Senta (Municipality, Serbia)

Last modified: 2006-07-22 by ivan sache
Keywords: senta | zenta | key (yellow) | fish (white) |
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• History of Senta
• Former flag of Senta (Zenta)?

See also:

• Serbia
• Vojvodina

History of Senta

Senta (Hungarian, Zenta) is a town and district in Vojvodina, close to the Hungarian border. The town has got 22,819 inhabitants, 79% of them being Hungarians (1990 census).

• 1216: Prosperous town, as Szintarev.
• 1246: Part of the Csanad county in the Kingdom of Hungary.
• 1506: After a war with the neighbouring city of Szeged (1475), Free Royal City.
• 1526: After the battle of Mohács, destruction by the Ottomans.
• XVIth century: Building of a Turkish fort and a Serbian village. Ottoman rule.
• 1697 (27 September); Battle of Zenta. Eugene of Savoy defeated the Ottoman army.
• 1699: Reallocated to Hungary by the treaty of Karlowitz.
• 1751. Most Serbians settlers moved to Ukraine.
• 1785: Ukrainian Cossacks migrated to Senta.
• 1850-1861: After the defeat of the Hungarian Independence War (1848-1849), allocated to a new province (Governorate of Temes and Serbian Vojvodina).
• 1910: Town in Bács-Bodrog County of the Kingdom of Hungary.

The 1910 population census yielded 29,666 inhabitants, divided as follows:

• Census by mother language:
  • Hungarian: 27,221 (91.8%)
  • Serbian: 2,020 (6.8%)
  • Others: 425 (1.4%)
• Census by religion:
  • Roman Catholic: 26,023 (87.7%)
  • Greek Orthodox: 2,076 (7.0%)
  • Jewish: 1.328 (4.5%)
  • Others: 239 (0.8%)

In 1918, the city was under Serbian occupation. From 1920 (treaty of Trianon) to 1941, the city was incorporated to Yugoslavia. In 1941-1944, the area was occupied and annexed by Hungary. The treaty of Paris reallocated it to Yugoslavia in 1947.

István Molnár, 10 December 2000

Former flag of Senta (Zenta)?

Flag of Zenta - Image by António Martins, 24 September 2002

The former flag of Senta is blue with two yellow keys crossed in saltire and pointing upwards put on an ear of wheat, from the handle hole of each key, a fish swimming through.

Source: Sándor Széll. Városaink neve, címere és lobogója [szs41].

István Molnár, 24 September 2002

Széll's book shows the flags of several cities formerly held by Hungary. The book is our only source of these flags, but it is not clear as to what period these flags were used as claimed by the book. I doubt very much that they were used during the time of Austria-Hungary. It seems very much more like they were designed in 1941 - but it is not even clear weather the designs shown in the Szell's book are just proposals or if they were ever prescribed in any formal way and after all whether they were used. At least for the moment, I believe that the former flag was in use at most in years 1941-1944.

Željko Heimer, 9 October 2005