By Josef Schramm
Translation by Brad Schwebler
We begin with the Romanians who are
certainly regarded as the oldest inhabitants of
the Batschka. Old or not age played no roll
because we could not admit whether the Romanians
are descendants of the old Daker, Sarmats, or
Romans. In the Banat this question played a
greater roll, but not in the Batschka because
there were only a few Romans. They did not form
any closed community either in national or in
religious respect. In the 18th
century there was a larger number of Romanians
in the Batschka, and in the cities as well as
livestock breeders in the south Batschka. But
they went out in the 18th century in
the Serbian and Hungarian eras. Together with
the Serbs they had a common church organization,
with the same state institutions with the
Hungarians.
The
Armenians came during Turkish times and in
the cities of the Batschka in 1738-39. They
were above all salespeople and arranged for
merchandize to move from Constantinople to
Vienna and in reverse. The Armenians were
regarded as the most skillful merchants of
southeastern Europe because of what it says in a
proverb: “A Jew is as crafty as three Christian
merchants, a Greek is as crafty as three Jews,
and an Armenian is as crafty as three Greeks!”
The Armenians especially formed a large
community in Neusatz. There they had until our
days their own Armenian Catholic congregation
and a large church in which the church service
was prevented in Armenian rites.
The
Zinzaren
were livestock dealers found only in the
cities. They became friendly with the
Armenians, Greeks, or Serbs. The Klementiner
or Catholic Albanians came as
refugees from the Ottoman Empire into the
monarchy, above all to Slavonia. Only a few
came to the Batschka. They settled down in the
Croatian villages. Of the Catholic Bulgarians
the greater number fled to the
Banat, only individuals came to the Batschka.
They did not form any large community.
There were
already Greeks as merchants at the time
before the Hungarian land acquisition. In the
middle ages we find them here and there as
dealers and again later in Turkish times. As a
specialty the Greek merchants regarded the trade
with food and consumables. While the Armenians
had large department stores in the cities, the
Greeks would rather go to the annual market.
There they purchased produce and sold their
exotic wares. In Neusatz and Theresiopel they
had large communities. One part of the Greeks
moved to Turkey when the emperor came to the
Batschka, the rest went to Serbia where they
were brought together in a common orthodox
church. One noteworthy chapter of Greek history
played itself out in the Batschka after 1945.
General Markos,
who fought against his government in Greece was
supported by Yugoslavia. The people who
evacuated from the battle regions were brought
to Bulkes as the homes were free of expulsed
Germans. After the collapse of the revolution,
Bulkes became a “Greek republic” because Greek
laws were regarded as valid, Greek was the
official language, Greek money was used, and
there was even some Greek military besides Greek
schools, and a Greek “national theater.” But
this Greek republic did not last long. When
Stalin and Tito began to dispute the Greeks in
the Batschka republic also split: the EAM Greeks
listened absolutely to Moscow, the ELAS Greeks
were friendly to Belgrade. Repeatedly there
were bloody arguments and real fights between
these two groups on Batschka soil in which
Yugoslavian troops finally moved the refugees
out. At first they were moved to Hungary and
from there to Czechoslovakia.
Czechs
also came at different times to the Batschka.
When officials of the court’s war council and
the court chamber came they were already in the
land at the beginning of the 18th
century. Then there was a certain number of
retired army musicians who moved into the
Batschka and finally they came in greater
numbers as officials (Bachhussaren) between 1849
and 1867. They never had importance as a group.
Some
Russians already stayed on the land in 1848,
others came in the course of World War I as war
prisoners and stayed. After World War I a
larger number of so-called “White Russians” came
who belonged to the ragged army. They formed
some communities and were placed in office and
dignity by the south Slavic kingdom. So
everywhere there were Russians as math teachers
and drafting teachers, actors, archivists, and
surveyors. In the course of World War II a
military unit (“Russicher Korpus”) was put
together with Russian volunteers who were put in
against the communist units in Syrmia.
The imperial
Yugoslavian state needed a good many Slavs in
its statistics to justify its claim to power.
For that reason it gave only two columns for
Slavs in the questionnaires. The one was called
“Serbocroatoslowenen”, the other was called
“other Slavs”. So it was easy to enter many
members of the “state’s people” on the national
census.
