in the 10th century, derived from an earlier duchy ruled by the Frankish Agilolfings during the 6th to 8th centuries.

The Margraviate of Austria was formed an eastern march to the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, and became a duchy in its own right, the Duchy of Austria, in 1156, in the 13th century falling under the dominion of the House of Habsburg. In the 14th and 15th centuries, upper and lower Bavaria were repeatedly subdivided. Four Duchies (or "partial duchies", Teilherzogtümer) existed after the division of 1392: Lower Bavaria-Straubing, lower Bavaria-Landshut, Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Bavaria-Munich.

Munich, now the capital and cultural center of Bavaria, was founded in the high medieval period, and was the capital of the "partial duchy" of Bavaria-Munich 1392–1503. In 1503, Bavaria was re-united by Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich (although the formerly Bavarian offices Kufstein, Kitzbühel and Rattenberg in Tirol were lost in 1504) and established Munich as the capital of all of Bavaria in 1506. In 1623, Bavaria was elevated to Electorate (Kurfürstentum).

Modern history

The

Palatinate

As of 1818, the total population of the kingdom was at 3.7 million, rising to 4.4 million by 1840 and to 6.2 million by 1900, reaching 6.5 million in 1910. Modern Bavaria has 12.5 million inhabitants (as of 2012);^[12] the population of Altbayern or Bavaria proper is at 6.7 million.^[13]

List of notable Bavarians

Scientists

• Johann Schmidlap (16th century), fireworks maker and rocket pioneer
• Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826), physicist known for discovering the dark absorption lines known as Fraunhofer lines in the sun's spectrum
• Max Joseph von Pettenkofer (1818–1901), chemist and hygienist
• Johannes Stark (1874–1957), physicist, laureate of the 1919 Nobel Prize in Physics
• Feodor Lynen (1911–1979), biochemist, laureate of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• Rudolf Mössbauer (1929–2011), physicist, laureate of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics

Business

• Johanna Händlmaier (?–1950), company co-founder of Händlmaier and creator of a recipe for a sweet Bavarian mustard^[14]
• Stefan Schörghuber (1961–2008), businessman

Politicians

• Maximilian II of Bavaria (1811–1864), King of Bavaria (1848–1864)
• Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845–1886), King of Bavaria (1864–1886)
• Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel and a leading member of the Nazi Party
  (NSDAP) of Germany
• Franz Josef Strauß
  (1915–1988), politician, Minister-President of Bavaria (1978–1988)
• Roman Herzog (1934–2017), politician, judge, and legal scholar, President of the Federal Republic of Germany (1994–1999)
• Edmund Stoiber (1941–), politician, Minister-President of Bavaria (1993–2007)
• Horst Seehofer (1949–), politician, Minister-President of Bavaria (2008–2018)

Artists

• Asam brothers, Cosmas Damian (1686–1739) and Egid Quirin (1692–1750), sculptors, workers in stucco, painters, and architects
• Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787), composer
• Franz Hanfstaengl (1804–1877), painter, lithographer, and photographer
• Carl Spitzweg (1808–1885), painter
• Richard Strauss (1864–1949), composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist
• Ludwig Thoma (1867–1921), writer
• Emerenz Meier (1874–1928), folk poet
• Franz Marc (1880–1916), painter and printmaker
• Karl Valentin (1882–1948), comedian
• Carl Orff (1895–1982), composer and music educator
• Michael Ende (1929–1995), writer
• Franzl Lang (1930–2015), singer and actor
• Gerhard Polt (1942–), writer, filmmaker, actor, and cabaret artist
• Werner Herzog (1942–), filmmaker, actor, and writer
• Uschi Glas (1944–), actress and singer
• Patrick Süskind (1949–), writer and screenwriter
• Bernd Eichinger (1949–2011), film producer, director, and screenwriter
• Ottfried Fischer (1953–), retired actor and Kabarett artist
• Jonas Kaufmann (1969–), operatic tenor

Sportspeople

• Franz Beckenbauer (1945–2024), former professional footballer and manager
• Rosi Mittermaier (1950–2023), alpine skier
• Philipp Lahm (1983–), former professional footballer and captain of the German national team which won the 2014 World Cup
• Magdalena Neuner (1987–), former professional biathlete
• Thomas Müller (1989–), professional footballer

Others

• Herenaus Haid (1784–1873), theologian
• Traudl Junge (1920–2002), from 1942 to 1945 secretary of Adolf Hitler
• Joseph Ratzinger
  (1927–2022), professor of theology and from 2005 to 2013 Pope Benedict XVI

See also

• Weisswurstäquator, German for the White Sausage Equator. A humorous term used in Germany to describe the dividing line between Southern Germany (including Bavaria) and Northern Germany
  .
• Swabians, another Germanic ethnic group
• Frisians, another Germanic ethnic group
• Bavarian nationalism

References