Šokci

Šokci (Serbo-Croatian: Šokci / Шокци, pronounced [ʃǒkt͡si], SHOCK-tsee; singular masculine: Šokac / Шокац, feminine: Šokica / Шокица; Hungarian: Sokácok) are a South Slavic ethnic group native to historical regions of Baranya, Bačka, Slavonia, and Syrmia. These regions today span eastern Croatia, southwestern Hungary, and northern Serbia. They primarily self-identify as a subgroup of Croats and therefore they are not considered a separate ethnicity in Croatia and elsewhere.

Šokci are considered to be a native population of Slavonia and Syrmia in Croatia. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics does not record the Šokci as a separate ethnicity. According to the 2022 census in Serbia, 302 people declared as ethnic Šokci. Outside of Slavonia and Syrmia, they live in the settlements of Bački Monoštor, Sonta, Sombor, Bački Breg in the Serbian Bačka, and Hercegszántó in Hungary.

The term Šokac (masculine), Šokica and Šokčica (feminine), is used for the part of Croatian Ikavian speakers native in Slavonia, Baranja, Bačka and Bosnia. The oldest documents are from 1644–1698, 1702 (population of Đakovo Diocese), katolici, Šokci jali Slovinci ... Šokci rehuć Slovinci katolici. According to the contemporary Antun Kanižlić (1699–1766), the term Šokci was a slang reference to Catholic Slavonians that was used by the Orthodox. He also derived it from šljivov sok (plum juice). Petar Skok derived it from Turkish-Persian noun šoh ~ suh ("wicked, shameless, unclean") with suffix "-gin, -kin" ("unclean"). In his unfinished etymological dictionary published in 1973, the editors considered most reasonable the Romanian şoacăţ with primary meaning a mouse, and secondary meaning a mockery for Western Europeans (especially Germans) who dressed in urban fashion, from which derives adjective şoacăfesc (German), abstraction įoacăţie. or from folk etymology šaka ("fist"), from the way they make the sign of the cross which is different from Orthodox's sign with three fingers.

The origin of Šokci people is not completely clear. The prevalent opinion of modern scholars, based on etymology, is that they were Catholics who moved from the south, across the Sava from Bosnia, by the end of the Ottoman wars in Europe, as the Ottomans were retreating. The Šokci in Baranja are considered to be descendants of settlers from a mass migration of Croats from an area near Srebrenica, Bosnia into the region after the Ottoman retreat in the 18th century. However, there's also a theory, based on historical sources, that the Šokci need to be considered as autochthonous Catholic population of Slavonia and Syrmia (i.e. both Slavonian and Bosnian Posavina and Syrmia). The feeling of being indigenous rather than a settler is an important characteristic of the population.