The term Swabian Turkey (german: Schwäbische Türkei, hu, Sváb-Törökország) describes a region in southeastern in Hungary delimited by the Danube (''Donau''), the

Drava The Drava or Drave''Utrata Fachwörterbuch ...

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

minority, the

Germans of Hungary German Hungarians (german: Ungarndeutsche, hu, magyarországi németek) are the German-speaking minority of Hungary, sometimes called Danube Swabians (German: ''Donauschwaben'', Hungarian: ''dunai svábok''), many of whom call themselves "Shw ...

. This present-day minority, the largest German-speaking minority in Hungary, primarily lives in the counties of Tolna (''Tolnau''),

Baranya Baranya or Baranja may refer to: * Baranya (region) or Baranja, a region in Hungary and Croatia * Baranya County, a county in modern Hungary * Baranya County (former), a county in the historic Kingdom of Hungary * Baranya, Hungarian name of villag ...

(''Branau''), and Somogy (''Schomodei'') and are regarded as

Danube Swabians The Danube Swabians (german: Donauschwaben ) is a collective term for the ethnic German-speaking population who lived in various countries of central-eastern Europe, especially in the Danube River valley, first in the 12th century, and in gre ...

Background

After the Ottoman Empire was defeated in the Second Battle of Mohács in 1687, the Habsburg monarchy forced the

Ottoman Turks The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

to leave the Kingdom of Hungary. Because much 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 th ...

had been depopulated during the Ottoman wars in Europe, the Habsburgs began to resettle the land with Germans, especially from Swabia.

Settlement

German colonization in southeastern Transdanubia began in 1689. While many came from Swabia, the German settlers also came from the Rhenish Palatinate, Hesse, the

Westerwald The Westerwald (; literally 'Western forest') is a low mountain range on the right bank of the river Rhine in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a part of the Rhenish Massif ( or Rhenish ...

Fulda (district) The Fulda District (; ) is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the north-east of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Hersfeld-Rotenburg, Wartburgkreis, Schmalkalden-Meiningen, Rhön-Grabfeld, Bad Kissingen, Main-Kinzig, Vogelsbergkreis. History T ...

, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Electorate of Trier,

Electoral Palatinate The Electoral Palatinate (german: Kurpfalz) or the Palatinate (), officially the Electorate of the Palatinate (), was a state that was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The electorate had its origins under the rulership of the Counts Palatine of ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

, and throughout

Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper ...

. Because of the many Swabian colonists from Upper Swabia, northern Lake Constance, upper Danube,

Southern Black Forest The Southern Black Forest (german: Südschwarzwald) is the highest part of the Black Forest, an area heavily transformed by ice age glaciation south of a line roughly from Freiburg im Breisgau to Donaueschingen. The term High Black Forest is no ...

and

Principality of Fürstenberg Fürstenberg was a county (german: Grafschaft), and later a principality (''Fürstentum''), of the Holy Roman Empire in Swabia, which was located in present-day southern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Its ruling family was the House of Fürstenbe ...

settling on land previously controlled by the Turks, the region of Tolna, Somogy and Baranya counties became known as Swabian Turkey. The settlers were often induced to immigrate to Hungary with the promise of three years without taxes. The vast majority of German settlement was organized by private ventures run by the nobility or the Roman Catholic Church. Most of the German settlement was in pre-existing

Slav Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...

- or Magyar-inhabited villages, but some new villages were also founded by Germans. The only two German-founded villages remaining in Swabian Turkey that were established by state ventures were Dunakömlőd (''Kimling'') and Németkér (''Deutsch-Ker''). Germans also settled extensively in the major towns of Pécs (''Fünfkirchen'') and

Mohács Mohács (; Croatian and Bunjevac: ''Mohač''; german: Mohatsch; sr, Мохач; tr, Mohaç) is a town in Baranya County, Hungary, on the right bank of the Danube. Etymology The name probably comes from the Slavic ''*Mъchačь'',''*Mocháč ...

(''Mohatsch''). Swabian Turkey is also referred to as Little Hesse, because many of the Germans settlers in the Baranya were from Hesse, especially from Fulda. Their descendants are called Stifolders.https://www.feked.hu/etc/Stifolder_tortenet.pdf

Post-World War II

During the expulsion of Germans after World War II, many Germans from Swabian Turkey were expelled from their homes and replaced with Hungarians evicted from Czechoslovakia; the remaining Germans were often persecuted by the Communist government. After the fall of communism in 1989, the Danube Swabians received minority rights, organisations, schools, and local councils and maintained their own regional dialect of German. However, the Germans are gradually being assimilated.

References

* Krallert, Wilfried. ''Atlas zur Geschichte der deutschen Ostsiedlung.'' Bielefeld: Velhagen & Klasing, 1958.

External links

Swabian Turkey at Genealogy.net

Former German-inhabited villages in Swabian Turkey

Danube Swabian Resources
{{coord missing, Hungary German diaspora in Europe Danube Swabian communities Historical regions in the Kingdom of Hungary

Background

Settlement

Post-World War II

See also

References

External links