Suza
Suza is a village in the Municipality of Kneževi Vinogradi, east of Beli Manaster, neighbouring Zmajevac and Kneževi Vinogradi.
History
The first settlement in Suza was established during the Hungarian Árpád dynasty. The first written record of it dates back to 1252, when King Bela IV bestowed this land on the county prefect of Nan. At the time, the village was called Chuza. The Croatian name is phonetically similar, but its meaning is unrelated to the meaning of the Hungarian name. In the 15th century, the village was a part of the Šikloš estate. During the Ottoman rule, it paid its taxes to the Sanjak of Mohacs, and Péter Perényi was its lord in the 16th century. Between 1698 and 1734, the village belonged to the estate of Eugene of Savoy in Bilje.
The village’s first stamp that has been preserved dates back to 1772, and bears the image of a plough and a bird carrying a giant bunch of grapes in its beak. This symbol indicates that even then the villagers of Suza worked the land, grew grapevine and made wine, much as they do today. In 1780, Empress Maria Theresa bestowed the village on her daughter Christina. When the princess married, the village became the property of the House of Habsburg. The final borders of the village were drawn up between 1855 and 1914, when its surface area expanded from 860 to 1719 acres.
Economy
The villagers have always made their living by working the land and the vineyards. The locals grow wheat, barley, corn, sunflower, and grapevine on the land above Suza, and there are some orchards there too. Suza is increasingly becoming known for tourism and the local restaurants Piroš Čizma and Kovač čarda, as well as for the wide array of superior wines produced by the family wineries Kolar, Kováts, and others.
Population
The village had 681 inhabitants, mostly of Protestant faith, in the first census in 1784. Serfs were set free in Suza in 1852. The village experienced an economic boom in the 19th and early 20th century, when its population grew to an all-time high of 1262 in 1910. Suza’s population continually declined after World War I, and the decline continued in the most recent history, with its number of inhabitants dropping from 792 in 1991 to 427 in 2021.
Social life
In 1862, the villagers invited Gedeon Ács, Lajos Kossuth’s chaplain and a native of Baranja, to become their parish priest. His arrival in Suza marked a turning point in religious and cultural life of the village. Ács was the driver and one of the founders of the City Reading Society in 1880. A number of cultural societies are active in Suza today, including the folk ensembles „Čardaš” and „Jókai Mór”.
Sources
Károly Lábadi: Drávaszögi ábécé, Eszék-Budapest, 1996.
Tünde Šipoš Živić (editor): Dravski trokut nekad i danas, Beli Manastir, 2010.
Website of the Municipality of Kneževi Vinogradi https://knezevi-vinogradi.hr/opcina/naselja/suza/ (accessed 3 November 2022)
Website of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics https://podaci.dzs.hr/hr/podaci/stanovnistvo/popis-stanovnistva/ (accessed 3 November 2022)
