Syrmia County - History

History

The territory of Syrmia County was part of the medieval Kingdom of Croatia when it entered a personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary in 1102. According to other sources, it belonged to main part of the Kingdom of Hungary, outside of the Kingdom of Croatia. By the 13th century, two counties were formed in this region: Syrmia (in the east) and Vukovar (in the west). This area was taken by the Ottoman Empire in 1521 and the two counties were abolished. The territory was then (in 1544) included into Ottoman Sanjak of Syrmia. The Habsburg Empire took one part of Syrmia from the Ottomans in 1688, while the other part was taken by Habsburgs in 1718. The entire region was incorporated into the Military Frontier, which was then extended from Western Slavonia, where it stood in 1683, all the way to Transylvania.

Syrmia County was re-established in 1745. The county was included into the Kingdom of Slavonia, a Habsburg province, which was part of both, the Habsburg Kingdom of Croatia, and the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary. The Kingdom of Slavonia was mainly inhabited by Serbs and Croats.

In 1848 and 1849, the area of the county was part of the Serbian Voivodship, a Serbian autonomous region proclaimed at the May Assembly in Karlovci. Between 1849 and 1860 the area was part of the Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar, a separate crown land of the Austrian Empire. During this time the county did not existed since voivodeship was divided into districts.

After 1860, Syrmia County was established again, and was incorporated into the Kingdom of Slavonia, which was a completelly separate Habsburg province at the time. In 1867, as a consequence of the Ausgleich between the Austrians and the Hungarians, Kingdom of Slavonia was incorporated into Transleithania, the half of Austria-Hungary run from Budapest, and in the Hungarian-Croatian Settlement of 1868, it was incorporated into Croatia-Slavonia, a formally separate kingdom within the Kingdom of Hungary, which had a certain level of autonomy and was ruled by its own ban.

After World War I, the area of Syrmia County became part of the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 and this was confirmed by the Treaty of Saint-Germain in September 1919. The County of Syrmia was an official administrative division of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes between 1918 and 1922 (de facto until 1924), and then was transformed into the Province (Oblast) of Syrmia. After 1924, the county as such no longer existed.