The German-Speaking Population of Banat Region at the Turn from the 19th to the 20th Century

Abstract

In this study, I examine the 19th century development history and population composition of the multi-ethnic and multicultural Banat region, which was divided into three parts after the First World War.  Covering an area of 28,464 km², the geographical and historical borders of the Banat region are the Danube in the south, the Tisza in the west, the Mures in the north, the Southern Carpathians in the east and the valleys of the rivers Timis and Cerna. In the first half of the 18th century, the Ottoman conquerors were driven out of the southern part of the region, which by then had been almost completely depopulated by decades of continuous fighting. As a result of the 1718 Treaty of Pozarevac, concluded between the Habsburgs and the Ottoman Empire, Turkish rule in the historic Kingdom of Hungary was ended. Subsequently, the Habsburgs seized control of the Banat region and began to settle mainly Germanic settlers in the agricultural areas of the lowlands and the mineral-rich mountainous region of southern Banat. The newly arrived German settlers transformed the area into an economically prosperous agricultural and industrial region, despite extremely difficult initial conditions: epidemics and efforts such as swamp draining, river regulation and the construction of artificial canals. In this study I will show how during the 19th century the four major ethnic groups - Germans, Hungarians, Romanians, Serbs - and several smaller ones - Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Croats - living side by side and continuously settling in the area, made outstanding economic achievements. These include the opening up of ore mines, the introduction of modern iron and steel production and the creation of modern agricultural and industrial production. The peace treaty that ended the First World War divided the Banat into three parts, the larger eastern part was annexed to Romania, the smaller western part to the Kingdom of Serbia, while only the smallest part, Marosszög, remained in Hungary. The life of the once multi-ethnic and multicultural region was irreversibly transformed by the tragic and fateful events of the Second World War, for example the expulsion of the German population by Serbian partisans from the Serbian Banat, the deportation of the German population in Romania to the Soviet Union for forced labour. The mass and tendentious emigration of the nationalities has led to a fading multi-ethnicity.