Targu Mures
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Template:Titlelacksdiacritics Târgu Mureş (Hungarian: Marosvásárhely; German: Neumarkt am Mieresch) is a city in Mureş county, Transylvania, Romania. An older Romanian spelling of the city is Tîrgu Mureş.
Population
According to the results of the last census of 2002, the municipality of Târgu Mureş has 149,577 inhabitants.
Ethnic composition:
- Romanians – 75,317 (50.53%)
- Hungarians – 69,825 (46.68%)
- Roma – 3,759 (2.51%)
- Germans – 275 (0.18%)
- other ethnic groups – 367.
History
The city was first documented in 1332 in the papal registry under the name Novum Forum Siculorum.
In 1405 the King of Hungary Sigismund of Luxembourg granted the city of Târgu Mureş (by then named Székelyvásárhely, see Székely) the right to organize fairs and in 1482 the King Matthias Corvinus declared the city a royal settlement. It became a municipality in 1616, changing its name to Marosvásárhely, the Hungarian equivalent of Târgu Mureş.
In 1754 Marosvásárhely became home to the supreme court of justice of Transylvania which provided a major boost to the city's social and economic life.
Avram Iancu, the leader of the 1848 Romanian revolution in Transylvania, was a young lawyer in the city of Marosvásárhely before engaging in the fight for the rights of Romanians living in Transylvania.
After World War I, the city of Marosvásárhely, renamed Târgu Mureş, like the rest of Transylvania, become part of Romania. As a consequence it started to have a significant economic success that lasted until World War II. The old provincial appearance changed greatly in this period. The spectacular city hall was built thanks to the economic success of the 1920s.
From 1940 as a consequence of the Second Vienna Award, Targu Mureş was ceded to then-fascist Hungary. The anti-Semitic and anti-Romanian policy promoted by fascist Hungary seriously undermined the economic and demographic potential of the city. It re-entered the Romanian administration at the end of the war in 1944.
After World War II, the communist administration of Romania conducted a policy of massive industrialization that completely re-shaped the community. Târgu Mureş became the center of economic and social life of the region.
In March 1990, shortly after the Romanian Revolution of 1989 overthrew the communist regime, Târgu Mureş was the stage of violent confrontations between ethnic Hungarians and Romanians that were finally ended by the Romanian government. (See Ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureş.) Romanian authorities have been widely criticised for purposefully not taking actions to prevent the ethnic clashes. According to a 1990 report (http://www.hrw.org/reports/1990/WR90/HELSINKI.BOU-02.htm) by Human Rights Watch, "the authorities (...) failed to respond in an adequate manner to protect the citizens of Târgu Mureş".
As of 2000, a considerable percentage of the population of Târgu Mureş has started to work abroad temporarily. The local economy has started to get stronger after various investors settled in the area.
Târgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely) has a substantial Szekler minority. Târgu Mureş was the home of Avram Iancu, Alexandru Papiu Ilarian, Farkas Bolyai, János Bolyai, and Petru Maior.
External links
- Mureş on line (http://www.muresonline.ro) (only in Romanian)
- Târgu Mureş photo gallery (http://sabin.ro/gallery/album280)de:Târgu Mureş