Srbobran

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Србобран
Srbobran
Location in Serbia

General Information
District	South Bačka
Land area	284 km²
Population (2002 census)	13,091 (town) 17,855 (municipality)
Settlements	3
Coordinates	45°34′N 19°48′E
Area code	+381 21
Car plates	NS
Time zone	CET (UTC+1) CEST (UTC+2)

Politics
Mayor	Branko Gajin

Orthodox Church

Catholic Church

Srbobran (Србобран) is a town and municipality in South Bačka District of Vojvodina, Serbia. The town is located on the north side of the Danube-Tisa-Danube channel. Srbobran town has a population of 13,049, and Srbobran municipality 17,786.

1 Name
2 Municipality
3 History
4 Demographics
5 Architecture
6 Famous citizens
7 External links

[edit] Name

The name of the town means "Serbs's defender" in Serbian. In Hungarian the town is known as Szenttamás, in Rusin as Србобран, in Croatian as Srbobran, and in German as Thomasberg.

[edit] Municipality

Srbobran municipality encompasses of town of Srbobran, and 2 villages: Nadalj and Turija.

[edit] History

According to archeology, there was human settlement in the territory of present day Srbobran even in the prehistoric times. The first written record about the settlement is from 1338, in which the Srbobran is mentioned under Hungarian name Sentomas, which means Saint Thomas, i.e. the apostle Thomas, who was the patron saint of a monastery and of the village around it in middle-age Kingdom of Hungary. This village, together with the monastery, became destroyed during the Ottoman conquest in the 16th century. Its population left the region and fled towards North to Royal Hungary. During the Ottoman rule, the settlement of Sentomaš was populated by ethnic Serbs.

After the Bačka region was captured by Habsburg troops led by Prince Eugene of Savoy in the 18th century, a settlement was populated by new colonists, mainly by ethnic Serbs from the South, but also by ethnic Hungarians from the North, who became the second largest ethnic group in the settlement (after Serbs). The settlement was part of the Military Frontier until 1751, when it came under the civil administration.

A document from 1751 indicates that besides name Szenttamás, the name Srbograd (Serb Town) was also used as a non-official denomination for the town. The development of the town was fast; in 1787 its population was 3,532, while in 1836 this number rose to 11,321.

The name Srbobran dates from the 1848/1849 revolution. In 1848, the town was part of Serbian Voivodship, a Serbian autonomous region within the Habsburg Empire. The Serbian defence line was located near this town, hence the name Srbobran, which means "Serbs's defender". The Hungarian troops captured Srbobran for the fourth trial, in April 4, 1849, and burned the town to the ground.

Having suppressed the Hungarian revolution, Habsburg Austria established a new province to which Srbobran belonged to: the Voivodship of Serbia and Tamiš Banat, which existed until 1860. In 1850, the population of Srbobran was 5,630 people, which was only about half of the population recorded in 1836.

After the establishment of the dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867, Srbobran became part of Bačka-Bodrog county in the Hungarian part of the Monarchy. According to the official census of 1910, Srbobran had 14,335 inhabitants, among them 7,808 Serbs, 6,031 Hungarians, 430 Germans.

Srbobran became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (which is called Yugoslavia since 1929) in 1918. Between 1918 and 1922, the town was part of Bačka County, between 1922 and 1929 part of Bačka Oblast, and between 1929 and 1941 part of Danube Banovina.

In 1941, the town was captured by the Axis Powers and annexed to Hungary. With the support of Russian army, Yugoslav partisans entered the town in 1944. Since 1945, the town is part of the autonomous province of Vojvodina.

During the Yugoslav wars of the 1990's, many Serbian refugees came from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, and settled in Srbobran.

[edit] Demographics

According to the 2002 census, the population of the Srbobran municipality is composed of:

Serbs = 11,963 (67%)
Hungarians = 3,920 (21.95%)
Yugoslavs = 462 (2.58%)
Roma = 361 (2.02%)
Others.

In 2002, Srbobran town has a population of 13,091, including:

Serbs = 7,838 (59.87%)
Hungarians = 3,715 (28.38%)
Others.

All of the three settlements in the municipality have an ethnic Serb majority.

[edit] Architecture

There are two notable buildings in Srbobran, both of which are churches (one is Serb Orthodox, the other one is Roman Catholic) and both are built in highly sophisticated late baroque style.

[edit] Famous citizens

Srbobran is the birthplace of Nándor Gion (1941-2002), one of the most-known Hungarian writer born and mostly lived in the region of Vojvodina. In his books, he describes, first of all, his home-town, "Szenttamás", during the tragic years of world war periods.