Pomorišje

Pomorišje (Serbian Cyrillic: Поморишје) is a historical geographical region on the banks of the river Mureş that in the past has had a large ethnic Serb population. Even today, a serbian minority is present here.

Geography

It is mostly situated in what is now Arad County of Romania, and the smaller parts of it are situated in the Timiş County of Romania and Csongrád County of Hungary. Roughly, Pomorišje include northern Banat along the southern bank of Mureş, and a land across the river, along its northern bank. In its wider meaning, it also include Szeged (in the Csongrád County of Hungary) and Novi Kneževac (in the North Banat District of Serbia), although these areas are rather seen as part of Potisje instead of Pomorišje.

Name

The name "Pomorišje" means "a land around the river Mureş" in Serbian. Similar names such as "Potisje", "Podunavlje", "Posavina", etc. are used in Serbian to designate areas around rivers (Tisa, Sava and Danube, respectively).

Today, the region is not home to a significant ethnic Serb population, thus the name "Pomorišje" is rarely used; however, the Serb communities still inhabit both the Hungarian and Romanian part of Pomorišje, as well as the wider area of Pomorišje that includes Novi Kneževac municipality in Serbia (nevertheless, since the latter municipality is not directly connected to the Mureş river, inhabitants of this area are generally viewed as living in Potisje — that is, near the river Tisa; Novi Kneževac municipality was connected to the Mureş before 1920, when current state borders were defined). In the Hungarian part of Pomorišje, relatively large Serb communities live in the villages of Deszk, Szőreg, etc.

History

Historically, the population of Pomorišje was mostly composed of Romanians, Serbs and Hungarians. A large Serb population in this region had existed since the 16th century. During the Ottoman rule (16th-17th century), the region belonged to the Province of Temeşvar.

After the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699), northern Pomorišje belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy, and, between 1702 and 1751, it was part of the Tisa-Mureş (Potisje-Pomorišje) section of the Habsburg Military Frontier. During this period, the Serb population in the region was still significant. In 1720, the population of Arad, the main city of the region, numbered 177 Romanian, 162 Serbian, and 35 Hungarian families. Other important cities in Pomorišje were Lipova, Makó, and Szeged. Roughly, the area between Szeged and Arad was mainly populated by Serbs, while area in the east of Arad mainly by Romanians. In 1720, the population of Szeged numbered 193 houses, of which 99 were Serbian.

After the Tisa-Mureş section of the Military Frontier was abolished, many Serbs from Pomorišje and Potisje left these regions and immigrated to the Russian Empire (notably to Nova Serbia and Slavo-Serbia) in 1752. In their place, Hungarians, Swabians, Slovaks and Romanians settled in the region. According to the 1910 census in Austria-Hungary, the population of Pomorišje (roughly including municipalities connected to the Mureş river, together with Szeged and Novi Kneževac) was 670,726 people, of whom 33,355 were ethnic Serbs. [http://www.talmamedia.com/] The southern part of Pomorišje (including the municipalities of northern Banat, together with Novi Kneževac) had a population of 245,276 people, of whom 29,175 were ethnic Serbs, while the northern part (including Szeged) had a population of 425,450 people, of whom 4,180 were ethnic Serbs.

References

*"Potiska i Pomoriška vojna granica (1702-1751)", Muzej Vojvodine, Novi Sad, 2003
*Dr. Tomislav Bogavac, "Nestajanje Srba", Niš, 1994
*Dr. Aleksa Ivić, "Istorija Srba u Vojvodini", Novi Sad, 1929
*Dr. Dušan J. Popović, "Srbi u Vojvodini", knjige 1-3, Novi Sad, 1990

ee also

*Serbs in Romania
*Serbs in Hungary