The Origin of the Village Name of IECEA (Jetscha)

by Norbert Neidenbach
With permission, translation was done by Diana Lambing, published at DVHH.org 10 Mar 2004 by Jody McKim Pharr.

   Some publications have already attempted to explain the origin of the name IECEA. Several meanings were given, but to me the most likely one was a derivation of the Slavonic word JECE or JEC-ATI, which means ‘to murmur’ or ‘to rustle’. My reasons for this assumption are as follows:

   After the Huns retreated, the Banat was populated over the centuries by farming people (Gepiden, Geten, Celts and Slavs) . Although there are not a great number of Slavonic village names, we can still assume that a large number of Slavonic villages existed (see E. Moor’s ‘Ortsnamen im Theissgebiet’, page 139). The increasing marshiness of the ground was tied in with the desolation of the countryside during the Turkish rule. Although many of the existing places were abandoned, the names given to them were kept on, as was the Slavonic name of the IECEA estate. This ‘murmuring’ or ‘rustling’ points to the existence of a stretch of running water and as the current hydrographical maps no longer compare to those made at the beginning of the colonization of the Banat, old maps were used to present this case.

 The hydrographical landscape of the Banat had far-reaching changes made during the past 250 years. Firstly, by the draining of the marshes, then by the establishing of a road network and later by the regulating and canalization measures taken during the 1960s. Several former stretches of water can be cited as examples. One of these river beds, or furrows, branches off from the Aranka near Perjamosch, passes through Pesak, Lowrin, Komlosch and Gross Kikinda to the Theiss and is called the Bara Furrow or Galatzka Ditch. On the 1746 Mercy map of the Banat, the Galatzka is drawn as a wide river bed; today, the course of the river can only be seen here and there. The Jer Ditch is a similar case. This springs up in eastern Banat, the ditch widens out to a lake behind Knes and then reaches the edge of Biled via a marshy area, where it becomes a stretch of stagnant marshy water. The Jer took up the ground water coming in from Warjasch and flowed through Klein Betschkerek to Bergesau where it flowed into the Bega canal with the Bergesau. Because of the very slight decline of the land, the Jer meandered a lot and together with the Cserna Bara (Black Water) formed a stretch of three to five kilometers long (1.5 to 3 miles) to the east of Klein Betschkerek. An extract from the map ‘K. u. K. militärgeographischen Karte’, Vienna, taken in 1881, revised in 1912, scale 1 : 75,000, and a morphological map by I. Cholnoky, ‘Die hydrographischen Verhältnisse der Heide’ (Hydrographical comparisons of the Heath), show large areas of marshland on the boundaries of the Gross Jetscha estate, as well as a former river course.

 From I. Cholnoky’s ‘Az Alföld felszine, in Földrajzi Közlemenyek’, Budapest 1910,
and the ‘K. u. K. militärgeographischen Karte’ from the Viennese Court Chamber archives.

   From a map from the Viennese war archives, ‘Bannat-Temesvar,
aufgenommen und abgemessen in den Jahren 1723...’
there was still an expanse of quagmire on the Iecea estate.

 Griselini, in his ‘Versuch einer Geschichte des...’ describes these marshes in his second letter (letter number 5 of Part I, and the first letter in Part II) as ‘a vast number of brooks and springs’ along the Bega and Temesch rivers, comparable to the Pontiscal quagmires. He cites the formation of these marshes as being due to the lack of dams along the numerous small streams south of Aranka.

 There are no longer any traces of a river on the boundaries of Gross Jetscha, but the water meadows between Gross Jetscha and Gertianosch imply that this area was once very exposed to the inflow of water. These ditches were also part of the Gyukosin Furrow system (the Gyukosin main collective canal ran from Triebswetter through Nerau, Marienfeld and Albrechtsflur to Gross Sankt Nikolaus).

 To give credence to the former existence of a stretch of running water on the Jetscha estate, i.e. to understand the origin of the name Jetscha (Iecea), later sources were also consulted. On an internet server I found a collection of very detailed geological, morphological and physical maps of European countries (http://www.geo.strategies). On these maps, too, there are very clear depressions and furrows to be seen in the Jetscha area which run between Biled and Gertianosch.

 Considering Griselini’s explanation of the formation of these marshes, the case can be made for the former existence of a stretch of running water on the boundaries of Iecea, and therefore also for the origin of the name IECEA.

Norbert Neidenbach
Translated by Diana Lambing

Gross Jetscha

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