Transylvania is a historical region which is located in central Romania. Bound on the east and south by its natural borders, the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended westward to the Apuseni Mountains. The term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also parts of the historical regions of Crișana and Maramureș, and occasionally the Romanian part of Banat.
The earliest known reference to Transylvania appears in a Medieval Latin document in 1075 as ultra silvam, meaning "beyond the forest" (ultra meaning "beyond" or "on the far side of" and the accusative case of sylva (sylvam) "woods, forest"). Transylvania, with an alternative Latin prepositional prefix, means "on the other side of the woods". Hungarian historians claim that the Medieval Latin form Ultrasylvania, later Transsylvania, was a direct translation from the Hungarian form Erdő-elve.[3] That also was used as an alternative name in Germanüberwald (13th–14th centuries) and UkrainianЗалісся (Zalissia).
The German name Siebenbürgen means "seven castles", after the seven (ethnic German) Transylvanian Saxons' cities in the region. This is also the origin of the region's name in many other languages, such as the CroatianSedmogradska, the BulgarianСедмиградско (Sedmigradsko), PolishSiedmiogród and the Ukrainian Семигород (Semyhorod).
The Hungarian form Erdély was first mentioned in the 12th-century Gesta Hungarorum as Erdeuleu (in modern script Erdeüleü) or Erdő-elve. The word Erdő means forest in Hungarian, and the word Elve denotes a region in connection with this, similarly to the Hungarian name for Muntenia (Havas-elve, or land lying ahead of the snow-capped mountains). Erdel, Erdil, Erdelistan, the Turkish equivalents, or the Romanian Ardeal were borrowed from this form as well.
The first known written occurrence of the Romanian name Ardeal appeared in a document in 1432 as Ardeliu. The Romanian Ardeal is derived from the Hungarian Erdély.[4]
Transylvania has been dominated by several different peoples and countries throughout its history. It was once the nucleus of the Kingdom of Dacia (82 BC – 106 AD). In 106 AD the Roman Empire conquered the territory, systematically exploiting its resources. After the Roman legions withdrew in 271 AD, it was overrun by a succession of various tribes, bringing it under the control of the Carpi, Visigoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars and Slavs. From 9th to 11th century Bulgarians ruled Transylvania.[citation needed] It is a subject of dispute whether elements of the mixed Daco–Roman population survived in Transylvania through the Post-classical Era (becoming the ancestors of modern Romanians) or the first Vlachs/Romanians appeared in the area in the 13th century after a northward migration from the Balkan Peninsula.[5][6] There is an ongoing scholarly debate over the ethnicity of Transylvania's population before the Hungarian conquest (see Origin of the Romanians).
The Magyars conquered much of Central Europe at the end of the 9th century. According to Gesta Hungarorum, the Vlach voivode Gelou ruled Transylvania before the Hungarians arrived. The Kingdom of Hungary established partial control over Transylvania in 1003, when king Stephen I, according to legend, defeated the prince named Gyula.[7][8][9][10] Some historians assert Transylvania was settled by Hungarians in several stages between the 10th and 13th centuries,[11][12] while others claim that it was already settled,[13] since the earliest Hungarian artifacts found in the region are dated to the first half of the 10th century.[14]
Between 1003[dubious – discuss] and 1526, Transylvania was a voivodeship in the Kingdom of Hungary, led by a voivode appointed by the King of Hungary.[15][16] After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of János Szapolyai. Later, in 1570, the kingdom transformed into the Principality of Transylvania, which was ruled primarily by Calvinist Hungarian princes. During that time, the ethnic composition of Transylvania transformed from an estimated near equal number[17] of the ethnic groups to a Romanian majority. Vasile Lupu estimates their number already more than one-third of the population of Transylvania in a letter to the sultan around 1650.[18] For most of this period, Transylvania, maintaining its internal autonomy, was under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire.
The Habsburgs acquired the territory shortly after the Battle of Vienna in 1683. In 1687, the rulers of Transylvania recognized the suzerainty of the Habsburg emperor Leopold I, and the region was officially attached to the Habsburg Empire. The Habsburgs acknowledged Principality of Transylvania as one of the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen,[19] but the territory of principality was administratively separated[20][21] from Habsburg Hungary[22][23][24] and subjected to the direct rule of the emperor's governors.[25] In 1699 the Turks legally acknowledged their loss of Transylvania in the Treaty of Karlowitz; however, some anti-Habsburg elements within the principality submitted to the emperor only in the 1711 Peace of Szatmár, and Habsburg control over Principality of Transylvania was consolidated. The Grand Principality of Transylvania was reintroduced 54 years later in 1765.
The Hungarian revolution against the Habsburgs started in 1848. The revolution in the Kingdom of Hungary grew into a war for the total independence from the Habsburg dynasty. Julius Jacob von Haynau, the leader of the Austrian army was appointed plenipotentiary to restore order in Hungary after the conflict. He ordered the execution of The 13 Hungarian Martyrs of Arad and Prime Minister Batthyány was executed the same day in Pest. After a series of serious Austrian defeats in 1849, the empire came close to the brink of collapse. Thus, the new young emperor Franz Joseph I had to call for Russian help in the name of the Holy Alliance. Czar Nicholas I answered, and sent a 200,000 men strong army with 80,000 auxiliary forces. Finally, the joint army of Russian and Austrian forces defeated the Hungarian forces. After the restoration of Habsburg power, Hungary was placed under martial law. Following the Hungarian Army's surrender at Világos (now Șiria, Romania) in 1849, their revolutionary banners were taken to Russia by the Tsarist troops, and were kept there both under the Tsarist and Communist systems (in 1940 the Soviet Union offered the banners to the Horthy government).
Following defeat in World War I, Austria-Hungary disintegrated. Elected representatives of the ethnic Romanians from Transylvania, Banat, Crişana and Maramureş backed by the mobilization of Romanian troops, proclaimed Union with Romania on 1 December 1918. The Proclamation of Union of Alba Iulia was adopted by the Deputies of the Romanians from Transylvania, and supported one month later by the vote of the Deputies of the Saxons from Transylvania.
The national holiday of Romania, the Great Union Day (also called Unification Day[27]) occurring on December 1, celebrates this event. The holiday was established after the Romanian Revolution, and marks the unification not only of Transylvania, but also of the provinces of Banat, Bessarabia and Bukovina with the Romanian Kingdom. These other provinces had all joined with the Kingdom of Romania a few months earlier. In 1920, the Treaty of Trianon established new borders, much of the proclaimed territories became part of Romania. Hungary protested against the new borders, as over 1,600,000 Hungarian people and representing 31.6% of the Transylvanian population [28] were living on the Romanian side of the border, mainly in Székely Land of Eastern Transylvania, and along the newly created border.
After World War I, the multi-ethnic Kingdom of Hungary was split apart by the Treaty of Trianon to form several new nation-states, but Hungary claimed that the new state borders did not follow the real ethnic boundaries. The new Magyar nation-state of Hungary was about a third the size of former Hungary, and millions of ethnic Magyars were to be left outside the Hungarian borders. In August 1940, Hungary gained about 40% of Transylvania - including parts of Maramureș and Crișana - by the Second Vienna Award, with the arbitration of Germany and Italy. This award allowed Romania to keep Southern Transylvania, which was larger and had a potent military industry.
The Transylvanian Plateau, 300 to 500 metres (980–1,640 feet) high, is drained by the Mureș, Someș, Criș, and Olt rivers, as well as other tributaries of the Danube. This core of historical Transylvania roughly corresponds with nine counties of modern Romania. The plateau is almost entirely surrounded by the Eastern, Southern and Romanian Western branches of the Carpathian Mountains. The area includes the Transylvanian Plain. Other areas to the west and north are widely considered part of Transylvania. In common reference, the Western border of Transylvania has come to be identified with the present Romanian-Hungarian border, settled in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, though geographically the two are not identical.
The area of the historical Voivodeship is 55,146 km2 (21,292 sq mi).[29][30]
The regions granted to Romania in 1920 covered 23 counties including nearly 102,200 km2 (39,460 sq mi) (102,787–103,093 km2 in Hungarian sources and 102,200 km2 in contemporary Romanian documents). Nowadays, due to the several administrative reorganisations, the territory covers 16 counties (Romanian: judeţ), with an area of 99,837 km2 (38,547 sq mi), in central and northwest Romania.
Transylvania contains both largely urban counties, such as Brașov and Hunedoara counties, as well as largely rural ones, such as Bistriţa-Năsăud and Sălaj counties.[31]
Since 1998, Romania has been divided into eight development regions, acting as divisions that coordinate and implement socio-economic development at regional level. Six counties (Alba, Brașov, Covasna, Harghita, Mureș and Sibiu) form the Centru development region, other six counties (Bihor, Bistrița-Năsăud, Cluj, Maramureș, Satu Mare, Sălaj) form the Nord-Vest development region, while four (Arad, Caraș-Severin, Hunedoara, Timiș) form the Vest development region.
Cluj-Napoca, commonly known as Cluj, is the second most populous city in Romania, after the national capital Bucharest, and the seat of Cluj County. From 1790 to 1848 and from 1861 to 1867, it was the official capital of the Grand Principality of Transylvania. Brașov is an important tourist destination, being the largest city in a mountain resorts area, and a
central location, suitable for exploring Romania, with the distances to several tourist destinations (including the Black Sea resorts, the monasteries in northern Moldavia, and the wooden churches of Maramureș) being similar.
Official censuses with information on Transylvania's population have been conducted since the 18th century. On May 1, 1784 the Emperor Joseph II called for the first official census of the Habsburg Empire, including Transylvania. The data was published in 1787, and this census showed only the overall population (1,440,986 inhabitants).[35]Fényes Elek, a 19th-century Hungarian statistician, estimated in 1842 that in the population of Transylvania for the years 1830-1840 the majority were 62.3% Romanians and 23.3% Hungarians.[36]
In the last quarter of the 19th century, the Hungarian population of Transylvania increased from 24.9% in 1869 to 31.6%, as indicated in the 1910 Hungarian census (the majority of the Jewish population reported Hungarian as their primary language, so they were also counted as ethnically Hungarian in the 1910 census). At the same time, the percentage of Romanian population decreased from 59.0% to 53.8% and the percentage of German population decreased from 11.9% to 10.7%, for a total population of 5,262,495. Magyarization policies greatly contributed to this shift.[37]
The percentage of Romanian majority has significantly increased since the declaration of the union of Transylvania with Romania after World War I in 1918. The proportion of Hungarians in Transylvania was in steep decline as more of the region's inhabitants moved into urban areas, where the pressure to assimilate and Romanianize was greater.[38] The expropriation of the estates of Magyar magnates, the distribution of the lands to the Romanian peasants, and the policy of cultural Romanianization that followed the Treaty of Trianon were major causes of friction between Hungary and Romania.[39] Other factors include the emigration of non-Romanian peoples, assimilation and internal migration within Romania (estimates show that between 1945 and 1977, some 630,000 people moved from the Old Kingdom to Transylvania, and 280,000 from Transylvania to the Old Kingdom, most notably to Bucharest).[40]
According to the results of the 2011 Population Census, the total population of Transylvania was 6,789,250 inhabitants and the ethnic groups were: Romanians - 70.62%, Hungarians - 17.92%, Roma - 3.99%, Ukrainians - 0.63%, Germans - 0.49%, other - 0.77%. Some 378,298 inhabitants (5.58%) have not declared their ethnicity. The presented data are from http://www.recensamantromania.ro/rezultate-2, the Table no. 7. The ethnic Hungarian population of Transylvania form a majority in the counties of Covasna (73.6%) and Harghita (84.8%). The Hungarians are also numerous in the following counties: Mureș (37.8%), Satu Mare (34.5%), Bihor (25.2%) and Sălaj (23.2%).
There are large iron and steel, chemical, and textile industries. Stock raising, agriculture, wine production and fruit growing are important occupations. Agriculture is widespread in the Transylvanian Plateau, including growing cereals, vegetables, viticulture and breeding cattle, sheep, swine, and poultry. Timber is another valuable resource.
The Jiu Valley, located in the south of Hunedoara County, has been a major mining area throughout the second half of the 19th century and the 20th century, but many mines were closed down in the years following the collapse of the communist regime, forcing the region to diversify its economy.
Notable writers such as Emil Cioran, Lucian Blaga, George Coșbuc, Octavian Goga and Liviu Rebreanu were born in Transylvania. The latter wrote the novel Ion, which introduces the reader to a depiction of the life of the peasants and intellectuals of Transylvania at the turn of the 20th century.
Transylvania has a very rich and unique religious history from the other regions of Europe. Since the Protestant Reformation, different Christian denominations have been coexisting in this religious melting pot, including Romanian Orthodox, Romanian Greek Catholic, other Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and Unitarian branches. Other faiths also are present, including Jews and Muslims. Under the Habsburgs, Transylvania served as a place for "religious undesirables". People who arrived in Transylvania included those that did not conform to the Catholic Church and were sent here forcibly, as well as many religious refugees. Transylvania has a long history of religious tolerance. This has been ensured by its religious pluralism. Christianity is the largest religion in Transylvania. Transylvania has also been (and still is) a center for Christian denominations other than Eastern Orthodoxy, the form of Christianity that most Romanians follow. As such, there are significant numbers of inhabitants of Transylvania that follow Roman Catholicism, Greek Catholicism and Protestantism.[43]
Nowadays, there is a very small number of Muslims (Islam) and Jews (Judaism), but back in 1930, with 191,877 inhabitants, Jews represented 3.46% of Transylvania's population.[44]
Atheists, agnostics and unaffiliated account for 0.27% of Transylvania's population.
The first heraldic representations of Transylvania date from the 16th century. One of the predominant early symbols of Transylvania was the coat of arms of Sibiu city. In 1596 Levinus Hulsius created a coat of arms for the imperial province of Transylvania, consisting of a shield party per fess, with a rising eagle in the upper field and seven hills with towers on top in the lower field. He published it in his work "Chronologia", issued in Nuremberg the same year. The seal from 1597 of Sigismund Báthory, prince of Transylvania, reproduced the new coat of arms with some slight changes: in the upper field the eagle was flanked by a sun and a moon and in the lower field the hills were replaced by simple towers.[52]
Over the hills there were two rampant lions affronts, supporting the trunk of a tree, as a symbol of the reunited Dacian Kingdom.[53]
The Diet of 1659 codified the representation of the privileged nations in Transylvania's coat of arms. It depicted a black turul on a blue background, representing the Hungarian nobility,[54] a Sun and the Moon representing the Székelys, and seven red towers on a yellow background representing the seven fortified cities of the Transylvanian Saxons. The red dividing band was originally not part of the coat of arms.
Following the publication of Emily Gerard's The Land Beyond the Forest (1888), Bram Stoker wrote his gothic horror novel Dracula in 1897, using Transylvania as a setting. With its success, Transylvania became associated in the English-speaking world with vampires. Since then it has been represented in fiction and literature as a land of mystery and magic. For example, in Paulo Coelho's novel The Witch of Portobello, the main character, Sherine Khalil, is described as a Transylvanian orphan with a Romani mother, in an effort to add to the character's exotic mystique.[citation needed] The so-called Transylvanian trilogy of historical novels by Miklos Banffy, The Writing on the Wall, is an extended treatment of the 19th- and early 20th-century social and political history of the country. Among the first actors to portray Draculain film was Bela Lugosi, who was born in Banat, in present-day Romania.
^Engel, Pál (2001). Realm of St. Stephen: History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526 (International Library of Historical Studies), page 24, London: I.B. Taurus. ISBN1-86064-061-3
^Pascu, Ștefan (1972). "Voievodatul Transilvaniei". I: 22.
^István Lázár: Transylvania, a Short History, Simon Publications, Safety Harbor, Florida, 1996
+
It was the nucleus of the Kingdom of Dacia (82 BC – 106 AD). In 106 AD the Roman Empire conquered the territory, systematically exploiting its resources. After the Roman legions withdrew in 271 AD, it was overrun by a succession of various tribes, bringing it under the control of the Carpi, Visigoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars, and Slavs.
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[1]
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Martyn C. Rady: Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Antony Grove Ltd, Great Britain, 2000
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[2]
^Gyula - it is possible that during the 10th century some of the holders of the title of gyula also used Gyula as a personal name, but the issue has been confused because the chronicler of one of the most important primary sources (the Gesta Hungarorum) has been shown to have used titles or even names of places as personal names in some cases.
^Madgearu, Alexandru (2001). Românii în opera Notarului Anonim. Cluj-Napoca: Centrul de Studii Transilvane, Fundația Culturală Română. ISBN973-577-249-3.
^"Stephen I". Encyclopedia of World Biography. 14: 427–428. 2004 – via Gale Virtual Reference Library.
^Antonius Wrancius: Expeditionis Solymani in Moldaviam et Transsylvaniam libri duo. De situ Transsylvaniae, Moldaviae et Transalpinae liber tertius.
^Sándor Szilágyi: Erdély és az északkeleti háború. Levelek és okiratok Bp. 1890 I. 246-247, 255-256 - Sándor Szilágyi: Transylvania and the northeastern war. Letters and documents Bp. 1890 p. 246-247, 255-256
^Elek Fényes, Magyarország statistikája, Vol. 1, Trattner-Károlyi, Pest. VII, 1842
^Seton-Watson, Robert William (1933). "The Problem of Treaty Revision and the Hungarian Frontiers". International Affairs. 12 (4): 481–503. doi:10.2307/2603603. JSTOR2603603.
^"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-01-21.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
^"Cultura". 2007-12-31. Archived from the original on December 31, 2007. Retrieved 2016-05-08.CS1 maint: Unfit url (link)
^Earl A. Pope, "Protestantism in Romania", in Sabrina Petra Ramet (ed.), Protestantism and Politics in Eastern Europe and Russia: The Communist and Postcommunist Eras, Duke University Press, Durham, 1992, p.158-160. ISBN0-8223-1241-7
András Bereznay, Erdély történetének atlasza (Historical Atlas of Transylvania), with text and 102 map plates, the first ever historical atlas of Transylvania (Méry Ratio, 2011; ISBN978-80-89286-45-4)
Mureș County is a county (județ) of Romania, in the historical region of Transylvania, with the administrative centre in Târgu Mureș. The county was established in 1968, after the administrative reorganization that re-introduced the historical judeţ (county) system, still used today. This reform eliminated the previous Mureș-Magyar Autonomous Region, which had been created in 1952 within the People's Republic of Romania. Mureș county has a vibrant multicultural fabric that includes Hungarian-speaking Székelys and Transylvanian Saxons, with a rich heritage of fortified churches and towns.
Aiud
Aiud is a municipality located in Alba county, Transylvania, Romania. The city's population is 22,876. It has the status of municipality and is the second-largest city in the county, after county seat Alba Iulia. The city derives its name ultimately from St. Giles (Aegidius), to whom the first church in the settlement was dedicated when built.
Crișana
Crișana is a geographical and historical region in north-western Romania, named after the Criș (Körös) River and its three tributaries: the Crișul Alb, Crișul Negru, and Crișul Repede. In Romania, the term is sometimes extended to included areas beyond the border, in Hungary; in this interpretation, the region is bounded to the east by the Apuseni Mountains, to the south by the Mureș River, to the north by the Someș River, and to the west by the Tisza River, the Romanian-Hungarian border cutting it in two. However, in Hungary, the area between the Tisza River and the Romanian border is usually known as Tiszántúl.
Târgu Mureș
Târgu Mureș is the seat of Mureș County in the north-central part of Romania. It is the 16th largest Romanian city, with 134,290 inhabitants as of the 2011 census. It lies on the Mureș river, the second longest river in Romania.
Alba Iulia
Alba Iulia is the seat of Alba County in the west-central part of Romania. Located on the Mureș River in the historical region of Transylvania, it has a population of 63,536.
Tourism in Romania
According to National Tourism Statistics 15.7 million domestic and foreign tourists stayed in overnight accommodations in 2018. Of these 2.2 million are recorded as foreign tourists.
Transylvanian Saxons
The Transylvanian Saxons are a people of German ethnicity who were settled in Transylvania in waves starting from the mid-12th century until the late Modern Age.
Sebeș
Sebeș is a municipality in Alba County, central Romania, southern Transylvania.
Minorities of Romania
About 10.5% of Romania's population is represented by minorities. The principal minorities in Romania are Hungarians and Romani people, with a declining German population and smaller numbers of Poles in Bukovina, Serbs, Croats, Slovaks and Banat Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Jews, Turks and Tatars, Armenians, Russians, Afro-Romanians and others.
Armorial of Romania
The Romanian government is the armiger in Romania. It exercises this right under the mandatory advice of the National Committee of Heraldry, Genealogy and Sigillography. The committee is subordinate to the Romanian Academy. All the coats of arms of Romanian institutions must be approved by this committee with two exceptions. The Romanian military is subject to the Ministry of National Defense Heraldric Committee, and Romanian law enforcement institutions are subject to the Ministry of Administration and Interior Heraldric Committee. Both of these committees may share members with the National Committee of Heraldry, Genealogy and Sigillography.
Union of Transylvania with Romania
The Union of Transylvania with Romania was declared on 1 December 1918 by the assembly of the delegates of ethnic Romanians held in Alba Iulia. The Great Union Day, celebrated on 1 December, is a national holiday in Romania that commemorates this event. The holiday was established after the Romanian Revolution, and commemorates the unification not only of Transylvania, but also of Bessarabia and Bukovina and parts of Banat, Crișana and Maramureș with the Romanian Kingdom. Bessarabia and Bukovina had joined with the Kingdom of Romania earlier in 1918.
History of Maramureș
Maramureș is a historical region in the north of Transylvania, along the upper Tisa River. The territory of the southern part of this region is now in the Maramureș County in northern Romania, whereas its northern section is included in the Zakarpattia Oblast of western Ukraine.
Reformed Church in Romania
The Reformed Church in Romania is the organization of the Calvinist church in Romania.
The majority of its followers are of Hungarian ethnicity and Hungarian is the main church language. The large majority of the Church's parishes are in Transylvania; according to the 2002 census, 701,077 people or 3.15% of the total population belong to the Reformed Church. About 95% of the members were of Hungarian ethnicity.
The Hungarian minority of Romania is the largest ethnic minority in Romania, consisting of 1,227,623 people and making up 6.1% of the total population, according to the 2011 census.
Alba County
Alba County is a county (județ) of Romania, in Transylvania, its capital city being Alba-Iulia with a population of 63,536.
Transylvanian Reformed Church District
The Transylvanian Reformed Church District is a moderately conservative Reformed, Calvinist church in Romania; its seat is in Cluj-Napoca. Alongside the Királyhágómellék Reformed Church District, it forms the Reformed Church in Romania.
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