Lovćenac


Lovćenac 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.

Name

In Serbian, the village is known as Lovćenac, in German as Sekitsch, and in Hungarian as Szeghegy.
Its former name in Serbian was Sekić. 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. The ethnic Germans settled there in 1786. These German settlers, originally from all over, came to be a distinct group known as Vojvodina Germans, a branch of the Danube Swabians since 1918. At its peak, the village had a population of 5,394 people, mostly Germans. Following the Axis occupation of this part of Yugoslavia 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 colonized by settlers from Montenegro and Mt. Vlašić, Bosnia. The Montenegrins renamed the village in honor of Mt. Lovćen and account for the 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:
The society of Montenegrins in Serbia known as Krstaš is based in Lovćenac.

Notable people

Lovćenac is twinned with: