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[Vojvodina]
Vojvodina in the Kindom of Hungary until 1920

[Picture from Tisza in Vojvodina]
Picture from river Tisza
in Vojvodina
[The map ]

These images and texts focus on cities, towns, buildings and natural scenery of Vojvodina. Vojvodina had been the integral part of the Kingdom of Hungary since 1000 until 1921. At the end of World War I, as part of the Treaty of Trianon, 1920, the Allies annexed Vojvodina from Hungary to Yugoslavia, however, the region remains a treasury of the one-thousand-year old Hungarian culture and people in the Carpathian Basin.


Introduction - the past
Geographically, Vojvodina lies in the Carpathian Basin. [Webmaster note: The Magyars invaded this part of Europe in the begining of the 9th century. See "Magyar Conquest of Hungary"]. During the centuries and after many wars, the Hungarian kings invited other ethnicities, such as the Saxons from Germany, to settle and fill the place of the decreased Hungarian population coused by wars and a long period of the Turkish Rule. Other groups, such as the Serbs, came to Vojvodina later, but mostly fleeing from the upcoming turks from the south, and accepted in Hungary as refuges or soldiers fighting the turks, but were always granted shelter and a right on practising their ortodox religin althought it was opposite to hungarian predominantly Roman Catholic. Their first groups are mentioned in chronicles dated the 13th century, quoting them as poor shepherds wandering with their flocks from sothern Serbia to seek asylum and refuge in Hungarian territory.

The battle of Nándorfehérvár (today's Belgrade)
In 1456, three years after he captured Constantinople, Sultan Mohammed II encamped and set off to besiege Nándorfehérvár (today's Belgrade), hungary´s last and strongest defence fortress on south against turkish attacks. Serbia has been already occupied by the turkish army. The Hungarian army was led by the hungarian king János Hunyadi. In that decisive battle Hungarians gained a decisive victory. This triumph at Nándorfehérvár turned back for nearly a century the Ottoman expansion threatening Europe. In Christian churches throughout the world, the pealing of the bells at noon still reminds people of the victory János Hunyadi achieved on July 22, 1456. Years that came were full of uprisings of different kinds (peasants, miners) within the kingdom. The country was weaker and weaker as time passed by.

Is it any wonder that, after all this, there was not enough money for the war against the Turks, even legendary Nándorfehérvár fell in 1521. In the turbulent times after the battle at Mohacs (1526) the self-declared Serb despot, Nenad Chernoevich, conquered most of Vojvodina with his army consisting of Serb, Tot, Olah and Bulgarian armed peasants. The Slavs who settled the towns of Vojvodina at that time, actually never returned to their motherland Serbia, they instead stayed in Vojvodina´s towns and its region.

The Age of the Turkish Rule
The whole of Vojvodina was conquered by the Turks at the beginning of 1542. In 1543 the region was already a part of the newly organised Szeged- Sandzak (district). The country was occupied by the turks in over 140 yars, even Budapest, the capitol was taken. Szeged was liberated by count Gyorgy Wallis in 1686 consequently, after this followed Szabadka(Subotica), and the whole of Vojvodina was liberated as well. Though the county was liberated from the Turks, the towns in many ocasions were completely destroyed: deadly silence reigned the enormous plain with gloomy swamps and deep forests and the peoples who used to live here had no trace at all.

Even more settelers came in the following years from Serbia and the battles against turks increased
During the years that follow Orthodox and Catholic Serbs were settled and their task was to fight the Turks at any time. The territory was considered a border guard-region. Vojvodina, the complete Transdanubia and Croatia too, as borderlands were served as terrains and scenes for deployment in countless battles against turks, on that way the number of hungarians rapidly decreased, the ethnic picture started to change. In 1683, things "worked out" exceptionally well for the Turks: they had already reached Vienna in mid-July.

Europes armies joined against the turks
Europe joined forces, and the united Polish, Bavarian, Saxon, and Austrian armies under the leadership of the Polish king, raised the siege of Vienna and crushed the sultan's army. During succeeding years, which were filled with chaotic wars in the Carpathian Basin, the Christian coalition continually gained the upper hand. The Turks, who three years before were besieging Vienna, were in 1686 unable to hold Buda against the regular army of liberation, reinforced by volunteers. The commander of the fortress, Abdurrahman Pasha, fell in a dogged battle. Of the 65 thousand soldiers of the victorious Prince Charles of Lorraine, every fourth one was Hungarian. When in 1986, on the three hundredth anniversary of the successful siege of Buda Castle, the participants in an international conference of historians in Budapest debated the military events of 1686 and their background, the general opinion was that though the Christian forces had waged the military operations that forced the Ottoman Empire back to the Balkans not out of devotion to the Hungarians but in the obvious interest of all Europe, the recapture of Buda during their campaign was decisive and far-reaching in its effect: after all, from this time on, the Turks were increasingly on the defensive. This military victory made it possible for Hungary to be a part of Europe again after a century and a half, and the clogged arteries of development again opened for the nation.

The Development and statly supported settlements to Vojvodina
The government and the large landowners invited foreigners to settle in the regions depopulated by frequent military operations: Germans, Southern Slavs, and Northern Slavs. Even today, the rows of villages established by the state administration are easily identifiable through the symmetrical networks of streets that were laid out by military engineers. The spontaneous migration of people was also large. Slovakians, Ruthenians (Carpatho-Ukrainians), and Rumanian forest dwellers and shepherds moved down mainly from the impoverished valleys of the Carpathians into the interior of the basin. A large segment of the inhabitants in the growing cities were also foreigners: Germans, Serbians, Bohemians, Moravians, and others.

From Sarajevo to Trianon here continues the story...

Treaty of Trianon, 1920
The Treaty of Trianon 1920., and the Dismemberment of Hungary

    From 1920 - HUNGARIAN NATION IN YUGOSLAVIA