AN 1850 LETTER FROM BAJA

Abstract

In 1850 Baja was one of the centres of the Duchy of Serbia and Timisoara Banat. At the time, Serbian people still presented a vast majority there. In a letter which is the subject of this paper, a Serbian student of medicine from Baja, Pavle Ivanović, as one of the most important news mentions a riot started by Hungarian inhabitants of Baja and its vicinity, who came to town in order to complain before the governor of the Duchy, general Ferdinand Mayerhofer, who found himself there while visiting the Kingdom’s towns in March 1850. In Baja he met with the vice-prefect Isidor Nikolić, and they both took a rather negative attitude towards Hungarian petitions and requests saying that they were in Baja, which was a part of the Duchy of Serbia and Timisoara Banat, and therefore they primarily advocated Serbian interests.