Žitište

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Житиште
Žitište
Location in Serbia

General Information
District	Central Banat
Land area	525 km²
Population (2002 census)	3,242 (town) 20,399 (municipality)
Settlements	12
Coordinates	45°29′N 20°33′E
Area code	+381 23
Car plates	ZR
Time zone	CET (UTC+1) CEST (UTC+2)
Website	http://www.zitiste.org.yu/

Politics
Mayor	Zoran Kasalović

The Orthodox church.

Building in centre of the town. The razed Catholic church stood here until the end of the 1940s.

Žitište (Житиште) is a town and municipality in Central Banat District of Vojvodina, Serbia. The town has a population of 3,236, while Žitište municipality has 20,144 inhabitants.

1 Name
2 History
3 Inhabited places
4 Demographics (2002 census)
5 Historical population
6 Politics
7 Trivia
8 References
9 See also
10 External links

[edit] Name

In Serbian, the town is known as Žitište or Житиште, in Romanian as Jitişte or Zitişte, in German as Sankt Georgen an der Bega, and in Hungarian as Bégaszentgyörgy.

The name of the town derived from the Serbian word "žito" ("wheat" in English). Its old names used in Serbian were Begej Sveti Đurađ and Senđurađ.

[edit] History

It was founded in the 14th century. In 1660/1666, Senđurađ was recorded as settlement populated by ethnic Serbs. In the beginning of the 18th century, settlement was completelly abandoned and in 1723 it was recorded as an uninhabited heath.

It was settled again in 1724 by Serb and Romanian settlers. In 1736/37, settlement had 27 houses. Because of the Austro-Turkish war (1738-1742) and pestilence, number of inhabitants decreased and in 1740 the population of the settlement numbered 18 houses. In 1753, Begej Sveti Đurađ was settled by 1,000 Serb frontiersmen from Pomorišje, Potisje and Veliki Bečkerek, and in the same year it was recorded on map as "Serb-inhabited settlement". In 1758, Begej Sveti Đurađ had 45 houses, and in 1773 it had 182 houses. Church was built in 1758, and it was also used as a school. In 1781, Begej Sveti Đurađ became a property of Isak Kiš, who was a trader of Armenian origin.

In 1800-1805, the settlement was moved to another location closer to the Begej river. Part of the Serb population moved from the settlement and settled in Military Frontier, while German colonists settled in Begej Sveti Đurađ instead of them. Begej Sveti Đurađ was a municipality until 1877, when it was joined to the municipality of Veliki Bečkerek. The last mayor of the municipality was dr. Sebo Čolaković. In 1880, the population of the settlement numbered 3,041 people, of whom 1,983 were Catholics, 1,033 were Orthodox, 19 were Jews, and 6 were others. In accordance with the census made in 1910, the linguistic distribution of the 2,814 inhabitants was the following: 1,454 who spoke German language, 1,034 who spoke Serbian language and 214 who spoke Hungarian language.

In 1931, population of Begej Sveti Đurađ included 1,318 inhabitants who spoke German language, 1,055 who spoke Serbian language, 188 who spoke Hungarian language, 34 who spoke other Slavic languages, and 94 who spoke other languages. In 1940, population of Begej Sveti Đurađ numbered 3,055 people, of whom 1,642 were Orthodox, 1,387 were Catholics, 16 were Jews, and 10 were others.

As a consequence of World War II and Axis occupation, German population left or was evicted from Begej Sveti Đurađ after the war, while 270 Serb families from Bosanska Krajina came to the settlement. In 1947, the name of the settlement was officially changed to Žitište. In 1960, Žitište became a seat of municipality.

[edit] Inhabited places

Žitište municipality includes the town of Žitište and the following villages:

[edit] Demographics (2002 census)

[edit] Ethnic groups in the Žitište municipality

Serbs = 12,628 (61.9%)
Hungarians = 4,017 (19.69%)
Romanians = 1,837 (9%)
Roma = 765 (3.75%)
Yugoslavs = 266 (1.3%)
others.

[edit] Settlements by ethnic majority

Settlements with Serb ethnic majority are: Žitište, Banatsko Višnjićevo, Banatsko Karađorđevo, Međa, Ravni Topolovac, Srpski Itebej, and Čestereg. Settlements with Hungarian ethnic majority are: Novi Itebej, Torda, and Hetin. The settlement with Romanian ethnic majority is Torak (Begejci). Ethnically mixed settlement with relative Serb majority is Banatski Dvor.