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Serbian/Croatian: Novi Sad

Hungarian: Újvidék; Slovak: Nový Sad; Romanian: Novi Sad; Rusyn: Novi Sad

In 1694, Habsburg troops began construction of the Peterwardein Fortress on the right bank of the Danube. Following their expulsion during the ‘Great Turkish War’ (1683–1699) and the accompanying ‘Great Migration’ (Serbian: Velika Seoba), it was mainly Serbs who settled in the vicinity of the fortress. This settlement was initially known as Racka varoš prekodunavska (Raška = a region in central Serbia, város = Hungarian for ‘town’). Its German name was ‘Ratzenstadt’, which means ‘Serb town’ (Raizen/Ratzen = an old term for Serbs). Later, the town was renamed Petrovaradinski Šanac ( šanac = Serbian for ‘fortification’) in reference to Prince Eugene of Savoy’s (1663–1736) mobile bridge fortification.

It was given its current name in 1748. At that time, Empress Maria Theresa (1717–1780) granted the settlement the status of a free royal town and gave it a new name: Neoplanta (German: Neusatz), which, in a figurative sense, means ‘new sowing ground’.

Neusatz/Novi Sad is situated in Vojvodina at 45° 15′ north latitude and 19° 51′ east longitude.

Neusatz is situated on the Danube. To the south, the town borders the Fruška Gora mountain range, whilst to the north lie the vast expanses of the Pannonian Plain.

Vojvodina

According to Belgrade/Beograd, Neusatz is the second-largest city in the present-day Republic of Serbia. It is the capital of the Autonomous Province (Opština) of Vojvodina and the administrative centre of the district (Okrug)of South Bačka (Južna Bačka).

In the 19th century, Neusatz was nicknamed the ‘Serbian Athens’ due to its importance as an intellectual and cultural centre for all Serbs – both those in Austria-Hungary and those in Serbia, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire^[1].

Neusatz is a relatively young town – it was only founded in the 17th century. In the surrounding area, finds dating from the Stone Age (Klisa) and the Iron Age (Rivica) have beendiscovered , as well as Roman artefacts (Detelinara) .

In the Middle Ages, southern Bačka belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. Under Hungarian rule, a Cistercian abbey was founded in the 13th century on the site of what would later become the fortress of Peterwardein; it bore the name Belafons (Latin: Belae Fontis; Hungarian: Bélakút) and served as an important centre of the Catholic Church in Syrmia (Serbian: Srem).

In 1526, the Hungarian king was defeated by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent at the Battle of Mohács. As a result, large parts of Hungary came under Ottoman rule, including, from 1552, the area that is now Novi Sad.

List of the population of Újvidék/Neusatz according to the official Hungarian census of 1910^[2]

Population figures for Novi Sad (1948–2011)^[5]

In the 18th century, the first German colonists arrived in the Hungarian territories formerly ruled by the Ottomans as part of the so-called ‘Swabian migrations’. The Habsburg emperors Charles VI (1685–1740), Maria Theresa and Joseph II (1741–1790) spearheaded a systematic settlement programme, supported by secular and ecclesiastical landowners who sought new labourers for their estates. To this end, they sent recruiters to German-speaking countries.

In the decades that followed, the Germans became the third-largest ethnic group in Neusatz, as documented by the Hungarian census of 1910. Only the Serbs and Hungarians – the majority of whom, however, did not settle in the town until the early 20th century – accounted for a larger proportion of the population.

Hungarian census of 1910: General population by mother tongue, Újvidék/
Neusatz (town)^[6]

Neusatz developed into a cultural and political centre for the German community within the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It was here, shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Trianon in June 1920, that the ‘Swabian-German Cultural Association’ was founded, ‘which aimed to preserve the cultural identity of the German population in the new state.’^[7] Both the Cultural Association and the ‘Party of Germans in Yugoslavia’ (founded in 1922) were subject to several bans during the 1920s. During the royal dictatorship (1929–1930), all minority parties were banned.

In the early 1930s, the German cultural associations in Yugoslavia came under increasing influence from the National Socialists in Germany. Although individual groups rejected National Socialism, National Socialist ideologues increasingly succeeded in ‘aligning the concepts of “German” and “pro-Hitler”’.^[8] This also affected the ‘Swabian-German Cultural Association’: from 1939 onwards, it transformed itself ‘into a mass political organisation with a National Socialist orientation’^[9].

Following the liberation of the Batschka by Tito’s partisans in 1944, the communist regime initiated the expropriation, internment and deportation of the majority of Yugoslav Germans, some of whom had collaborated with the German occupiers. Tens of thousands of Germans died in the internment camps, which were closed in 1948. The survivors were expelled to Germany and Austria in the late 1940s. Hans-Ulrich Wehler estimates that around 500,000 Germans were living in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1939. By the time of the March 1953 census, the figure had fallen to just over 62,000.^[10]

The number of Germans in Neusatz has been in sharp decline ever since. According to the 2011 census, there are currently 429 Germans living in the town. Today, Hungarians constitute the largest ethnic minority living in the town.

Population of Novi Sad by ethnicity (2011)^[11]

Neusatz is not only the economic centre of Vojvodina, but also Serbia’s second most important economic hub after Belgrade. Whilst during the Yugoslav era it was primarily the metal and chemical industries that flourished in Neusatz, in recent years the town has developed into a centre for banking and insurance.

Society in Vojvodina in general, and in Neusatz in particular, has been multi-ethnic from the very beginning. In order to disrupt this structure, the Milošević regime deliberately resettled Serbian internally displaced persons from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo in the region during the 1990s.

This population policy fuelled nationalism in the region and led to increased tensions between the various ethnic and political groups living in Vojvodina.

Neusatz is the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Bačka (Serbian: Bačka) and of the Mufti of Novi Sad.

Before the Holocaust, Neusatz was also home to a large Jewish community, as documented by the 1910 Hungarian census.

1910 Hungarian census: General population by religion (Újvidék/Neusatz town)^[16]

The synagogue, which dates from the late 19th century, and the adjoining Jewish school were used by the Nazis as a transit camp during the Second World War. Today, the renovated synagogue is used as a concert hall.

In 2011, members of the Serbian Orthodox Church (79.13 per cent) constituted the largest religious group:

Population of Novi Sad by religion (2011)^[17]

In 1825, the scientific and cultural society Matica srpska (matica = queen bee, figuratively also ‘germ cell’) was founded in Pest (Budapest). In 1864, it was relocated to Neusatz. Matica srpska not only published the first Serbian journal of the same name, but also various dictionaries and encyclopaedias.

The first Serbian National Theatre was also located in Neusatz. It opened on 16 July 1861.

The first grammar school in Neusatz was founded in 1810. It was one of the very first Serbian educational institutions. Today, the grammar school is named after the poet Jovan Jovanović Zmaj (1833–1904).

The University of Novi Sad (Univerzitet u Novom Sadu) opened in 1960. Today, the university – the second largest in Serbia – is attended by around 30,000 students.

Compared with Belgrade, the city’s architecture and cuisine show stronger Austrian and Hungarian influences. For example, desserts such as strudel and Gugelhupf are very common.

Very little remains of the old town centre. The town’s oldest house is situated on the corner of Zmaj Jovina (Jovan Zmaj Street) and Dunavska ulica (Danube Street) – it dates from 1724. Most of the well-known buildings date from the late 19th or early 20th century, as 70 per cent of the buildings were destroyed during the unrest triggered by the Revolution of 1848–49.

The memorial collection of Pavle Beljanski (1892–1965) comprises significant works of Serbian painting from the first half of the 20th century.

Furthermore, during the reign of Slobodan Milošević (1941–2006), a critical artists’ collective called Led Art was founded.

The military musician Josif Runjanin (1821–1878) died in Neusatz. He composed the Croatian national anthem.

The EXIT music festival (Serbian: Egzit) has been held annually in Novi Sad since 2000. It is one of the largest music festivals in Serbia. The musical focus is on rock and electronic music.

In Novi Sad/Neusatz, the Danube Swabians’ Printing and Publishing Company was founded in 1919; that same year, it published the first issue of the *German Volksblatt *.

Today, Neusatz has its own daily newspaper (Dnevnik) and is home to a regional radio and television broadcaster (Radio Televizija Vojvodine, or RTV for short), which broadcasts in seven languages (Serbian, Hungarian, Croatian, Slovak, Russian, Romanian and Romani; until 2011 also in German).

From 1944 to 2006, the Hungarian-language newspaper *Magyar Szó* ( *Hungarian Word*) was also published in Neusatz. It is now printed in Maria-Theresiopel/Subotica/Szabadka.

The Slovak linguist and poet Pavel Jozef Šafárik (1795–1861) worked as a teacher and later as headmaster at the Serbian grammar school in Neusatz from 1819 to 1833.

Jovan Jovanović Zmaj (1833–1904) was born in Neusatz. He is one of the best-known Serbian poets of the Romantic period.

Other notable figures active in the town included the writer and dramaturg Milan Begović (1876–1948) and the writer Danilo Kiš (1935–1989).

In 2006, the ‘International Novi Sad Literature Festival’ (Međunarodni književni festival) was founded in Novi Sad and has been held annually ever since.

To commemorate the granting of the status of a free royal town in 1748 by Empress Maria Theresa, Neusatz celebrates its town festival (Serbian: Dan Grada) every year on 1 February. Since 1998, the so-called February Award has also been presented on this day in recognition of outstanding achievements for the benefit of the town and the promotion of liberal ideas and values.

Furthermore, the October Charter is awarded annually on 23 October to commemorate the liberation of Yugoslavia in 1944. This honours outstanding achievements in the economic and social spheres.

Neusatz holds the title of ‘European Capital of Culture’ in 2021.

The Neusatz massacre, perpetrated in late January 1942 by Hungarian troops under the command of General Ferenc Feketehalmy-Czeydner against Jewish and Serbian civilians as well as Roma, remains a subject of controversy to this day. Take, for example, 2011, when the alleged 97-year-old-year-old alleged war criminal Sándor Kepiro, who had already been convicted in Hungary in 1944 and in absentia in Yugoslavia in 1946, was acquitted in Budapest in May 2011 despite overwhelming evidence.^[18]

Since 1971, a bronze statue depicting a man, a woman and a child has stood near the Varadinski Bridge in memory of the victims of the massacre.

• Carl Bethke: German and Hungarian Minorities in Croatia and Vojvodina. Concepts of Identity and Ethnopolitical Mobilisation. Wiesbaden 2009.
• Melhior Erdujhelji. Újvidék története [The History of Novi Sad]. Temerin 1990.
• Danube Swabian Central Museum: Spaces – Times – People. A Guide to the Danube Swabian Central Museum. Ulm 2000.
• R[ay] M. Douglas: ‘Ordnungsgemäße Überführung.’ The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War. Munich 2013.
• Đura Hardi: ‘Petrovaradin – the “Seat” of Charles Robert of Anjou’, in: Đura Hardi (ed.): The Cultural and Historical Heritage of Vojvodina in the Context of Classical and Medieval Studies. Novi Sad 2015.
• Horst Haselsteiner, Doris Wastl-Walter: Mosaic of Europe – Vojvodina. Frankfurt am Main 2011.
• Sepp Janko: The Rise and Fall of the German Ethnic Group in Yugoslavia. Graz 1982.
• Veljko Milković: Petrovaradin through Legend and Reality [Petrovaradin in Legend and the Present]. Novi Sad 2001.
• Boško Petrović/Živan Milisavac: Novi Sad – Monograph [Novi Sad – A Monograph]. Novi Sad 1987.
• Zoran Rapajić: Novi Sad bez tajni [Novi Sad without Secrets]. Belgrade 2002.
• Nada Savković: Vojvodina – A Cultural Heritage. Translated by Snezana Gvozdenac. Novi Sad 2004.
• Holm Sundhaussen: History of Serbia. 19th–21st Centuries. Vienna 2007.
• Arnold Suppan: Hitler – Beneš – Tito. Conflict, War and Genocide in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe. 3 volumes, here Volume 1. Vienna 2014.

• http://www.novisad.rs/eng (Official website of the City of Novi Sad).
• http://www.maticasrpska.org.rs/en/ (Matica Srpska website).
• www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/wikidata/Q55630 (Images relating to Neusatz/Novi Sad/Újvidék in the image archive of the Herder Institute, Marburg)

[1] Ernst Bruckmüller: The Austrian Nation. Cultural Consciousness and Socio-Political Processes. Vienna 1996, p. 260.

[2] Austrian Academy of Sciences: The Habsburg Monarchy 1848–1918: Social Structures – Society in the Habsburg Monarchy in Maps: Administration, Society and Infrastructure according to the 1910 Census. Vol. IX. Edited by Helmut Rumpler and Martin Seger. Vienna 2010, p. 309.

[3] Josef ‘Sepp’ Janko published a book on the German ‘ethnic group’ in Yugoslavia. Sepp Janko: The History and Demise of the German Ethnic Group in Yugoslavia. Graz 1982.

[4] It should be noted that terms such as ‘ethnic Germans’ and ‘Yugoslav Germans’ are neologisms from the interwar period and involve the ethnic appropriation of people as ‘Germans abroad’. See: Carl Bethke: Were There ‘Yugoslav Germans’? Regional Specifics and National Integration Processes of German Minorities in the Territory of the South Slavic State (1918–1949). In: On the ‘Disappearance’ of German-speaking minorities: a difficult chapter in the history of Yugoslavia 1941–1955. Edited by the foundation for Flight, Expulsion and Reconciliation/Danube Swabian Central Museum. Ulm 2016, pp. 39–55.

[5] Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia: Comparative Overview of the Population in 1948, 1953, 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991, 2002 and 2011. Data by settlements. Belgrade 2014, p. 36. URL: pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/Popis2011/Knjiga20.pdf (accessed 10 November 2020).

[6] Translated from the French: General Census of the Population of the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown, 1910, Part One: Key Population Data by Municipality and Hamlet, Most Populous Settlements, Central Statistical Office of the Kingdom of Hungary, Budapest 1912, p. 35. library.hungaricana.hu/en/view/NEDA_1910_01/?pg=0&layout=s (accessed 10 November 2020).

[7] Peter Schmidt: ‘Population Exchange and Options after the First World War’, in: Horst Haselsteiner/Doris Wastl-Walter (eds.): Mosaic of Europe, pp. 75–91, here p. 89.

[8] Carl Bethke: German and Hungarian Minorities in Croatia and Vojvodina 1918–1941, p. 555.

[9] Carl Bethke: German and Hungarian Minorities in Croatia and Vojvodina 1918–1941, p. 622.

[10] Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Nationality Policy in Yugoslavia. The German Minority 1918–1978. Göttingen 1980, pp. 96–99. Wayne S. Vucinich reports a figure of 60,536 Germans. This figure is based on unpublished data from the 1953 census. See Wayne S. Vucinich: Nationalism and Communism. In: Ibid. (ed.): Contemporary Yugoslavia. Twenty Years of Socialist Experiment. Berkeley 1969, pp. 236–284, here p. 254.

[11] Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. 2011 Census of Population, Households and Dwellings in the Republic of Serbia. Book 4: Religion, Mother Tongue and Ethnicity. Data by Municipalities and Cities. Belgrade 2013, pp. 116–117.
URL: pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/Popis2011/Knjiga4_Veroispovest.pdf (accessed 10 November 2020).

[12] This term encompasses all those individuals who have registered on the basis of their regional affiliation (e.g. as Vojvodjani).

[13] The actual number of Roma living in Neusatz is likely to be far higher than that stated in the census, as many Roma either did not register or did not identify themselves as such.

[14] In the 1961 census, the umbrella term ‘Yugoslavs’ still encompassed all those who did not provide details of their ethnic or regional affiliation. Since the subsequent census in 1971, ‘Yugoslav’ has been treated as a separate category comprising those who explicitly identify as such.

[15] Since the 1961 census, Muslims have been recorded as a distinct ethnic group.

[16] Translated from the French: Recensement Général de la Population des Pays de la Sainte Couronne Hongroise, en 1910, Première Partie, p. 43.
library.hungaricana.hu/en/view/NEDA_1910_01/?pg=0&layout=s (accessed: 10 November 2020)

[17] Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. 2011 Census of Population, Households and Dwellings in the Republic of Serbia. Book 4: Religion, Mother Tongue and Ethnicity. Data by Municipalities and Cities. Belgrade 2013, pp. 46–47.
URL: pod2.stat.gov.rs/ObjavljenePublikacije/Popis2011/Knjiga4_Veroispovest.pdf (accessed 10 November 2020).

[18] See Neue Zürcher Zeitung: ‘Sandor Kepiro acquitted’, 19 July 2011, URL: www.nzz.ch/sandor-kepiro-freigesprochen-1.11486134 [Accessed 10 November 2020].

Kathrin Pavic: Neusatz/Novi Sad/Újvidék. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2018. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32486 (as at 30 July 2021).