Are there many people from Ex Yugoslavia in Austria?

Question

:-) Of course there is! Can you tell me more about the community there? How are they intergrated? What is Ex-Yug culture like there. Any clubs...TV channels..newspapers etc? Any famous Austrians of Yug decent?

And anything else you can tell me ??

Answer 1

Wikipedia:

New ethnic minorities in Austria (foreigners and naturalized)

According to the Austrian Statistical Bureau, at the beginning of 2005, 788,000 foreigners legally lived in Austria, representing 9.6% of the total population, one of the highest rates in Europe.

Of these foreign residents, 340,000 came from Former Yugoslavia and 130,000 from Turkey.

Ethnic groups

Austrians 91.1%, former Yugoslavs 4% (includes Croatians, Slovenes, Serbs, and Bosniaks), Turks 1.6%, German 0.9%, other or unspecified 2.4% (2001 census)

Other Links:

http://government-austria.at/index.php3?...

http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/GR1006....

No comment:

http://www.ciaonet.org/isa/lil01/

Answer 2

Oh yes - there are very many of them. Ex-Yugoslav are the biggest group of immigrants in Austria. Some of them came to Austria bout 30 years ago because of the better economic situation. Mostly, they settled in towns where are large companies e.g. in the town next to my town (a river is in between) where was a large textile factory. (http://www.lambacherleinen.com/englisch/...

Many came because of that.

Others, especially Bosnians, and Albanians from Kosova and from Makedonia came during the wars.

In general, they are well integrated. Reasons: Many of them were already born in Austria, they have perfect language skills. Another reason is, they look very similar to “native” Austrians ( they aren´t black, they don´t wear turbans, saris etc.)

Furthermore, their names don´t sound so “different”. Due to the fact that in the Austro-Hungarian empire lived many nationalities of Slavic origin (Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenians, Croatians, Polish) and the fact that there are native Slovenian and Croatian minorities in the South and East of Austria, many “native” Austrians have Slavic family names.

Religion is not a big problem either: I know a Bosnian family from the Tuzla area, they came about 15 years ago with their 2 children to Austria because of the war.  They live in an area of Austria where the people live mostly from agriculture and wood. The economic situation isn´t that great – that´s why they are the only Ex-Yugoslavian people by far. They live in a rather small town, their neighbour is the Roman-Catholic priest. They are so well integrated, you won´t believe it!! Even the priest (!) is having barbecue or coffee in the afternoon with the Islamic family (!)

Their son is working now, he also plays football in the third best league, he is an excellent defensive player. The daughter (who is one year older than me) went to a middle school and is now the boss of the McDonald´s in the county capital. 2 years ago, she married a man from Bosnia.

In general, I have to say that Croats and Bosnians, even they have perfect language skills, speak with an accent where you can see that they are of foreign origin. Most Serbians I know speak German like “native” Austrians.

There is no special Yugoslavian TV channel in Austria, I saw many of them watching a channel (I think it´s for Ex-Yugoslavians abroad – don´t know the name of the channel, they mostly play music)

Yugoslavian newspapers and magazines (sports, youth, …) are available almost everywhere where Yugoslavians live.

Most Turkish shop offer a wide range of Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian music, also Albanian. They also sell videos of popular Yugoslavian movies. There are no special Yugoslavian shops but the Turkish also have Yugoslavian ratluk, other Yugoslavian sweets, cheese,…

There are some bars and cafés owned by Yugoslavians. They offer Yugoslavian dishes and are mostly frequented by Ex-Yugoslavians. Some of them are really nice, others are “infamous” for drug-dealing and fighting.

Many people, especially young ones and those, who were already born in Austria or have a higher level of education, also visit “Austrian” bars and restaurants.

About famous Ex-Yugoslavians:

The most famous is Ivica Vastic.

http://www.ivicavastic.at/

Other popular football players with Yugoslav background (some of them were born in Austria) – they already have the Austrian citizenship and play for the Austrian national team.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanel_Kulji...

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zlatko_Junu...

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_Kovace...

And this is a TV moderator, she was born in Belgrade and moved to Austria when she was a child:

http://kundendienst.orf.at/orfstars/rosc...