Sajan ( sr-cyr, Сајан, hu, Szaján) is a village in the

Kikinda Kikinda ( sr-Cyrl, Кикинда, ; hu, Nagykikinda) is a city and the administrative center of the North Banat District in Serbia . The city urban area has 38,069 inhabitants, while the city administrative area has 59,453 inhabitants. The c ...

municipality, in the

North Banat District The North Banat District ( sr, Севернобанатски округ, Severnobanatski okrug, ; hu, Észak-bánsági körzet) is one of seven administrative districts of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. It lies in the geograph ...

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

. It is situated in the Autonomous Province of

Vojvodina Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital ...

. The village has a Hungarian ethnic majority (88.64%) and a population of 1,164 (2011 census).

Name

The village was first mentioned in 1225 under the name of ''Zeyhan''. Zeyhan was the name of a

Cuman The Cumans (or Kumans), also known as Polovtsians or Polovtsy (plural only, from the Russian exonym ), were a Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman–Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion (1237), many so ...

ruler in the neighbouring county of ''Bodrogiensis'' (The nomadic Cumans were settled in the central part of the

Pannonian Plain The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense, with only the ...

in the medieval

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...

in the 13th century, and they often controlled also the neighbouring settlements, which were not inhabited by Cumans). The Cumans are often spoken of as

Turan Turan ( ae, Tūiriiānəm, pal, Tūrān; fa, توران, Turân, , "The Land of Tur") is a historical region in Central Asia. The term is of Iranian origin and may refer to a particular prehistoric human settlement, a historic geographical re ...

people, who migrated from Central Asia and settled in this area. Their primary settlement had been around the

Sayan Mountains The Sayan Mountains (russian: Саяны ''Sajany''; mn, Соёны нуруу, ''Soyonï nurû''; otk, 𐰚𐰇𐰏𐰢𐰤, Kögmen) are a mountain range in southern Siberia, Russia ( Buryatia, Irkutsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Tuva Republic ...

. There are theories that claim this would explain the origin of the name of today's Sajan. Another theory claim that name ''Sajan'' is of Slavic origin, since the Slavic village with similar name ''Zajan'' was recorded in Vesprimiensis county in 1398. It is assumed that name came from the Slavic name ''Svojan'' (Jovan M. Pejin, Iz prošlosti Kikinde, Kikinda, 2000).

History

The village belonged to the

Csanád County Csanád was an administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is now part of Hungary, except for a small area which is part of Romania. The capital of the county was Makó. Geography Csanád county shared borders with ...

in 1449 and in this time was populated by Slavs. At the beginning of the 19th century, the village of Sajan was in the possession of a landowner named Tajnay János and spread over of land. The first settlers were ethnic

Hungarians Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Urali ...

who came from the area around

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also other alternative names) is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat of Csongrád-Csanád county. The University of Szeged is one of the m ...

in 1805. In order to boost the economic development of the village, Tajnay János invited to the north-east side of the village ethnic

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

, and thus appeared the settlement of ''Wilhelmfeld'', also known as ''Wilhelminenfeld'', which

called ''Mihler''. The first school was built in 1828 and its first teacher was Balog András. During the

1848 revolution The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europe ...

, Sajan was completely burned down and by the end of the century totally abandoned due to a cholera epidemic. After spending a few years in neighbouring Iđoš, the inhabitants returned. A Roman Catholic church was built in 1880.

Historical population

*1837: 3,362 *1853: 2,457 *1900: 2,432 *1948: 2,430 *1953: 2,432 *1961: 2,334 *1971: 1,982 *1981: 1,665 *1991: 1,555 *2002: 1,348

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sajan Kikinda Populated places in North Banat District Populated places in Serbian Banat

Name

History

Historical population

See also

References