Chapter 3
The fruitful land
between the Danube &
the Theiß
By
Josef Schramm
Translation by Brad Schwebler
The region in the
middle of the Danube came under Hapsburg ownership
at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the
eighteenth centuries. At the time wide
stretches of the land were swampy and almost devoid
of people. The emperor in Vienna wanted to see
this stretch of land in the neighborhood of the
Turkish border settled and called on people of
different nations under the dominion of the crown.
Families and clans came from the present day lands
of France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia,
Hungary, Romania, and besides that accepted refugees
from Turkey: Croatia and Serbia. The people
must first create their new homeland through hard
work. The consciousness of these achievements
connected the south Pannonian people, completely the same as the
language or religion they belonged to. The
Hungarian speaking people called their new homeland
“Délvidék” and considered themselves as a new branch
of Hungarians. The Slovakian speaking people called
the land “Vojvodina” and themselves “Vojvodjani”.
The German speaking people formed the new branch of
Germans called the Donauschwaben. These three
groups determined the economical, cultural, and
political life of the south Pannonians. The
political leadership lay at times with one, at times
with the others. Like in the other Donauschwaben
settlement regions, people also lived in the
Batschka until World War II peacefully next to each
other. Then began the days in which all people
between the Danube and the Theiß have suffered and
the Donauschwaben were the actual victims of the
national hate.
The Land
Position and shape
of the upper surface
Under the
description Batschka one understands that flat land
which lies between the Danube and the Theiß, west of
the Banat and north of Syrmia. The geographical
latitude of the Batschka is somewhat south of South
Tirol, it’s geographical longitude corresponds to
that of the Danzig (Gdansk) Bay. The name Batschka
come from the place name Batsch an der Moostung, and
this goes back either to an Avarish personal name
Bech, Betsch, or to the middle age family of Bach,
Baach. How is it also that neither “Bachland” nor
“Batser Ländl” caught on, so that in the German
language the not completely simple pronunciation
“Batschka” was customary.
With a surface area
of 10,781 square kilometers the Batschka is about as
large as upper Austria or rather the governing
district of North Württemberg and Lower Bavaria.
The population in the Batschka also corresponds
fairly closely with those of upper Austria and Lower
Bavaria. Also the population density is similar in
these three lands with about 80 – 90 people per
square kilometer.
The level
countryside may appear very monotonous to
strangers. But the expert can also notice some
differences in the shape of the upper surface.
Along the Danube and the Theiß one finds a narrow
strip of young alluvial Aulands.
In the natural
condition we have at this riverside bushes (willows)
or low woods, Schilf (reeds), Rohr (reeds), and
swamp. Where the Auland is cultivated one sees oil
seeds, hemp, and vegetables. The Auland lies about
80 meters above sea level.
Some meters above
the Auland lies the Batschka Unterterrasse (under terrace). Here is the work of the river,
especially at the times of great flooding, the
formerly existing yellow silt and also in places the
white drifting sand washed out and in its place
fine, humus rich water particles were deposited.
This low terrace was formerly flooded in wide
stretches, only a few silt tips jutting out were
free of water and had a tree stand (oak, hornbeam),
while in the amp areas bushes, undergrowth
(blackberries), Shilf reeds, Rohr reeds, and tuft
grass grow. The drier stretches of land, where the
flooding was only for short a duration, had a wooden
steppe vegetation. Here the people of the land have
extensively reshaped it so one has the impression by
a view above the low terrace as they were one
individual giant agricultural surface with wheat,
corn, and some specialized crops.
With a pronounced,
10-15 meter high steep edge a gentle rolling Lößplatte
(silt plateau) raised itself above
the low terrace. This fine grainy yellow earth
which was deposited by the wind, by the lake, by the
seas, and rivers was deposited, consisting of
several meters of enormous yellow silt layers and
then a few enormous layers of humus, clay, or yellow
silt clay. The natural vegetation on the yellow
silt plateau was dominated by steppe meadows. In
places where the ground water was favorable there
were also bushes and bunches of trees. Also this
landscape was completely changed by the people,
above all in places a cultivated wheat steppe
entered the steppe meadows.
In the north of the
Batschka one finds how spread out on the yellow silt
plateau, the Sandgebiet (sand region)
consists essentially of sand dunes. These dune
combs run from northwest to southeast, corresponding
to the wind direction of the post ice age. The
difference between mountain and valley is more
pronounced than in the Löß, and so we find in these
dunes the highest elevations in the Batschka, which
is called the proud Bleiberg (Olomhegy) and reaches
a whole a whole 174 meters above sea level. In its
natural state drifting sand vegetation is found here
which were then transformed by people into vineyards
and fruit gardens.
Already the
fleeting characterization of the Batschka’s great
landscape: Auland, low terrace, Löß plateau, and
sand region were perhaps enough to show that this
land by nature was not very richly equipped. Man
searched here in vain for gold and silver, for ore
and gems. First man made one of the poorest lands
into a rich land by his draining and clearing, by
his plow and his seeding. In this way it would be
altered from its original appearance much more than
in other lands. There is hardly a spot where one
can see the puszta of his dreams, and nevertheless
the land has its charm, just because one can notice
how man has reshaped the land.
