Vojvodina

Autonomous province of Serbia situated in the north of the country, in the Pannonia plains of Central Europe. The population is 2 million, making more than one fourth of the total population of Serbia. The capital of Vojvodina is Novi Sad with the population of around 370,000. It is the region where many different nationalities and cultures meet and live side by side. It is the home of more than 26 ethnic groups with 6 languages being in the official use. The most numerous ethnic group are the Serbs (65%), and then the Hungarian one (14%). Other ethnic groups do not exceed 3% of the total population of Vojvodina.

LANGUAGE

The Hungarian name for Vojvodina is Vajdaság; the German one was Wojwodschaft Serbien und Tamisch Banat, when it was recognised as part of Austro-Hungary in 1849. The territory of that one is the same of the present Vojvodine.

RELIGION AND TRADITION

The Vojvodina population division by confessions is: Orthodox (69%), Eastern-Rite Catholics (19%),  Protestants (3%) and others.

ART

The outstanding sites and places of Vojvodina are Sremski Karlovci, the Petrovaradin Fortress and the Matice srpska and the Serbian National Theatre buildings in Novi Sad, the Fruška Gora monasteries and the Kovilj Monastery, and the Novi Sad sinagogue.

The Slovak ethnic group of Kovačica is one of the world centres of naïve painting.

GEOGRAPHY

Vojvodina covers the regions of Srem, Bačka and Banat, separated by the rivers Danube and Tisza. Today, the western Srem is in Croatia, northern Bačka in Hungary and eastern Banat in Rumania.

HISTORY

The Vojvodina area was under the Hungarian Kingdom from the 11th century, except for the period from the 16th to the 18th century when it was under the Ottoman rule. The population of Vojvodina started to change in the late 14th century, when Serbian refugees started to arrive from the regions enslaved by the Turks. In the late 17th century, large numbers of Serbs settle here. From the very start they gained especially privileged status in the Austro-Hungarian Empire of that time, taking over the frontier army duties – defending the state against the Ottoman invasion if need be.

At the Serb National Assembly in Karlovci in May 1848, Serbs declared the  independence of Serbian Vojvodina, consisting of Srema, Banat, Bačka and Baranja. The following year this territory – in somewhat lesser scope – was declared a province of Austro-Hungary, called the Dukedome of Serbia and Temesch Banat. After the WWI and the breakup of Austro-Hungarian monarchy, by the 1918 Treaty of Trianon, Vojvodina was united with Serbia, first with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croat and Slovenes and later on as Yugoslavia. After the WWII it was established as the Serbian autonomous province.

OUTSTANDING FIGURES

Despot Đorđe Branković, emperor Jovan Nenad, Patriarch Arsenije Čarnojević, Metropolitan Stefan Stratimirović, voivode Stevan Šupljikac, Patriarch Josif Rajačić,  Svetozar Miletić, Sava Tekelija, Jaša Tomić, …