Kovin

Kovin (Ковин, Kevevára) is a town and municipality located in the South Banat District of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. The town has a population of 13,515, while the municipality has 33,722 inhabitants. In Romanian, the town is known as Cuvin, in Hungarian as Kevevára or (until 1899) Temeskubin, and in German as Kubin or Temeschkubin. In the past, the town was also known as Donji Kovin ("Lower Kovin") in contrast to the town with same name in Hungary that was known in Serbian as Gornji Kovin ("Upper Kovin") and in Hungarian as Ráckeve ("the Serb Kovin"). The Dacian tribe of Albocenses dwelled in this area in the second century AD. There are remains of the ancient Roman fortress called Contra Margum, opposite to the Margum, a fortress on the other side of the Danube. In the ninth and tenth centuries, this area was populated by Slavs and Romanians and Voivode Glad ruled over the region. Glad was defeated by the Hungarians, and the area was included into the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. In the 11th century, one of the descendants of Glad, Ahtum, ruled over the region but he, too, was defeated by the Hungarians. The earliest mention of the settlement was in 1071 as Keuee. Kovin is mentioned in the 12th century as a seat of the county, which included most of the western Banat. Since the 14th century, the city has had a large Serb population that escaped there from Serbia under threat by the Ottomans. The Serbian despot Lazar Branković took control over the city in 1457, but in the next year it came again under control of the Kingdom of Hungary. In the 16th century, the city was included in the Ottoman Empire and became a part of the Ottoman Province of Temeşvar. During the Ottoman rule (16th-17th century), Kovin was mostly populated by ethnic Serbs. In 1716, it became part of the Habsburg monarchy and belonged to the Habsburg Banat of Temeswar until 1751 when it became part of the Habsburg Military Frontier (Banat Krajina). In 1848/1849, Kovin was part of the Serbian Voivodship, but in 1849 it was again placed under administration of the Military Frontier.