History of Novi Sad - After The First World War

After The First World War

On November 3, 1918, the Serb National Board and the Serb Safeguard were organized in the city. On November 6, the Serb National Board invited the Danube division of the Serbian army, which already entered Srem, to send its troops to Bačka as soon as possible. On November 8, the last Austro-Hungarian soldiers evacuated from the city, and the entire city was under control of the Serb National Board and the Serb Safeguard.

Serbian troops entered the city on November 9, 1918, and on November 25, 1918, the Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci, and other nations of Vojvodina in Novi Sad proclaimed the unification of Vojvodina region with the Kingdom of Serbia (the assembly numbered 757 deputies, of which 578 were Serbs, 84 Bunjevci, 62 Slovaks, 21 Rusyns, 6 Germans, 3 Šokci, 2 Croats, and 1 Hungarian). Since December 1, 1918, Novi Sad is part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.

According to the 1921 census, the city had 39,122 inhabitants, of which 16,071 were Serbs, 13,065 Hungarians, 6,486 Germans, 2,663 Jews, 1,294 Slovaks, 672 Russians, 613 Slovenes. In 1929, Novi Sad became the capital of the Danube Banovina, a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

In 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded and partitioned by the Axis Powers, and its northern parts, including Novi Sad, were annexed by Hungary. During World War II, about 5,000 citizens were murdered and many others were resettled (in a 1942 raid alone, Hungarian gendarmerie killed 1,246 citizens, among them 809 Jews, 375 Serbs, 18 Hungarians, 15 Russians and 2 Rusyns, and threw their corpses into the icy waters of Danube ). During the war, the resistance movement was active in the city. Citizens of all nationalities - Serbs, Hungarians, Slovaks and others fought together against the Axis authorities. On August 7, 1944, the Allies bombed the Novi Sad oil facilities as part of the Oil Campaign of World War II. The partisan forces from Srem and Bačka entered the city on October 23, 1944, and Novi Sad became part of the new socialist Yugoslavia. The post-war Yugoslav authorities punished those responsible for war crimes, as well as those that collaborated with the Axis authorities, although there are allegations that members of the partisan army also killed a certain number of innocent people, mainly for personal revenge.

Since 1945, Novi Sad has been the capital of Vojvodina, a province of the Socialist Republic of Serbia and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The city went through rapid industrialization and its population more than doubled in the period between World War II and the breakup of Yugoslavia.

After 1992, Novi Sad was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which, in 2003, was transformed into the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. Since 2006, Novi Sad is part of an independent Serbia.

Devastated by NATO bombardment during the Kosovo War of 1999, Novi Sad was left without all of its three Danube bridges, communications, water, and electricity. Residential areas were cluster bombed several times while its oil refinery was bombarded daily, causing severe pollution and widespread ecological damage.