Kljajićevo

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Kljajićevo ( Serbian - Cyrillic Кљајићево ), formerly Krnjaja , is a village in the municipality (Opština) Sombor in the West Batschka ( Zapadna Bačka ) district of the autonomous province of Vojvodina in Serbia with about 6000 inhabitants. The place is called Kernei in German and Kerény in Hungarian. Maria Theresa settled the place with Swabians in 1765 , in 1944 it was inhabited by around 6,300 Danube Swabians . Kernei, like most of the Danube Swabian towns, has changed several names, also through dialect: Kernyáya, Kornau, Kernai, Gorni-Szentkirály, Kernyája, Szentkirálya, Királya.

history

Early settlement

Human settlements in the area of ​​today's Kljajićevo can be traced back to the Stone Age. Clay vessels have been found which suggest that in the 2nd century BC Celts lived. They were replaced by the Dacians and they were followed by the Jazygen. These were defeated by the Romans under Marc Aurelius (161-180 AD). The "Roman Schanzen" originating from Apatin date from this time. One of the so-called “small entrenchments” ran below the Teletschka hills from Miletitsch, northeast of Sombor, past Tschonopl and Kernei to Tscherwenka. Roman rule was shaken by the Goths. In 1391, during the reign of the Kingdom of Hungary, a settlement called Szent Király (Sveti Kralj) was mentioned here.

The Roman Catholic Church

Ottoman administration

During the Ottoman administration (16th - 17th centuries) the Batschka was part of the Sandschak Segedin (Szeged). The former Hungarian population fled and the area was mostly populated by ethnic Serbs from the south. The village was first mentioned in the Ottoman tax lists (Defters) in 1590 as Kernja, a settlement near Sombor. The settlement was mentioned in 1601 under the name Krnjaja and was populated by ethnic Serbs. In the early 1700s, Serbs ran livestock farms as part of the Austro-Hungarian border defense against the Ottoman Empire . The landscape remained sparsely populated with farms until around 1760 the first Danube Swabians were settled in 100 new houses.

Habsburg administration

In 1699 the Batschka came into the possession of the Habsburg monarchy of Austria. After Maria Theresa of Austria ascended the throne as Queen of Hungary in 1740, she encouraged the colonization of the crown lands, first on the military frontier and later on the entire area, since the population density had been decimated by the warfare after the last Turkish wars.

The new settlers in the village were primarily Austrians, Hungarians and Bohemians. Anton von Cothmann (1720–1768) had a decisive influence on the course and design of the settlement. In 1763 he proposed to Empress Maria Theresa to settle Kernyája and the surrounding area. According to the "Conscriptio" of December 21, 1765, a new village was settled with 17 families, 57 percent of them ethnic Germans. Among them were farmers, two blacksmiths, a carpenter, a weaver and a landlord. The village was now called "Kernjaja" or "Kernyaja". Over the next few decades the number of settlers increased annually. Between 1794 and 1796, 291 families came to Kernaja, among them 83 percent German, 11 percent Hungarians and 6 percent Bohemia.

Emperor Joseph II added 78 new houses to the village. The Catholic Church was built in 1791. Although the village had many official names, the residents called it "Kernei" until it was evicted in 1945. At the beginning of 1767, students were taught in the cantor's house. The new school was built in 1911. The church was later converted into a Greek Orthodox Church.

In 1805 Kernei had 2,000 inhabitants. When the population rose to 3,500 in 1850, the proportion of the population from other nationalities was less than 5 percent. The number of inhabitants of Jewish descent was around 50. There was a Jewish cemetery of its own, but the last Jews left Kernei around 1910. At the turn of the 20th century and afterwards the great wave of emigration to North America began. During that time there was a constant ups and downs in the population, so that the 5,000 mark was only reached in 1910.

Yugoslav administration

In 1918 Krnjaja fell as part of Batschka, Banat and Baranja to the Kingdom of Serbia, which later formed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes together with the Kingdom of Montenegro and the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. From 1929 to 1941 the village was part of Dunavska Banovina, a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

The second World War

On April 6, 1941, the attack on Yugoslavia began . Shortly afterwards, units of the Wehrmacht marched into Krnjaja. They were enthusiastically received by the German population, who had been indoctrinated for years by the National Socialist ethnic group leadership and their local group. After the Yugoslav surrender, the SS division "Reich" carried out a recruitment process among the youngest men in Krnjaja and all other communities, accompanied by intensive propaganda . The SS was able to set up several recruit companies by the beginning of May, which, after a short basic training in Prague , were deployed on the Eastern Front in June 1941 .

In consultation with the German Empire, Hungary occupied the Batschka , which placed Krnjaja under Hungarian administration. After the end of the war, the state borders were restored in accordance with the Trianon Peace Treaty of 1920. In view of the advance of the Red Army, most of the Danube Swabians were evacuated.

Population development

  • 1869: 4071 in 460 houses
  • 1880: 4012 in 583 houses
  • 1890: 4368
  • 1900: 4692 in 1001 houses
  • 1910: 5132
  • 1921: 5314
  • 1941: 6001
  • 1944: 6347
  • February 1945: 2567
  • March 1945: 242
  • 1961: 6088
  • 1971: 5805
  • 1981: 5850
  • 1991: 5737

Sons of the place

literature

  • Hermann Ruediger (1931): The Danube Swabians in the Suedslavischen Batschka. Stuttgart: Writings of the German Foreign Institute, Stuttgart.
  • Eichorn, Michael (1979): Kernei and the kernel eggs. Regensburg: Gstoettner.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Akiko Shimizu, p. 105
  2. ↑ Thomas Casagrande: The Volksdeutsche SS division "Prinz Eugen". The Banat Swabians and the National Socialist war crimes. Campus Vlg., Frankfurt / Main 2003, page 143. see also Akiko Shimizu: The German occupation of the Serbian Banat 1941–1944 with special consideration of the German ethnic group in Yugoslavia . Lit-Verlag, Münster 2003, page 223.

Coordinates: 45 ° 47 '  N , 19 ° 17'  E