The Great Serb Migrations (Serbian: Велика сеоба Срба, Velika seoba Srba), also known as the Great Exodus, refers mainly to two large migrations of Serbs from the Ottoman Empire to the Habsburg Monarchy.
The First Serbian Migration occurred during the Great Turkish War under Patriarch Arsenije III Čarnojević, and came as a result of the Habsburg retreat from Ottoman territories in the Balkans, which were temporarily held by the Habsburgs between 1689 and 1692. The Second Serbian Migration took place in 1737–1739 under the Patriarch of Peć, Arsenije IV Jovanović, also parallel with the Habsburg withdrawal from territories that they held in the Balkans, which between 1718 and 1739 were known as the Kingdom of Serbia and Banat of Temeswar.
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The influx of Serbs to the Habsburg Monarchy, constant since the fall of Serbian Despotate in the late 15th century, gained more momentum following the Statuta Valachorum act of 1630, by which the Habsburgs encouraged their settlement in the Military Krajina region.[1]
In 1690, Emperor Leopold I allowed the refugees gathered on the banks of the Sava and Danube in Belgrade to cross the rivers (and to settle in Habsburg Monarchy), he recognized Patriarch Arsenije III Čarnojević as their spiritual leader.[2] The Emperor had recognized the Patriarch as deputy-voivode (civil leader of the migrants), which over time developed into the etymology of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina[2] (this origin of the name of Vojvodina is related to the fact that patriarch Čarnojević and subsequent religious leaders of Serbs in the Habsburg Monarchy had jurisdiction over all Serbs in the Habsburg Monarchy, including Serbs of Vojvodina, and that Serbs of Vojvodina accepted the idea of a separate Serbian voivodeship in this area, which they managed to create in 1848).
In 1694, Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor appointed Arsenije III Čarnojević as the head of the newly established Orthodox Church in the Monarchy.[3] The patriarchal right of succession was secured by the May Assembly of the Serbian people in Karlovci in 1848, following the proclamation of Serbian Vojvodina during the Serbian revolution in Habsburg lands 1848-49.[3] Serbs received privileges from the Emperor, which guaranteed them national and religious singularity, as well as a corpus of rights and freedoms in the Habsburg Monarchy.[3]
Most of the Serbs from this migration settled in the territory of present-day Hungary, while smaller part of them settled in the territory of present-day Croatia and present-day north-western Vojvodina (the rest of Vojvodina was still under Ottoman administration). This, however, did not resulted in a significant increase of existing Serb population in the territory of present-day Vojvodina.[4] Serbs (together with Muslims) were recorded as a dominant population in Vojvodina long before the migration, i.e. in the time of Ottoman administration (16th-17th century).[5]
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The fall of the Habsburg Kingdom of Serbia (1718–1739) to the Ottomans triggered the Second Serb migration into the (rest of the) Habsburg Monarchy.[3]
The Second Serb migration from 1739 was of much smaller extent than the first one from 1690 and most of the refugees from the second migration settled in Syrmia.
Sources are providing different data regarding the number of people in the first migration:
Data that states that 37,000 families participated in this migration derives from a single source: a Serbian monastic chronicle which was written many years after the event and contains several other errors.[14] Some researchers (for example Frederick Anscombe) maintain that the migrations never took place (or never in such a large scale), and describe the events as a "myth" created to lay claim to the territory of Kosovo in the 19th century.[15]
Serbs from these migrations settled in parts of present-day Hungary, Vojvodina, and Croatia (they settled as far in the north as the town of Szentendre in Hungary, in which they formed the majority of population in the 18th century). To a smaller extent, they also settled in the town Komarno in Slovakia.
The large Serb migrations from Balkans to the Pannonian plain started in the 14th century and lasted until the end of the 18th century. The great migrations from 1690 and 1737-1739 were the largest ones and were important reason for issuing the privileges that regulated the status of Serbs within Habsburg Monarchy. The Serbs that in these migrations settled in Vojvodina and Slavonia increased (partly) the existing Serb population in these regions and made the Serbs an important political factor in the Habsburg Monarchy over time.