Vojvodina

Vojvodina, autonomous province in Serbia. It is the northernmost part of Serbia, bordered by Croatia to the west, Hungary to the north, and Romania to the east. Vojvodina includes the historic regions of Bačka, between the Danube and Tisa rivers and the Hungarian border; Banat, to the east of Bačka; and Srem (Srijem), to the south. The border with Serbia proper to the south generally follows the Sava River west of Belgrade and is formed by the Danube east of the city. For the most part, the province consists of an extensive plain that is part of the Pannonian Basin. Area 8,304 square miles (21,506 square km). Pop. (2002) 2,031,992; (2011) 1,931,809.

Fine chernozem soils make Vojvodina the agricultural heart of Serbia, and the region supplies much of the country’s wheat and corn (maize). Many cash crops are also grown there—notably sugar beets and oilseeds—which are processed by regional enterprises. Livestock raising and petroleum and natural gas extraction near Vršac and Kikinda in the west are also important, and at Pančevo, in the south, there is a heavy industrial complex. Vojvodina has a well-developed system of roads and railways, as well as an extensive network of canals and navigable waterways. The principal towns are Novi Sad (the administrative centre), Subotica, and Zrenjanin. The province’s population is more than half Serbian, with a large minority of Hungarians and smaller numbers of other ethnic groups.

Slav farmers first settled in Vojvodina in the 6th and 7th centuries, and Hungarian (Magyar) nomads arrived there in the 9th and 10th. The Ottoman Turks controlled the region from the early 16th to the late 18th century. During that time many Serbs emigrated to Vojvodina from Serbia proper, which was under Ottoman rule. The town of Sremski Karlovci became an important centre of Serbian Orthodox culture, especially after the abolition of the patriarchate at Peć (Kosovo) in 1766. With the region’s incorporation into the Austrian Habsburg empire later in the 18th century, large numbers of Hungarians, Germans, and Romanians also migrated to the area.

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The immigrant population was given grants of land and awarded privileges that included the right to elect their own leader, or vojvod; in return, the immigrants provided military service, defending the empire against the Turks. This region, called the Military Frontier, underwent a succession of changes in its political status during the 19th century. It was initially attached directly to the Austrian crown, but, following the defeat of an uprising by Hungarian nationalists in 1848, portions of Bačka, Banat, and Srem were united with it, under direct Viennese control, and given the title Vojvodina. The civil and military regions were again separated in 1867–68: the Military Frontier remained attached to Austria, and the other segments reverted to the Hungarian crown. This section of the Military Frontier was abolished in 1873, and it, too, reverted to Hungarian control, although the name Vojvodina continued in general use.

In 1918 Vojvodina was incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. An area of eastern Srem (the Fruška Gora [hills]) was attached to Vojvodina in 1931, which greatly increased the Serbian population in the region. In 1945, after a wartime Axis occupation that had split up Yugoslavia, Vojvodina was reincorporated into the new socialist Yugoslav federation as an autonomous province of the Serbian republic. The process of regionalization in Yugoslavia had by 1974 made Vojvodina a virtual republic in its own right. Serbian nationalists resented Vojvodina’s independence, and Serbia reasserted direct control over it in 1989. It remained a province in the new Yugoslav republic established in 1992.

The ethnic makeup of Vojvodina was altered considerably by the warfare in the Balkan region that followed the breakup of the Yugoslav federation. An increasingly hostile atmosphere of Serbian nationalism prompted many from the province’s ethnic minorities to leave for neighbouring countries, reducing in particular the important Hungarian community. They were replaced by ethnic Serbs who came as refugees from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Serbian province of Kosovo. In 1999 Vojvodina became the target of many attacks during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s massive aerial bombing campaign of Yugoslavia, because the province was the location of many of the country’s petroleum storage and refining facilities. Bridges over the Sava and Danube were specially targeted. The bombing destroyed much of the province’s infrastructure and communications.

Nominal autonomous status was restored to Vojvodina in 2002. In 2003 Yugoslavia’s name was changed to Serbia and Montenegro, and in 2006 the two constituent republics separated. Vojvodina remained within Serbia’s borders. Though the province maintained its nominal autonomy, some local groups continued to call for a more extensive form of self-rule.

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