Open Access

Patrick Lavrits, Simona Olaru-Posiar

• The Banat Swabians represent in the years 1867-1918 one of the most exciting parts of regional history, and we tried to contribute to a more detailed knowledge of the multicultural and cross-cultural and multi-confessional physiognomy of the region Banat. Our research intends to provide more information on the past of this cultural-linguistic and confessional group. Its presence from the eighteenth century in the region between Mures, Tisa and the Danube is correlated with the Habsburg policy of modernization and with the ethnonational identities structured in the romantic era. The study seeks to enrich the history of regional history through a so-called marginal component, which has always played a key role in defining the specifics of a region as the Banat. We focused on the Austro-Hungarian period, highlighting the relevant passages in the life of this important community, namely, its social expression, economic and cultural development. Throughout the paper, our intention was to highlight the active participation of the Swabians at the modernization process. We chose the years 1867-1918 – those that coincide with the existence of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy – because at that time, the Banat Swabians had a spectacular economic development and an ambivalent cultural creation, between German and Hungarian.