Liszka József (szerk.): Az Etnológiai Központ Évkönyve 2008-2009 - Acta Ethnologica Danubiana 10-11. (Dunaszerdahely-Komárno, 2009)
Tanulmányok - Bárth Dániel: A nyugati és a keleti kereszténység határá. Vallási együttélés és konfliktusok a dél-magyarországi Bácskában a 18. században (Összefoglalás)
Acta Ethnologica Danubiana 10-11 (2009). Komárom-Komárno On the border of Western and Eastern Christianity The co-existence and conflicts of religions in Southern Hungarian Bácska in the 18th century Dániel Bárth Hardly can one find in Europe a more appropriate field of historical investigation to understand the intermingling co-existence of different ethnic groups belonging to different religions than the one-time Southern Hungarian region called Bácska that is now largely a part of Serbia. This region, covering more than ten thousand square kilometres, had belonged to the Hungarian Kingdom until the end of the First World War, and in state administrative terms it had been identifiable with one of the counties of Hungary (Borovszky 1909). In the 16th century the medieval villages and towns of Bácska fell victim to the Ottoman conquest forging ahead from south. During the Ottoman occupation that lasted for about one and a half century the population - and especially the Hungarian population - of the region got seriously reduced. In the 17"’ century South Slavic ethnic groups began to settle down in these uninhabited areas. The Habsburg royal court assisted the settlement of Serbs who did military service during the liberating warfare at the end of the 17"' century. In this century besides the Orthodox Serbs considerable Roman Catholic South Slavic population also moved to this region. In their religious practice it was the Franciscan friars who played an outstanding role (Unyi 1947; Molnár 2002; Molnár 2004, 41-79). These Roman Catholic South Slavic people of Croatian origin coming from Bosnia had been referred to as illyricus in the contemporary Latin historical sources, but this comprehensive term had stood for various ethnic groups (in Hungarian sokác, bunyevác, rác) that were in close linguistic and anthropological kinship. These groups later were definitely distinguished by the 19th—20th century ethnographical investigations (Sarosácz 1973). In the 18lh century, large-scale re-population took place: on the spots of the former, deserted medieval villages and towns gradually new settlements were formed. The present relations of the region are basically grounded in that period. The population of the modern era arrived in this region by mainly two ways: either in course of organised settlement movements or by spontaneous migration. Organised settlement was directed by the royal Habsburg court. An accepted premise of the Hungarian historical investigation is that the Habsburg court preferred and promoted the organized settlement of Roman Catholic Germans from the Southern parts of Germany. As a matter of fact, although it can indeed be observed that the majority of the population was Roman Catholic in the German „chess-board” villages whose structure had been carefully designed by engineers, but: as far as the royal and loyal attitude of the villagers is concerned this presumption seems to be rather stereotypical and misleading. Since we should take into consideration 53
