Ruma - History

History

Traces of organized human life on the territory of Ruma municipality date back as far as the prehistory. The most important archaeological locality in the municipality is Bronze Age Gomolava near Hrtkovci, with two exclusive tombs of Bosut culture dating to 9th century BC and 3000BC Vučedol culture pottery. First known inhabitants of this area were various peoples of Illyrian and Celtic origin, such as the Amantini, Breuci, Scordisci, etc. During Roman rule, local inhabitants lost their ethnic character and adopted Roman culture. There were no larger Roman settlements on the territory of Ruma, but a certain number of agricultural estates known as "villae rusticae" were located there.

Migrations of Huns, Germanic peoples, Avars and Slavs destroyed the Roman culture in this area. During the following centuries, the region was ruled by Frankish Empire, Bulgarian Empire, Byzantine Empire and Kingdom of Hungary.

The settlement named Ruma was first mentioned in an Ottoman defter from 1566/7. In that period Ruma was a village inhabited by Serbs, with 49 houses a church and three priests.

Since 1718, Ruma was under administration of the Habsburg Monarchy. In 1746, the town of Ruma was founded near the village of Ruma. First inhabitants of the town were Serbs, who came from neighboring settlements, as well as Germans, who came from Germany. In the beginning of the 19th century, Croats and Hungarians settled there as well. In 1807, a large rebellion of the Syrmian peasants known as the Tican's Rebellion started on the estate of Ruma, with its center in the village of Voganj. During the 1848-1849 revolution, Ruma was one of the important centers of Serbian national movement in Syrmia. According to the 1910 census, population of the Ruma municipality numbered 49,138 inhabitants, of whom 22,956 spoke Serbian, 15,529 German, 5,746 Hungarian, and 3,730 Croatian.

After the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy, on November 24, 1918, the Assembly of Syrmia in Ruma proclaimed the unification of Syrmia with the Kingdom of Serbia. In 1933, Ruma officially gained the status of a city.

When World War II began, Ruma was one of the centers of German national minority in Vojvodina. In 1942, during the Axis occupation of Syrmia, a unit of the Third Reich's Wehrmacht, known as the Volunteer Company Ruma ES der DM, was formed from local Volksdeutsche volunteers. A large number of non-German citizens of Ruma participated in anti-fascist struggle against Axis occupation. In 1944, as a consequence of the war, most members of German national minority left the town escaping before Yugoslav partisans and Soviet Red Army.

After the war, colonists from various parts of former Yugoslavia settled this area. During the 1990s, about 10,000 refugees from Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo settled in Ruma as well. In 1949 The aeroclub of Yugoslavia (Vazduhoplovni Savez Jugoslavije) opened a pilot school, a school for parachute instructors and a school for aircraft modeling in Ruma, all of which were supported by the Airforces of Yugoslavia. This culminated in a praised International aeromeeting held in the central town in 1950.