Banat Republic
The Banat Republic was a short-lived state proclaimed in Timișoara 31 October 1918, during the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. The Republic claimed as its own the multi-ethnic territory of the Banat, in a bid to prevent its partition among competing nationalisms. Openly endorsed by the local communities of Hungarians, Swabians and Jews, the German-speaking socialist of Jewish origin Otto Roth served as its nominal leader. This project was openly rejected from within by communities of Romanians and Serbs, who were centered in the eastern and western halves of the region, respectively. The short-lived entity was recognized only by the neighboring Hungarian Republic, with which it sought a merger. Its military structures were inherited from the Common Army, and placed under the command of a Hungarian officer, Albert Bartha.
The Republic advocated the establishment of a Swiss cantonal model in Eastern Europe, and favored peaceful cooperation among ethnicities, as alternatives to partition. It had limited control of the country outside of Timișoara: it never held Pančevo, which became the center of Serb self-government, and failed to fully control the Romanian cities of Lugoj and Caransebeș. Before the Hungarian armistice, the Banat was threatened with invasion by the French Danube Army. Roth's government also fought against a surge of peasant rebellions, and, though militarily weak, managed to quell uprisings in Denta, Făget and Cărpiniș.
In late November 1918, the entire region was occupied by the Kingdom of Serbia, which in December became the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, or colloquially Yugoslavia. Roth remained in place as governor, and the Republic continued to have a nominal existence. The following January, the French intervened to prevent a clash between Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Romania. The rump Republic was toppled on 20 February 1919, resulting in significant violence. Roth escaped arrest and fled to Arad, where he was said to be in contact with representatives of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. He continued to propose solutions for Banat's autonomy, including a plan to have the region absorbed into the French colonial empire. In 1920, the Banat was divided between Yugoslavia, Romania, and Regency Hungary.
Banat separatist and federalist schemes continued to be drafted during the early interwar period, being especially popular with Swabians. Before 1921, the idea of an independent Banat was taken up by the Autonomous Swabian Party and by Swabians of French descent; Romanians such as Avram Imbroane and Petru Groza were sympathetic toward minority rights and decentralization, but did not endorse autonomy. As far-left militants, Groza and Roth collaborated with each other throughout the interwar period. Swabian-centered autonomist projects were also taken up by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the creation of a Nazified Banat; liberal Swabians such as Stefan Frecôt opposed this trend, and came to advocate full delimitation between French and German Swabians. After many decades, Romania witnessed a revival of separatist projects in the Banat in the 2010s, where they became associated with regional, rather than ethnic, identities.
Precedents
The Banat is a natural geographical region located on the left bank of the Danube, within the Pannonian plain and along the westernmost slope of the eponymous mountains. It was first organized into territorial units by the Angevin Hungarian Kingdom: the lowlands as counties, and the mountainous areas as a Banate of Severin. The latter coexisted with the somewhat informal jurisdictions of proto-Romanian knyazes and voivodes, some of which were still attested in the 1520s; these were only rarely represented in the "feudalized" Pannonian land. Interwar journalist Cora Irineu proposes that an early instance of "autonomous policy" in the eastern Banat stemmed from a weakness of the Hungarian crown, which had difficulty defending itself against the Ottoman Empire during a long series of incursions. Matthias Corvinus also organized the west into a separate "Captaincy", whose purpose was defend the border against the Turkish advances.From 1552, most areas now regarded as the Banat were absorbed into a single Ottoman administrative unit, named Eyalet of Temeşvar. Before 1568, the east was an autonomous Banate of Lugos, administered by the Transylvanian Principality before most of it was folded back into the Eyalet. Upon emerging victorious in the Great Turkish War, the Habsburg monarchy took over the region. In 1694, Serb settlers in the still-unnamed area obtained an imperial pledge granting them self-government, but this was never put into practice. After the 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz, the region became a Habsburg province called the Banat of Temeswar. Hungarian geographer Sándor Kókai considers it an early predecessor to the Banat, rendering plausible the Republic's claim to territorial and cultural coherence. According to the Serb medievalist Jovan Radonić, it is at this stage that the region acquired its name, as it had "never before been one administrative unit".
This Banat was abolished in 1778, when its components were merged into the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary. In the 1790s, the Serbs became divided between those who pressed for a separate territory and those who, like Sava Tekelija, argued in favor of Josephine centralism. The project of reserving Banat for Serb self-government was ultimately rejected by Leopold II. The status quo was challenged by the rise of Hungarian nationalism and liberalism. In 1834, mountainous eastern Banat hosted a Masonic Lodge which preached republicanism. These ideas were at the forefront of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, which proclaimed independence for the entire Kingdom, maintaining its hold on the Banat. A pro-Hungarian Serb, Petar Čarnojević, was assigned Commissioner in the Banat, tasked with imposing martial law against conservative rebels. In parallel, the concept of a Romanian Banat was being advanced by Romanian radicals. One of these was Eftimie Murgu, who organized a popular assembly in June and proclaimed a "Romanian Captaincy" within revolutionary Hungary. This effort was mainly directed against the Habsburg regime; the Austrians found regional backing from the rival government of "Serbian Vojvodina", which aimed to incorporate the entire Banat.
Between 1849 and 1860, the Banat, together with the Bačka and Syrmia, was part of a new Habsburg–Serb province, the Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar; the shared capital of all these entities was Timișoara. Seen as a "hybrid", this arrangement was not generally welcomed by Romanians. However, a second experiment in Banatian autonomy was carried out after 1850, when the Austrians appointed Čarnojević's Aromanian son-in-law, Andrei Mocioni, as governor over the eastern half of the Voivodeship. This change was largely advantageous for the Romanian population, which controlled the administration, but ended in 1852, when Mocioni resigned over his conflicts with central government. In November 1860, Mocioni organized a popular assembly, reissuing demands for a "Romanian Captaincy", but under Austrian supervision. This action was not supported, and in December the region and the Voivodeship were folded back into the Kingdom of Hungary. The Romanian focus shifted toward forming a separate crown land for the community, unifying the Banat with Transylvania and Bukovina.
The "Captaincy" project was revived in part by a coalition of Serb and Romanian deputies in the Hungarian Diet, including Svetozar Miletić, Vincențiu Babeș, and Sigismund Popoviciu. During 1866, they proposed laws to redefine Hungary on the basis of ethnic federalism and corporatism. However, the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 cemented the Banat's annexation to the Lands of the Hungarian Crown, and kept the region under a unified government. This setback prompted Mocioni to withdraw from politics altogether. Ethnic federalism was again redrawn in the 1900s by Aurel Popovici. However, his project, the "United States of Greater Austria", suggested the Banat's partitioning between a Romanian Transylvania and a rump Hungary, with a special status for Swabian-settled areas.
History
Creation
The Banat issue was revisited during the final stage of World War I, with the collapse of Austro-Hungarian rule: the Aster Revolution toppled the Kingdom, and in mid November 1918 established a Hungarian Republic. In Timișoara, the anti-war protests that began in early October grew in extent and intensity towards the end of the month, with several statues representing Austrian authority toppled by the populace. The Banat state was actually proclaimed during one such popular assembly, on 31 October or 2 November. Lieutenant Colonel Albert Bartha, who was attempting to organize a Hungarian front against the advancing French Danube Army, claims that he created the Republic as a buffer zone; he also records 31 October as the Republic's official birth date. Also that day, the Common Army split into National Committees representing the constituent nationalities. This was done by agreement between German Austria, still represented locally by Baron von Hordt, and the Hungarian National Council, represented by Alispán György Kórossy.Other accounts credit initiative to Otto Roth, a member of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party. As reported by these, Roth, who had already served as Timișoara councilor, met with his party colleagues on 30 October, and afterward approached Bartha. The process also involved local Freemasons, including two members of the Losonczy Lodge—Kálmán Jakobi and István Tőkés. Roth acknowledged that he spoke on that night at the Military Casino, where he did not proclaim the republic, but rather expressed his support for the concept. Instead, he announced that Bartha was in charge of the city's military command, and asked for a People's Council to be formed. Romanian attendees opposed this move: their nominal leader, Aurel Cosma, also spoke on the occasion, and informed the other attendees that he and his peers would form national institutions of their own. Years later, Roth recalled being amazed that no Hungarian present moved to assassinate either him, for being a republican, or Cosma, for being a Romanian nationalist.
The MSZDP local chapter organized the effort to create both the People's Council and subsequent Republican government, beginning with the large rally that had previously been announced in Timișoara's Liberty Square. The participants flew socialist red flags. Eventually, an assembly of local politicians elected Roth "President of the Republic" and made Bartha, who was already head of the Military Council, commander of the Banat's military forces. Accounts converge on noting that the Republic was proclaimed from the balcony of Timișoara City Hall. The rally ended with renditions of Hungary's Himnusz and La Marseillaise.
Also designated as Commissioner-in-Chief, Roth appointed sub-Commissioners in charge of the three traditional counties. Republican officials boasted that, by 4 November, they had already created a new administrative apparatus, as well as setting up a National Guard. The core of government was a 20-member Executive Committee, which proceeded to deal with the issues of supplies and famine. On 3 November, the Republic and its confederation with Hungary earned support from another Swabian popular assembly, whose chief organizer was Kaspar Muth. The state legislature was the same as the People's Council of Timișoara, and included 70 members from the local Civic Party and other "bourgeois parties", 60 from the national military committees, 40 from the Workers' Council, and the entire 20-member Timișoara city council. According to the Romanian author Gheorghe Iancu, in terms of individual affiliation, the Council was dominated by the MSZDP. As reported by Nova Zora newspaper of Vršac, this parliamentary body introduced tax brackets, forcing an individual tax of 400,000 Kronen on highest-income individuals.
Though anti-Habsburg, Hungary's own republican regime, headed by Mihály Károlyi, sought to preserve as much as possible from the older Kingdom's territory, and to resist the advance of competing Romanian and Serb nationalisms within its borders. Although Hungarian troops withdrew from the area, Bartha was recognized as Károlyi's commissioner, and the Banat continued to be represented in Budapest by János Junker. While Roth's proclamation is sometimes rendered as a declaration of independence, Republican officials openly acknowledged that their ultimate plan was to create a federal and democratic Hungary, with units modeled on the Swiss cantons. A specific proposal for a Swabian "national canton" was advanced in December 1918 by Miksa Strobl. Roth's polity is occasionally referred to as "Banat autonomous republic", or as a "limited autonomy within the Magyar state".
Croat scholar Ladislav Heka sees the Republic as resulting from an alliance between Hungarians and Swabians; he also notes that the Bunjevci, a Slavic Catholic community in neighboring Bačka, also preferred Hungarian rule to some extent. Several Romanian and Serb historians agree that Hungarian designs were the main drivers behind the establishment of a Banat Republic, which they see as a proxy for Hungarian rule: "Mihály Károly's government desired a 'Banat autonomous republic' within a Magyar state , earning intense propaganda support from the Timișoara lawyer Otto Roth and from other Magyar, German and Jewish intellectuals." Ion D. Suciu proposes that the republic was a "parody" and a "final diversion" in Károly's attempts to maintain control over the area. According to Ljubivoje Cerović, "the leaders of the Banat Republic aimed primarily at ensuring Hungarian integrity". As noted by researcher Carmen Albert, the "so called 'Banatian republic'" remains a mysterious detail in regional history, but could be regarded as "essentially anti-union", in that it opposed Greater Romania.