Bačka (, ) or Bácska (), is a geographical and historical area within the Pannonian Plain bordered by the river Danube to the west and south, and by the river Tisza to the east. It is divided between Serbia and Hungary. Most of the area is located within the Vojvodina region in Serbia and Novi Sad, the administrative center of Vojvodina, lies on the border between Bačka and Syrmia. The smaller northern part of the geographical area is located within Bács-Kiskun County in Hungary.
Name According to Serbian historians, Bačka is a typical SlavicDušan J. Popović, Srbi u Vojvodini, knjiga 1, Novi Sad, 1990, page 40. name form, created from "Bač" (name of historical town in Bačka) and suffix "ka" (which designates "the land that belongs to Bač").
The name of "Bač" (Bács) town is of uncertain origin and its existence was recorded among Vlachs, Slavs and Hungarians in the Middle Ages. The origin of the name could be Paleo-Balkanic,Milica Grković, Rečnik imena Banjskog, Dečanskog i Prizrenskog vlastelinstva u XIV veku, Beograd, 1986 Romanian, Slavic,Dr. Aleksa Ivić, Istorija Srba u Vojvodini, Novi Sad, 1929 or Old Turkic.A Pallas Nagy Lexikona , pallaslexikon.hu; accessed 20 August 2016.
According to Hungarian historians, the denominator of the landscape may have been the first bailiff of Bač (Bács) castle, and the name which can be rendered probably Old Turkic baya derives from a dignity name.Lajos Kiss, Földrajzi nevek etimológiai szótára (Etymology Dictionary of Geographical Names), Akadémiai Kiadó, 1978, p. 71Bálint Ila, József Kovacsics, Veszprém megye helytörténeti lexikona (Cyclopaedia of Local History of Veszprém county), Volume 2, Volume 2, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1988, p. 169
In the 17th and 18th century, due to the large number of Serbs who lived in Bačka, this region was called »Ráczország« (Hungarian for "the Serb country")."U XVII i XVIII veku u Bačkoj je već toliko Srba da putnici ovaj kraj nazivaju »Raczorszag«" Sometimes, the Hungarians used name Délvidék ("the southern or lower country") for a wider imprecisely defined geographical area, which, according to 19th century view also included Bačka. However, according to other Hungarian sources, Bačka was rather seen as part of Alföld.Bojan Aleksov, Religious Dissent Between the Modern and the National: Nazarenes in Hungary and Serbia 1850–1914, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006, p. 56
History Through history, Bačka has been a part of Dacia, the Kingdom of the Iazyges, the Hun Empire, the Gepid Kingdom, the Avar Khanate, the First Bulgarian Empire, the Great Moravia, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Serb realm of Jovan Nenad, the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg monarchy, the Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom of Serbia, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, and since 2006, it has been part of an independent Republic of Serbia. The smaller northern part of the region was part of the short-lived Serb-Hungarian Baranya-Baja Republic (in 1921) and part of Hungary since 1921.
People have inhabited the region of Bačka since Neolithic times. Indo-European peoples settled in this region in three migration waves dated in 4200 BC, 3300 BC, and 2800 BC respectively. The earliest historical inhabitants of the region were probably Illyrian tribes. Later, other Indo-European peoples, including Dacians, Celts, Sarmatians, or Iazyges were recorded as inhabitants of Bačka. The region was never directly incorporated into the Roman Empire, but some outposts of the Danubian Limes were established on the left banks of Danube, in Bačka.
Middle Ages Since the end of the 5th century, the region was dominated by the Gepids, but their kingdom was destroyed in 567, and the entire Great Danubian Plain was overrun by Avars and Slavs. Thus, from the middle of the 6th century, and up to the end of the 8th century, the region was politically dominated by Avars, and also inhabited by Slavs. In the 790s, during the Avar Wars, declining Avar state was destroyed by the Franks, who imposed their dominance as far as Danube, occasionally crossing the river during military operations, and destroying the Avar Ring, a fortified capital city of Avar rulers, believed to be situated somewhere in the Bačka region. On the eastern banks of Danube, there lived Danubian Obodrites, also known as Praedenecenti, a Slavic tribe. In 822, they sent envoys to the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious, and again in 824, asking for Frankish assistance against the looming Bulgarian threat from the southeast.
In 827–829, dominance of the Bulgarian Khanate was expanded towards various Pannonian regions, including Bačka. Salan, a Bulgarian voivod (duke), was a ruler in this territory and his capital city was Titel. In the early 10th century, Hungarians defeated Salan, and his duchy came under Hungarian rule.
At the turn of the first millennium, during the administration of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary by Stephen I of Hungary, two counties (comitatus) were formed in this land. Bács County in the south, with city of Bács (now Bač) as its administrative centre and Bodrog County in the western and central territories with the historical city of Bodrogvár as capital (near the present-day village of Bački Monoštor). The two countries were later united to form Bács-Bodrog County. There were also territories of Csongrád County in the northeastern parts of Bačka. In 1085 King Ladislaus I made Bács the seat of the Archbishopric of Kalocsa-Bács. The first archbishop, Fabian (1085–1103) helped the king in the course of the campaign against Croatia and was rewarded with the title. According to Serbian sources, Ilija Vid, the first known prefect of Bacsensis County was recorded in 1068 and he was an ethnic Serb.
In this time, the region was populated by both, Slavs and Hungarians. Serbian historian Dr. Milenko Palić also mentions that prefect Vid was an ethnic Serb and that he, together with two other ethnic Serbs whose names were Ilija and Radovan, participated in dynastic struggles in the Kingdom of Hungary, in the end of the 11th century.Milenko Palić, Srbi u Mađarskoj – Ugarskoj do 1918, Novi Sad, 1995, page 10. According to Hungarian authors, prefect Vid belonged to the Gutkeled genus, but there is a possibility that he was a fictitious person. In 1169, canons from the knighthood Order of the Holy Sepulchre built a small church in Bács in the Romanesque style. They used some building materials from much older previous edifices. Franciscans took over the church in 1300. In the second half of the 14th century, the Franciscans expanded it, forming a monastery. Today the Fanciscian monastery of Bács is the oldest church building in present-day Vojvodina. In the early 13th century Ugrin Csák, Archbishop of Kalocsa, founded a hospital in Bács, as the first such facility in this part of Europe. Pope Gregory IX wrote about the "Bačka hospital" in 1234, as being open for the sick and poor. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the town of Bács prospered during the rule of king Charles Robert I, who started building the modern fortress in 1338–42 at the site of the earlier hillfort. From the 15th century, it became the most important Hungarian defense point against the invading Ottoman forces.
Early modern period In 1526 the Kingdom of Hungary was defeated in the Battle of Mohács by the Ottoman Empire, King Louis II fell in the battle. After the victorious campaign the Ottoman army led by Suleiman I withdrew from Hungary through the Danube–Tisza Interfluve, leaving only smaller garrisons in the fortifications. Within two to three weeks the retreating army killed approximately 400.000 men, burned down almost all the settlements, desolating the whole region. In this chaotic period took place the revolt of the Rascians and Bačka became (from 1526 to 1527) the central region of an independent, short-lived Serbian pseudostate,Veselin P. Dželetović, Poslednji srpski car – Jovan Nenad, Beograd, 2007. which existed in the territory of present-day Vojvodina. The ruler of this state was the self-appointed Emperor Jovan Nenad (previously the stableman of the king John Zápolya) and his capital city was Subotica. After Jovan Nenad was defeated and killed, his state collapsed and Bačka, for a short time, came again under Hungarian administration. Soon, the region became part of the Ottoman Empire.
After the Ottoman conquest, most of the previously decisive Hungarian majority population have fled (in the 16th–17th centuries). The relatively dense populated and prosperous southern counties of the Kingdom were devastated and became mostly abandoned and depopulated. During the Ottoman period, and later in the 17th and 18th century begun the intense settlement of the Serbs and other South Slavs from the Ottoman ruled central Balkans. They were military engaged in the borderlands by both sides. This resulted in radical changes of the population structure. Hungarian, Serb and Bunjevci peasants, and Serb and Vlach peasant soldiers lived (in ever-decreasing number) in the area, who had an impact on the landscape with their farming. In the Ottoman towns there was a Muslim population, and outside the city wall there were communities of various Christian denominations and occupations. Bačka was part of the Sanjak of Segedin (Szeged), the region was sparsely populated with Serbs (who were in an absolute majority) and Muslims.
During the Great Turkish War (1683–1699) on 11 September 1697, near Senta in the eastern Bačka took place one of the most decisive defeats in Ottoman history, the Battle of Zenta. Christian forces of the Holy League (1684) led by Prince Eugene of Savoy in a surprise attack destroyed the Ottoman army crossing the river Tisza. The battle resulted in a spectacular victory for Austria. As a result, in 1699 the Treaty of Karlowitz was signed, ending the Ottoman control in much of Central Europe. All the lands of the Kingdom of Hungary (except for Banat and a small chunk of Eastern Slavonia) conquered by the Ottomans in the previous 150 years were returned. Under the rule of Leopold I the Bačka became a possession of the Habsburg monarchy. Bács-Bodrog County was established in the western parts of the region and it was re-integrated into the county system of the Kingdom of Hungary, while some other (mostly eastern) parts of the Bačka were incorporated into the Tisza-Maros section of Habsburg Military Frontier, which was directly administered by the Imperial Habsburg court in Vienna. There were significant differences in the status of the inhabitants of the feudal county and the privileged newcome settlers of the Military Frontier, who composed mostly of ethnic Serbs. The Grenz infantry of the Military Frontier was primarily formed to defend Austria against the Ottoman Turks, but impliedly it was intended to offset and control the Hungarian population. This position was several times used by the Habsburg rulers as a political and tactical instrument in the following centuries.
In the Rákóczi's War of Independence heavy fightings took place also in Bačka. In 1704 Francis II Rákóczi led a victorious campaign in this parts. The Serbs fought on the Emperor's side since the beginning of the war. They were used as the light cavalry in the Austrian army and as tax collectors. During the eight years of war Hungarian villages and towns of the Great Hungarian Plain and Transdanubia were burnt and robbed by the Serbs, while in Bácska Serb villages were burnt. However, there were some Serbs who fought on Rakóczi's side against the Habsburgs – the Frontiersmen of Semlak. The leader of the Kuruc Serb troops was Frontier Captain Obrad Lalić from Senta.