Lovćenac

Lovćenac Ловћенац
Village
The train station in Lovćenac in 2003
Lovćenac
Coordinates: RS 45°41′N 19°41′E / 45.683°N 19.683°E
Country	Serbia
Province	Vojvodina
Population (2002)
• Total	3,693
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)

Map of the Mali Iđoš municipality, showing the location of Lovćenac

Lovćenac (Serbian Cyrillic: Ловћенац) is a village located in the Mali Iđoš municipality, in the North Bačka District of Vojvodina, Serbia. The village has a Montenegrin ethnic majority and a total population of 3,693 people (2002 census).

Name

In Serbian and Montenegrin, the village is known as Lovćenac (Ловћенац), in German as Sekitsch (in the past rarely Winkelsberg), and in Hungarian as Szeghegy.

Its former name in Serbian was Sekić (Секић). After the World War II, the village was named Lovćenac by the Montenegrin settlers after Mount Lovćen in Montenegro.

The original Hungarian name of the village was Szeghegy, but Hungarians also used Serbian version of the name in the forms Szikics and Szekics, as well as Germans in the form Sekitsch. One very rare alternative German name was Winkelsberg.

History

The village first appeared in history in 1476. During the Ottoman administration, the village of Sekić was populated by ethnic Serbs.^[1] The ethnic Germans settled there in 1786. These German settlers, originally from all over, came to be a distinct group known as Vojvodina Germans (Wojwodinedeutsche), a branch of the Danube Swabians since 1918. At its peak (in 1910), the village had a population of 5,394 people,^[2] mostly Germans.^[3] Following the Axis occupation of this part of Yugoslavia (1941-1944) and end of World War II, most of the Germans left the country, together with the defeated German army. Those who remained were interned into prison camps. After camps were disbanded in 1948, most of the remaining Yugoslav Germans emigrated to Germany because of economic reasons in the next decades. After World War II, the village was populated with settlers from Montenegro, who now form a majority of the population.

Ethnic groups

1971

According to the 1971 census, ethnic Montenegrins comprised 70.91% of population of the village.

2002

According to the 2002 census, the population of the village numbered 3,693 people, including:

• 2,100 (56.86%) Montenegrins
• 1,242 (33.63%) Serbs
• 107 (2.90%) Hungarians
• others.

Historical population

• 1961: 4,800
• 1971: 4,159
• 1981: 4,016
• 1991: 4,049

Culture

The society of Montenegrins in Serbia known as Krstaš is based in Lovćenac.

Notable people

• Sofija Pekić, former female Serbian basketball player.
• Danilo Popivoda, former Slovenian football player of Serbian descents

Twin towns – Sister cities

Lovćenac is twinned with:

• Cetinje, Montenegro, since 2012

Notes

1. Dr Dušan J. Popović, Srbi u Vojvodini, knjiga 1, Novi Sad, 1990, page 113.
2. Slobodan Ćurčić, Broj stanovnika Vojvodine, Novi Sad, 1996, page 122.
3. http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/3899/vojvodina1910.png

See also

• Montenegrins of Vojvodina
• List of places in Serbia
• List of cities, towns and villages in Vojvodina

References

• Slobodan Ćurčić, Broj stanovnika Vojvodine, Novi Sad, 1996.

Gallery

• 

  An intersection on the main road in Lovćenac today.

• 

  This emblem, commonly featured on books about the German diaspora from Lovćenac, gives the dates of their habitation.

• 

  Sekić got its first post office in 1872.

External links

• Krstaš
• Mi smo Crnogorci, sa azbukom od 33 slova, Glas javnosti, 5 February 2006 (about Montenegrins of the village)

Coordinates: 45°41′N 19°41′E / 45.683°N 19.683°E