Kljajicevo
Encyclopedia
Kljajićevo is a village in Serbia
. It is situated in the Sombor
municipality, in the West Bačka District
, Vojvodina
province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbered 6,012 people (2002 census).
. In 1391, during the administration of the Kingdom of Hungary
, settlement named Sent Kiraj (Sveti Kraj) was mentioned at this location.
administration (16th–17th centuries), Bačka was part of the Sanjak
of Segedin (Szeged
). The former Hungarian population escaped and the area was populated mostly by ethnic Serbs
from the south. The village first was mentioned in 1590 in the Ottoman tax-lists (Defters) as Kernja, a settlement near Sombor
. Settlement was also mentioned under name Krnjaja in 1601 and was populated by ethnic Serbs. In the early 1700s Serbs managed cattle ranches in this area as part of the Austro-Hungarian
border defences against the Ottoman Empire, and the area remained sparsely settled until the 1760s when the first Danube Swabians
were settled in 100 new houses.
of Austria. After Maria Theresa of Austria
assumed the throne as Queen of Hungary in 1740, she encouraged vigorous colonization on crown lands, first on the Military Frontier
and than on the whole area, which had low population density after the last Ottoman Wars, as much of the Serbian population had been decimated through warfare.
The new settlers in the village were primarily Austrians, Hungarians, and Bohemians from the greater empire; however, they were commonly referred to as Danube Swabian and came to call themselves Shwoveh. In 1763, the Imperial Advisor Anton von Cothmann, proposed to his Empress Theresia that Kernyája and the surrounding territory should be settled. According to the "Conscriptio" from December 21 in 1765 a new village was resettled and newly founded with 17 families, 57% ethnic Germans. Among those there were farmers, 2 smiths, 1 carpenter 1 weaver and one innkeeper. The village now was called “Kernjaja” or "Kernyaja". For the next decades, the number of settlers increased yearly, to 291 families coming to live in Kernaja between 1794/1796, among them 83% Germans, 11% Hungarians and 6% Bohemians.
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
from Austria extended the village with 78 new houses. The Catholic Church was built in 1791. Although the town had many official names it was always called "Gernei" and written Kernei by its Shwovish inhabitants until 1945, when they were expelled. At the beginning of 1767 pupils were taught in the cantor's house. The new school was built in 1911. The church has since been turned into an Orthodox Christian church.
In the year 1805, Kernei had 2,000 inhabitants. When the number of people reached 3,500 in 1850, the proportion of the population from other nationalities was less than 5 percent. At that time ther were roughly 50 Jews
in the village, with their own graveyard and street, but the last Jews left sometime around 1910. The first migration away from Kernei into newly established settlements began around 1866. Around the turn of the century and thereafter, the great wave of emigration to North America began. There was a steady rise and fall in the numbers of the population so that it did not reach the 5,000 mark until 1910.
, which later together with the Kingdom of Montenegro and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs formed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed to Yugoslavia
in 1929). Between 1929 and 1941, the village was part of the Danube Banovina, one of the provinces of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
The antifascist council for the liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ
) declared its mainly Danube Swabian population German public enemies and voided their citizenship and all civil rights. More than half of the village left in long wagon trains in 1944, expecting the worst from the Russian Army and the Yugoslav Partisans. The other half who innocently and naively remained were expelled, starved and tortured in cordoned resettlement villages used as prisons, mainly Gakowa (Serbian Gakovo
) and Krushiwlje ( Serbian Kruševlje
), (see the List of concentration and internment camps - Yugoslavia) and their lands were expropriated and resistors murdered in an act of ethnic cleansing
.
(Lika
, Gorski Kotar
, Žumberak
, and Kordun
) began living in the abandoned, expropriated buildings. The current name of the village, Kljajićevo, was introduced in 1949 and derives from Miloš Kljajić, a popular hero who was born in Kordun and was killed on Žumberak in 1944. The streets are still lined with the acacia
trees planted by the shwowish settlers, and they bloom in magnificent profusion in the spring.
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
. It is situated in the Sombor
Sombor
Sombor is a city and municipality located in northwest part of Serbian autonomous province of Vojvodina. The city has a total population of 48,749 , while the Sombor municipality has 87,815 inhabitants...
municipality, in the West Bačka District
West Backa District
West Bačka District is a northern district of Serbia. It lies in the region of Bačka, in the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It has a population of 215,916...
, Vojvodina
Vojvodina
Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...
province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbered 6,012 people (2002 census).
Ancient settlement
Human settlement in the territory of present-day Kljajićevo has been traced as far back as the Stone AgeStone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
. In 1391, during the administration of the Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
, settlement named Sent Kiraj (Sveti Kraj) was mentioned at this location.
Ottoman administration
During the OttomanOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
administration (16th–17th centuries), Bačka was part of the Sanjak
Sanjak
Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...
of Segedin (Szeged
Szeged
' is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county town of Csongrád county. The University of Szeged is one of the most distinguished universities in Hungary....
). The former Hungarian population escaped and the area was populated mostly by ethnic Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
from the south. The village first was mentioned in 1590 in the Ottoman tax-lists (Defters) as Kernja, a settlement near Sombor
Sombor
Sombor is a city and municipality located in northwest part of Serbian autonomous province of Vojvodina. The city has a total population of 48,749 , while the Sombor municipality has 87,815 inhabitants...
. Settlement was also mentioned under name Krnjaja in 1601 and was populated by ethnic Serbs. In the early 1700s Serbs managed cattle ranches in this area as part of the Austro-Hungarian
border defences against the Ottoman Empire, and the area remained sparsely settled until the 1760s when the first Danube Swabians
Danube Swabians
The Danube Swabians is a collective term for the German-speaking population who lived in the former Kingdom of Hungary, especially alongside the Danube River valley. Because of different developments within the territory settled, the Danube Swabians cannot be seen as a unified people...
were settled in 100 new houses.
Habsburg administration
In 1699 the Bačka came into the possession of the Habsburg MonarchyHabsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
of Austria. After Maria Theresa of Austria
Maria Theresa of Austria
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...
assumed the throne as Queen of Hungary in 1740, she encouraged vigorous colonization on crown lands, first on the Military Frontier
Military Frontier
The Military Frontier was a borderland of Habsburg Austria and later the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which acted as the cordon sanitaire against incursions from the Ottoman Empire...
and than on the whole area, which had low population density after the last Ottoman Wars, as much of the Serbian population had been decimated through warfare.
The new settlers in the village were primarily Austrians, Hungarians, and Bohemians from the greater empire; however, they were commonly referred to as Danube Swabian and came to call themselves Shwoveh. In 1763, the Imperial Advisor Anton von Cothmann, proposed to his Empress Theresia that Kernyája and the surrounding territory should be settled. According to the "Conscriptio" from December 21 in 1765 a new village was resettled and newly founded with 17 families, 57% ethnic Germans. Among those there were farmers, 2 smiths, 1 carpenter 1 weaver and one innkeeper. The village now was called “Kernjaja” or "Kernyaja". For the next decades, the number of settlers increased yearly, to 291 families coming to live in Kernaja between 1794/1796, among them 83% Germans, 11% Hungarians and 6% Bohemians.
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I...
from Austria extended the village with 78 new houses. The Catholic Church was built in 1791. Although the town had many official names it was always called "Gernei" and written Kernei by its Shwovish inhabitants until 1945, when they were expelled. At the beginning of 1767 pupils were taught in the cantor's house. The new school was built in 1911. The church has since been turned into an Orthodox Christian church.
In the year 1805, Kernei had 2,000 inhabitants. When the number of people reached 3,500 in 1850, the proportion of the population from other nationalities was less than 5 percent. At that time ther were roughly 50 Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
in the village, with their own graveyard and street, but the last Jews left sometime around 1910. The first migration away from Kernei into newly established settlements began around 1866. Around the turn of the century and thereafter, the great wave of emigration to North America began. There was a steady rise and fall in the numbers of the population so that it did not reach the 5,000 mark until 1910.
Yugoslav administration
In 1918, as part of Banat, Bačka and Baranja, Krnjaja became part of the Kingdom of SerbiaKingdom of Serbia
The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...
, which later together with the Kingdom of Montenegro and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs formed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed to Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
in 1929). Between 1929 and 1941, the village was part of the Danube Banovina, one of the provinces of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
World War II
In 1941/42, the population of the village totaled 6,000. When Axis Powers invaded and partitioned Yugoslavia in 1941, Krnjaja was placed under Hungarian administration. During the Battle of Batina, the front was stretched all the way to Apatin and Bogojevo, and these places became military bases overnight. After October 1944, and the arrival of Yugoslav partisans, Krnjaja came under Yugoslav military administration. In December 1944, 340 young men and women were forcibly enslaved as war reparations to the Soviet Union to work in labor camps.The antifascist council for the liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ
AVNOJ
The Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia, known more commonly by its Yugoslav abbreviation AVNOJ, was the political umbrella organization for the national liberation councils of the Yugoslav resistance against the World War II Axis occupation, eventually becoming the...
) declared its mainly Danube Swabian population German public enemies and voided their citizenship and all civil rights. More than half of the village left in long wagon trains in 1944, expecting the worst from the Russian Army and the Yugoslav Partisans. The other half who innocently and naively remained were expelled, starved and tortured in cordoned resettlement villages used as prisons, mainly Gakowa (Serbian Gakovo
Gakovo
Gakovo is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Sombor municipality, in the West Bačka District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population is 2,201 .-Name:...
) and Krushiwlje ( Serbian Kruševlje
Kruševlje
Kruševlje is a small settlement in Serbia. It is situated in the Sombor municipality, West Bačka District, Vojvodina province. It is mostly populated by Serbs.-Name:...
), (see the List of concentration and internment camps - Yugoslavia) and their lands were expropriated and resistors murdered in an act of ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
.
Modern Kljajićevo
After World War II, Krnjaja became part of the new Socialist Yugoslavia, within the People's Republic of Serbia and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. In this time, after the legally forced expulsion of ancestral Shwowish farms and dwellings, Serbs from CroatiaCroatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
(Lika
Lika
Lika is a mountainous region in central Croatia, roughly bound by the Velebit mountain from the southwest and the Plješevica mountain from the northeast. On the north-west end Lika is bounded by Ogulin-Plaški basin, and on the south-east by the Malovan pass...
, Gorski Kotar
Gorski kotar
Gorski kotar is the mountainous region in Croatia between Karlovac and Rijeka. Together with Lika and the Ogulin-Plaški valley it forms Mountainous Croatia. Because 63% of its surface is forested it is popularly called the green lungs of Croatia or Croatian Switzerland...
, Žumberak
Žumberak
Žumberak or Gorjanci is a range of mountains or hills between Croatia and Slovenia. The highest peak is Sveta Gera on the border between Croatia and Slovenia, being tall....
, and Kordun
Kordun
The Kordun region is a part of central Croatia from the bottom of the Petrova Gora mountain range, which extends along the rivers Korana and Slunjčica, and forms part of the border region to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The southern border of Kordun touches the Lika region...
) began living in the abandoned, expropriated buildings. The current name of the village, Kljajićevo, was introduced in 1949 and derives from Miloš Kljajić, a popular hero who was born in Kordun and was killed on Žumberak in 1944. The streets are still lined with the acacia
Acacia
Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not...
trees planted by the shwowish settlers, and they bloom in magnificent profusion in the spring.
Historical population
- 1869: 4,071 in 460 houses
- 1880: 4,012 in 583 houses
- 1890: 4,368
- 1900: 4,692 in 1,001 houses
- 1910: 5,132
- 1921: 5,314
- 1941: 6,001
- 1944: 6,347
- 1945(February): 2,567
- 1945(March): 242
- 1961: 6,088
- 1971: 5,805
- 1981: 5,850
- 1991: 5,737
See also
- List of places in Serbia
- List of cities, towns and villages in Vojvodina
- A Terrible RevengeA Terrible RevengeA Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950 is a bookby Alfred-Maurice de Zayas about the expulsion of Germans after World War II...
: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944-1950