Kovin (Serbian Cyrillic: Ковин, Hungarian: Kevevára) is a town and municipality located in the South Banat District of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. The town has a population of 13,515, while the municipality has 33,722 inhabitants.
Other names
In Romanian, the town is known as Cuvin, in Hungarian as Kevevára or (until 1899) Temeskubin, and in German as Kubin or Temeschkubin. In the past, the town was also known as Donji Kovin ("Lower Kovin") in contrast to the town with same name in Hungary that was known in Serbian as Gornji Kovin ("Upper Kovin") and in Hungarian as Ráckeve ("the Serb Kovin").
History
The Dacian tribe of Albocenses dwelled in this area in the second century AD.[2] There are remains of the ancient Romanfortress called Contra Margum, opposite to the Margum, a fortress on the other side of the Danube. In the ninth and tenth centuries, this area was populated by Slavs and Romanians[3] and VoivodeGlad ruled over the region. Glad was defeated by the Hungarians, and the area was included into the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. In the 11th century, one of the descendants of Glad, Ahtum, ruled over the region but he, too, was defeated by the Hungarians.
The earliest mention of the settlement was in 1071 as Keuee. Kovin is mentioned in the 12th century as a seat of the county, which included most of the western Banat. Since the 14th century, the city has had a large Serb population that escaped there from Serbia under threat by the Ottomans. The Serbian despot Lazar Branković took control over the city in 1457, but in the next year it came again under control of the Kingdom of Hungary.
In 1848/1849, Kovin was part of the Serbian Voivodship, but in 1849 it was again placed under administration of the Military Frontier. With the abolishment of the Military Frontier in 1873, Kovin was incorporated into Temes county within the Kingdom of Hungary. According to the 1910 census, Kovin District had a population of 35,482, of whom 21,795 spoke Serbian, 6,587 German, 5,705 Romanian, and 5,355 Hungarian.[4]
This town had a significant role in the outbreak of World War I.[5] In July 1914, a purported military skirmish here was a proximate cause of the declaration of war against Serbia by Franz Joseph I of Austria, but the report of such skirmish was apparently false, or greatly exaggerated.[5]
Settlements with a Serb ethnic majority are: Kovin, Bavanište, Gaj, Deliblato, Dubovac, Malo Bavanište, Mramorak, and Pločica. Skorenovac has a Hungarian ethnic majority. Šumarak is an ethnically mixed settlement with a relative Hungarian majority.