TY - JOUR T1 - Zur Sprache der ältesten Bücher der Burgenländischen Kroaten (Duševne pesne 1609 und 1611) PY - 2018 N2 - On the language of the first Burgenland Croatian books (Duševne pesne 1609 and 1611). Grgur Mekinić is the author of the Croatian hymns printed in Western Hungary (today Burgenland, Austria) in 1609 and 1611. The texts are translations of German, Latin, and Hungarian Protestant hymns. Mekinić himself did not stem from Burgenland, it is uncertain where he came from. He was a Protestant pastor who wanted to disseminate the new faith, encouraged and invited by the owner of the dominion of Eisenstadt and Forchtenstein. Mekinić's efforts, however, failed, since the vast majority of Western Hungarian Croats remained Catholics. The language of the hymns is the Ikavian-ekavian subdialect of Ćakavian Croatian. In the article Mekinić's language is compared with Burgenland Croatian including their old literature, the Ćakavian Postilla of 1568, and other dialect material. It can be stated that Mekinić's hymns are the first two books of the Burgenland Croats, but they do not represent the beginning of their literature, since they were forbidden by the Catholic church and afterwards entirely forgotten. The uninterrupted Burgenland Croatian literature begins only more than a century later. JF - Wiener Slavistisches Jahrbuch. Neue Folge JA - Wiener Slavistisches Jahrbuch. Neue Folge VL - 6 IS - 1 UR - https://doi.org/10.13173/wienslavjahr.6.2018.0001 M3 - doi:10.13173/wienslavjahr.6.2018.0001 ER -