KOVIN

Most researchers agree that this was the site of the fortress known as Contra Margum (Latin: Contra Margum), mentioned in historical records, that stood opposite the castrum Margum (Latin: Margum) on the right bank of the Danube. Written sources also suggest that the fortress was referred to as Castra Augusto Flaviciusa and Constantin, indicating its service to the Emperors Flavius and Constantine.

In the Middle Ages, the Banat region served as a border area of the Kingdom of Hungary—initially against Bulgaria, Byzantium, and Serbia, and later against the Ottoman Empire—resulting in a history intertwined with numerous border conflicts, wars, and campaigns. Consequently, every major settlement was fortified as a castrum or a castellum. During the first period, from the late 10^th to the late 13^th century, county fortresses emerged as military, economic, and religious centres, typically consisting of large-scale wooden-earth fortifications. Four such fortresses were documented in the Banat area, including Kovin. The first mention of Kovin in written sources dates to 1073, as the fortified town of Castrum Keve. By 1153, it appears as a fortress and the main settlement of Kovin County under the name Quewen. This fortress likely fell during the Mongol invasion, when a fraction of the Mongol forces crossed the Danube at this spot. This assumption is supported by evidence of a significant fire dating to the mid-13^th century, after which the settlement was abandoned for an extended period.

The fierce Ottoman-Hungarian conflicts in the Danube region marked the second phase in the development of local military architecture, which spans from the early 14^th to the mid-16^th century. As firearms became increasingly prevalent in these conflicts, there was a need for new types of fortifications, distinct from those of earlier periods in both form and scale, constructed exclusively from durable materials—brick and stone.

Under Hungarian rule, Kovin was the oldest Serbian settlement in Banat. The Serbs settled in Kovin, received privileges from the Hungarian King Sigismund in 1404, and held the town until 1428. Following the fall of Smederevo in 1439, after an attack by the Sultan’s forces on the Serbian Despotate, Turkish troops launched an assault on border settlements on the Banat side of the Danube. The Ottomans’ destruction of the fortress and nearby town led to the first displacement of Serbs northward within Hungary. For a brief period, the fortress was part of the despotate. According to chronicles, Despot Lazar Đurđević captured Kovin in 1457, but Mihály Szilágyi returned it to Hungarian control in March 1458. The same year, the Turks burnt and looted the royal town of Kovin, prompting King Matthias Corvinus to resettle the Serbs from Kovin near the city of Buda.

The fortress of Kovin finally fell under Ottoman rule in 1551, after which it gradually lost its significance. During the Ottoman rule, Kovin served as the seat of a bey within the Timișoara Eyalet. In June 1604, the Hungarian imperial army swept through this area, capturing the fortress of Kovin, defended by 800 Turks. A subsequent record from 1626 indicates that the garrison at Kovin consisted of 1,000 cavalrymen and the same number of infantry.

In the 18^th century, following the Austro-Turkish War of 1737–1739, the Ottoman Empire expanded its northern borders to the Sava and Danube rivers once again. Under the Treaty of Belgrade, Austria kept the Tamiš Banat, including the town of Kovin, but was required to demolish and evacuate all fortresses along the Danube facing the Ottoman Empire. During this period, the Kovin Fortress was destroyed, leaving only its foundations and a few fragments of stone walls that remain today.

The fortress was built on a loess plateau, about 8 to 11 meters above the neighbouring wetlands. It was accessible only via an elevated ridge from the north, which now forms the urban core of the present-day town. The Danube floodplain surrounded the remaining sides of the plateau. Since the stronghold was destroyed in the 18^th century, most of our knowledge about its appearance comes from historical sources. In a 1726 drawing, the Italian Count Marsigli, who mapped the entire Habsburg-Ottoman border as an envoy during the Turkish wars, depicted the design of the fortress from its final construction phase. According to the sketch, the fortress was of Gothic style and comprised two sections separated by a defensive ditch. The northern, more spacious part of the stronghold covered a rectangular area measuring 150 by 130 meters, with its longer axis running northwest to southeast. The entrance to this section of the fortress was at the midpoint of the northern wall, and the remains of these walls can still be traced along the western and northern edges of the plateau.

Parts of an 11^th–12^th-century necropolis, discovered during excavations, were arranged around a masonry structure likely used for sacred purposes. Historical records show that a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary once existed within the fortress, along with a Franciscan monastery established in the mid-14^th century. Today, the site is home to the Stari Grad Hotel and a park featuring a model of the Danube’s course. The southern part of the fortress, which is almost destroyed, had an irregular triangular layout. The foundations of a 15^th-century tower with pilasters and a section of the wall are all that survive. Currently, archaeological work is underway on this tower, while the previous protective and exploratory investigations of the whole fortress were conducted in 1968, 1986, and 2003.

List of References

• “Remains of the Fortress.” Information System of Immovable Cultural Heritage.
• Detelić, Mirjana. Epic Cities – Lexicon. Special Editions 84. Belgrade: Institute for Balkan Studies, SASA, 2007.
• Csemere, Zoltán. Fortresses and Fortifications in Banat from the 10th to the 16th Century. Novi Sad: Department of History, Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, 2016.