In Serbian, the town is known as Stara Pazova (Стара Пазова), formerly also Pazova (Пазова); in Slovak as Stará Pazova; in German as Alt-Pasua, Alt-Pazua or Pazua; and in Hungarian as Ópazova.
History
During the Ottoman administration (16th-18th century), Pazova was populated by ethnic Serbs and was part of the Ottoman Sanjak of Syrmia. In 1718, the town became part of the Habsburg monarchy. In the 18th century (after 1760) LutheranSlovaks settled in Pazova, and in 1791 Germans arrived here as well. The Germans lived in a separate settlement known as Nova Pazova ("New Pazova"), thus the old settlement was named Stara Pazova ("Old Pazova"). Until the second half of the 20th century, Slovaks were the largest ethnic group in the town of Stara Pazova, while the largest ethnic group in the surrounding municipality were Serbs.
For most part of the Habsburg rule, Stara Pazova was part of the Habsburg Military Frontier (abolished in 1882), while in 1848–1849 it was part of Serbian Vojvodina. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Stara Pazova was a district centre in the Syrmia County (part of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Kingdom of Hungary and Austria-Hungary). According to the 1910 census, the population of the Stara Pazova municipality numbered 46,430 inhabitants, of whom 24,262 spoke Serbian, 9,348 German, 5,779 Slovak, and 5,670 Croatian. [1] The town itself had a Slovak majority in 1910.
