The
Celts founded the first fortress at this
location, which was located on the right
bank of the Danube. During Roman rule,
a larger fortress was built in the 1st
century with the name Cusum and included
in Roman Pannonia. In the 5th century,
Cusum was devastated by the invasion of
the Huns. By the end of the 5th century,
Byzantines had reconstructed the city
and called it by the names Cusum and Petrikon.
The city was then conquered by Ostrogoths,
Gepids, Avars, Franks, Bulgarians, and
by Byzantines again. The city was conquered
by the Kingdom of Hungary (in the 12th
century), by the Ottoman Empire (in the
16th century), and by the Austrian Empire
(in the end of the 17th century). The
city was first mentioned under the name
Petrovaradin (Pétervárad)
in documents from 1237. Petrovaradin was
known under the name Pétervárad
under Hungarian rule, Varadin under Ottoman
rule, and Peterwardein under Austrian
(Habsburg) rule.
Because
Orthodox Serbs were not allowed to live
in Petrovaradin, a new settlement was
founded in 1694 on the left bank of the
Danube. The initial name of this settlement
was Serb City (Ratzen Statt). The settlement
officially gained the name Novi Sad in
1748 when it became a "free royal
city". For much of the 18th and 19th
centuries, Novi Sad was the largest city
populated with ethnic Serbs. It was a
cultural and political centre of the Serb
people, who did not have their own national
state at the time. Because of its cultural
and political influence, Novi Sad became
known as the Serb Athens (Srpska Atina
in Serbian). In 1820 Novi Sad had 20,000
inhabitants, of whom about 2/3 were Serbs.
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