Sombor

Situated in the extreme North-West of Serbia at the beginning of our part of the Danube, Sombor has been a town of culture and at the same time a place surrounded by hunting grounds. Sombor has been a town of green, with the elegant bourgeois facades and of numerous parks where one still may take a walk on coach and listen to the “tamburasi”, the typical cord music, and in the Danube breeze.
 
History

Sombor owes its name to a isle – Cobor out of which the town had been developed in Middle Ages. Before then the place had been an ensemble of 14 isles surrounded by the swamps and the Cobora, a Hungarian feudal family erected there a fortress 1478 because of the advancing the Ottomans. Nevertheless Turks had taken the place in 1541 and two years later had given it the present name.

Under the Ottoman occupation the Serbian population had left the town to get into the cereal raising business while the Hungarian had fled to the North. The town became the main place of the vilayet and had got transformed into a true Ottoman burgh. In 1578 there were: 7 mosques, 300 workshops and the schools teaching the Koran, as well as a lot of hammams. But after the defeat under Vienna 1683 where the Slavs originating from the town faced the weakened Turks and Sombor had been liberated definitely in 1687. Then Sombor had fallen under the suzerainty of Austria-Hungary till 1918 and had known its greatest development. In 1749 the Empress Mary Therese had granted it the status of a free royal town after 150,000 florins had been paid. The town became as soon as 1786 a capital of an Austrian zupanija. This had been the period decorating the town by its main edifices of the Austria-Hungarian style and by the particular bourgeois houses.

TOURIST SITES

The baroque centre of the town

Within a rectangle formed by four boulevards surrounding the ancient fortifications the Austro-Hungarian town had been developed with the baroque buildings.

POLICE (Zupanija). Today the residence of the Municipal Council this ancient police residence counting as many pieces as the number of the days in a year has been known by the greatest picture in Serbia “The Battle of Senta”, the work by Ferenz Eisenhut from 1896 describing the victory against Turks in the plane of Senta 1697 over 28 m2 where. more than 40 000 soldiers had been killed. In the front plan may be seen Prince Eugene of Savoy who had been imprisoning Pasha Kisig Dzafer. This picture is in the ceremony hall, the greatest and the most impressive of all halls of the palace. The dome of the ancient police has been reminding of the dome of the Vienna church of “Santa Maria de la Salute” by which the great Serbian poet Laza Kostic became unforgettable in one of the best poems of his.

MAYORALTY (Gradska Kuca). This is an edifice with a façade very representative of Sombor. It nah been constructed in the place where count Brankovic had erected a palace in 1718., but its present outlook has been from 1842. here could be found a style characteristic of the North of Vojvodina with great windows surrounded by neo-classical columns and over held by the baroque wreaths, everything in the red and white shades. Today in this building there are the local radio and journal.

PREPARANDIJA. Recently proclaimed a cultural monument of the first importance, this building had been the residence of the Orthodox patriarch from 1895. Thereafter it had been a school for formation of teachers.

PALACE KRONIC. One of the most beautiful homes in the town, built in an eclectically style
From the beginning of XX century. Its rich decoration has been showing the importance of its founder Stevan Kronic, a lawyer and a respected person of that period.

Galleries and museums

GALLERY KONJOVIC, Trg Svteog Trojstva 2, Phone: (025) 22 563. Open from Monday through Saturday 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Had been opened in 1966 at the death of this artist originating from Sombor, the Gallery has been exhibiting more than 1060 peaces left behind by Milan Konjovic. The drawings, pastels and aquarelles would admire the lovers of beaux arts.

GALLERY LAZA KOSTIC, a Cultural centre, Trg Laze Kostica 5, Phone: (025) 22 583. Open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 5 to 7 p.m. Within the cultural centre dedicated to Laza Kostic, the temporary very frequent exhibitions, also the concerts and the literary evenings.

GRADSKI MUZEJ (National Museum) Trg Republike 4, Phone: (025) 32 728. Open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Saturday. In a building from 1882, museum concerning archaeology, ethnology, history and even the contemporary arts from 1995. An important numismatic collection, a rather rich library and a museum in honour of the battle at Batinska on the Danube.

Churches

THE CHURCH SVETA TROJSTVA. Constructed 1743, this catholic church had been the place where Sombor had been proclaimed a free imperial town. In XVII century had been here taken the Assemblies of Backa.

THE CHURCH SVETI STEFAN. This catholic church constructed in 1905, the next to first organ in Europe by its greatness. There are also a lot of glass cases and sculptures within it.

THE CHURCH SVETI JOVAN or “Mala crkva”. This orthodox church has got an icon representing the Virgin Mary and often the Serbian migrations from Kosmet after 1690. More than 300,000 Serbs led by the patriarch Arsenije had been compelled to leave by Albanian violence.