Transylvania
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Transylvania (Romanian: Transilvania or Ardeal, Hungarian: Erdély, German: Siebenbürgen, Serbian: Transilvanija, Turkish: Erdel, Slovak: Sedmohradsko or Transylvánia, Polish: Siedmiogród) is a historic region that forms the western and central parts of Romania.
Geography
Transylvania comprises the regions of Maramureş, Banat, Crişana and Ardeal (proper Transylvania). Constituting the center and western parts of Romania, it borders Ukraine in the north, Hungary in the west, and Serbia in the southwest. A high plateau inside the Carpathian mountain ranges, Transylvania's relief reaches towards the Pannonian plain.
The Transylvanian plateau, 300 to 500 metres (1,000-1,600 feet) high, is drained by the Mureş river, the Someş river, Criş rivers, Olt river and other tributaries of the Danube. Cluj-Napoca is the chief city; other major urban centers are Timişoara, Braşov, Oradea, Sibiu and Târgu-Mureş.
Economy
Economically one of the most advanced regions of Romania, Transylvania is rich in mineral resources, notably lignite, iron, lead, manganese, gold, copper, natural gas, salt, and sulfur. There are large iron and steel, chemical, and textile industries. Stock raising, agriculture, wine production, and fruit growing are important occupations. Timber is another valuable resource.
Transylvania accounts for around 35% of Romania's GDP, and has a GDP per capita (PPP) of around $8,500, around 7.5% higher than the Romanian average.
Population
According to the census in 2002, the province has a population of 7,221,733 persons, with a large Romanian majority. In addition, sizable Hungarian (1,415,718), Roma and German communities live in Transylvania.
Etymology
Main article: Etymology of Transylvania
Transylvania was first referred to in a Latin document in 1075 as "Ultra siluam," meaning "beyond the forest." That name was later changed to "Transylvania," which has the same meaning.
The German name Siebenbürgen means "seven cities", after the Transylvanian Saxons' cities in this region. The Romanian name Ardeal and the Hungarian name Erdély are of uncertain origins. (see Etymology of Transylvania)
History
Ancient History: Transylvania as the heartland of the Dacian state
Herodotus gives an account of the Agathyrsi, who lived in Transylvania during the 5th century BC.
A kingdom of Dacia was in existence at least as early as the beginning of the 2nd century BC under a king, Oroles. Under Burebista (Boerebista), the greatest king of Dacia and a contemporary of Julius Caesar, the Dacian kingdom reached its maximum extent. The area now constituting Transylvania was the political center of Dacia.
The Dacians are often mentioned under Augustus, according to whom they were compelled to recognize Roman supremacy. However they were by no means subdued, and in later times seized every opportunity of crossing the frozen Danube during winter and ravaging the Roman cities in the recently acquired Roman province Moesia.
The Dacians built several important fortified cities, among them Sarmizegetusa, near today's Hunedoara.
The Roman Empire expansion in the Balkans brought the Dacians into open conflict with Rome. During the reign of Decebalus, the Dacians were engaged in several wars with the Romans (from 85 to 89). After two severe reverses, the Romans gained an advantage, but were obliged to make peace owing to the defeat of Domitian by the Marcomanni. As a result, the Dacians were left independent, as shown by the Roman emperor's agreeing to pay an annual tribute to the Dacians.
In 101-102 Trajan began a military campaign (Dacian Wars) against the Dacians which included the siege of the Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa and the occupation of part of the country. Decebalus was left as a client king under a Roman protectorate. Three years later, the Dacians rebelled and destroyed the Roman troops in Dacia. The second campaign (105-106) ended with the suicide of Decebalus and the conversion of parts of Dacia into the Roman province Dacia Trajana. The history of the Dacian Wars is given in Dio Cassius, but the best commentary upon it is the famous Column of Trajan in Rome.
Early Middle Ages: From Dacia to the Great Migrations
The Romans exploited the gold mines in the province extensively, building access roads and forts to protect them, like Abrud. Colonists from Thracia, Moesia, Macedonia, Gaul, Syria, and other Roman provinces were brought in to settle the land, developing cities like Apulum (now Alba Iulia) and Napoca (now Cluj Napoca) into municipiums and colonias.
The Dacians rebelled frequently, with the biggest rebellion occurring at the death of Trajan. Sarmatians and Burs were allowed to settle inside Dacia Trajana after repeated clashes with the roman administration. During the 3rd century increasing pressure from the free Dacians (Carpians) and Visigoths forced the Romans to abandon exposed Dacia Trajana.
In 271, the Roman emperor Aurelian evacuated the imperial administration and reorganised a new Dacia Aureliana inside former Moesia Superior. The former Dacia Trajana province was controlled by the Visigoths and Carpians until they were in turn displaced and subdued by the Huns in 376. The Huns, under the leadership of Attila, established a base in the Pannonian plain which lasted until Attila's death in 453.
After the disintegration of Attila's empire, the territory of Transylvania was controlled by the remnants of various confederates (Alans, Longobards, Rukhs-As) of Attila's Huns, and the Gepids. No major power was able to exert control over the region for any great length of time, until the Eurasian Avars from Scythia established their military leadership. The Avar Khanate was, however, crushed by the Bulgars under Khan Krum at the beginning of the 9th century and Transylvania, along with eastern Pannonia, was incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire.
According to Gesta Hungarorum, a chronicle dating from 12th century, the states of Gelou - ruler of the Vlachs (Romanians) in Ardeal (Transylvania proper), Glad in Banat, and Menumorut in Byhor (Bihor and Bihar counties), were defeated by the Magyars in Transylvania during the 10th century. Gesta Hungarorum and De Administrando Imperio also speak of three rulers called Geula/Gyyla/Gylas in Transylvania. (see Gyula article). The existence of these leaders is a subject of debate between various historians.
In 978 Vatican missionaries established a church in a fort at the site of the present-day city of Oradea (Nagyvárad).
The history of Transylvania during the early Middle Ages is difficult to ascertain due to the scarcity of reliable written or archeological evidence. There are two major conflicting theories concerning whether or not the Romanized Dacian population (the ancestors of the Romanians) continued to live in Transylvania after the withdrawal of the Romans, and therefore whether or not the Romanians were present in Transylvania at the time of the Great Migrations, particularly at the time of the Hungarian conquest; see: Origin of Romanians. These conflicting hypotheses are often used to back competing nationalistic claims by Hungarian and Romanian chauvinists.
Late Middle Ages: Transylvania as part of the Kingdom of Hungary
In 1000 Stephen, prince of Hungary, swore allegiance to Rome, and became King Stephen I of Hungary, adopting Catholicism and bringing about the Christianization of the Magyars. Stephen's maternal uncle Gyula, the ruler of Transylvania, antagonised the new king by giving refuge to his opponents. Gyula also maintained control of the economically important Transylvanian salt mines. In 1003, Stephen led an army into Transylvania and Gyula surrendered without a fight. This made possible the organisation of the Transylvanian Catholic episcopacy which was finished in 1009 when the bishop of Ostia as the legate of the Pope paid a visit to Stephen; together they approved the division of the dioceses and their boundaries. The authority of the Kings of Hungary over Transylvania was consolidated in the 11th and 12th centuries.
In the 12th and 13th centuries, the areas in the south and northeast were settled by German colonists called (then and now) Saxons. Siebenbürgen, the German name for Transylvania, derives from the seven principal fortified towns founded by these Transylvanian Saxons. The German influence became more marked when, early in the 13th century, King Andrew II of Hungary called on the Teutonic Knights to protect Transylvania in the Burzenland from the Cumans, who were followed in 1241 by the Mongols. The Cumans converted to Catholicism, and, after they were defeated by the Mongols, looked for refuge in Transylvania; Erzsebet, a Cumanian princess, married Stephen V of Hungary in 1254.
The administration of Transylvania was in the hands of a voivod, who by the mid-13th century controlled the whole region.
During the 14th century the Romanian voivodes Dragos and Bogdan from Maramures established the principality of Moldavia.
After the suppression of the Bobâlna peasant revolt in 1437, the political system was based on Unio Trium Natiorum (The Unity of the Three Nations). Society was divided into three privileged nations, the nobility (mostly Magyars), the Szeklers, and the Saxon burghers. These nations, however, corresponded more to social and religious rather than ethnic divisions. The Romanians were Orthodox, having the right to own land or access to nobility only through conversion to Catholicism, thus they were only tolerated by this system. Although the class of serfs consisted mostly of Romanians, it also included people of Saxon, Szekler, and Hungarian origin. On the other hand, a few Romanians succeeded in entering the ranks of the nobility after converting to Catholicism.
A key figure to emerge in Transylvania in the first half of the 15th century was John Hunyadi, who was of Romanian and Hungarian origin. Hunyadi was awarded numerous estates and a seat in the royal council for his services to Sigismund, King of Hungary and Holy Roman Emperor. After supporting the candidature of Ladislaus III of Poland to the throne of Hungary, he was rewarded in 1440 with the captaincy of the fortress of Belgrade (Nándorfehérvár) and the voivodship of Transylvania. His subsequent military exploits against the Ottoman Turks brought him further status as the governor of Hungary in 1446 and papal recognition as the Prince of Transylvania in 1448. John Hunyadi was also the father of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.
Transylvania as an independent principality
When the main Hungarian army and King Louis II Jagiello were slain by the Ottomans in the Battle of Mohács (1526), John Zapolya, governor of Transylvania, took advantage of his military strength and put himself at the head of the nationalist Hungarian party, which opposed the succession of Ferdinand of Austria (later Emperor Ferdinand I) to the Hungarian throne. As John I he was elected king of Hungary, while another party recognized Ferdinand. In the ensuing struggle Zapolya received the support of Sultan Suleiman I, who after Zapolya's death in 1540 overran central Hungary on the pretext of protecting Zapolya's son, John II. Hungary was now divided into three sections: West Hungary, under Austrian rule; central Hungary, under Turkish rule; and semi-independent Transylvania, where Austrian and Turkish influences vied for supremacy for nearly two centuries.
Transylvania was now beyond the reach of Catholic religious authority, allowing Lutheran and Calvinist preaching to flourish. In 1563, Giorgio Blandrata was appointed as court physician, and his radical religious ideas increasingly influenced both the young king John II and the Calvinist bishop Francis David, eventually converting both to the Anti-Trinitarian (Unitarian) creed. In a formal public disputation, Francis David prevailed over the Calvinist Peter Melius; resulting in 1568 in the formal adoption of individual freedom of religious expression under the Edict of Turda (the first such legal guarantee of religious freedom in Christian Europe).
The Báthory family, which came to power on the death of John II in 1571, ruled Transylvania as princes under the Ottomans, and briefly under Hapsburg suzerainty, until 1602. The younger Stephen Báthory, a Hungarian Catholic who later became King Stephen Bathory of Poland, undertook to maintain the religious liberty granted by the Edict of Turda, but interpreted this obligation in an increasingly restricted sense. The latter period of Báthory rule saw a four-sided conflict in Transylvania involving the Transylvanians, the Austrians, the Ottomans, and the voivod of Wallachia, Prince Michael the Brave (Mihai Viteazul in Romanian).
Michael gained control of Transylvania in 1599 after the Battle of Şelimbăr in which he defeated Andrew Báthory's army. In May 1600 he also gained control of Moldavia, uniting for the first time the three principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, which were all largely inhabited by Romanians by this time. The union did not last long, as Michael was assassinated by Walloon mercenaries under the command of the Habsburg General Giorgio Basta in August 1601. The latter finally subdued Transylvania in 1604 and initiated a reign of terror in which he was authorised to appropriate the land of noblemen, Germanize the population, and reclaim the principality for Catholicism through the Counter Reformation.
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From 1604-1606, the Calvinist magnate of Bihar county Stephen Bocskai led a successful rebellion against Austrian rule. Bocskai was elected Prince of Transylvania on 5 April 1603 and prince of Hungary two months later. The two main achievements of Bocskai's brief reign (he died 29 December, 1606) were the Peace of Vienna (June 23, 1606), and the Truce of Zsitvatorok (November 1606). By the Peace of Vienna, Bocskai obtained religious liberty and political autonomy, the restoration of all confiscated estates, the repeal of all "unrighteous" judgments, and a complete retroactive amnesty for all Hungarians in Royal Hungary, as well as his own recognition as independent sovereign prince of an enlarged Transylvania. Almost equally important was the twenty years Truce of Zsitvatorok, negotiated by Bocskai between the emperor and the sultan.
Under Bocskai's successors Transylvania had its golden age, especially under the reigns of Gabriel Bethlen and George I Rákóczi. Gabriel Bethlen, who reigned from 1613 to 1629, perpetually thwarted all efforts of the emperor to oppress or circumvent his subjects, and won reputation abroad by championing the Protestant cause. Three times he waged war on the emperor, twice he was proclaimed King of Hungary, and by the Peace of Nikolsburg (December 31, 1621) he obtained for the Protestants a confirmation of the Treaty of Vienna, and for himself seven additional counties in northern Hungary. Bethlen's successor, George I Rákóczi, was equally successful. His principal achievement was the Peace of Linz (September 16, 1645), the last political triumph of Hungarian Protestantism, in which the emperor was forced to confirm again the articles of the Peace of Vienna. Gabriel Bethlen and George I Rákóczi also did much for education and culture, and their era has justly been called the golden era of Transylvania. They lavished money on the embellishment of their capital, Alba Iulia (Gyulafehervár, Weißenburg), which became the main bulwark of Protestantism in Eastern Europe. During their reign Transylvania was also one of the few European countries where Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, and Unitarians lived in mutual tolerance. Orthodox Romanians, however, were denied equal rights. Despite the efforts of Inochentie Micu-Klein, a Romanian Greek Catholic bishop, the nation status promised to those Romanians who converted to Catholicism was also not granted.
Austrian Rule and the Austro-Hungarian Empire
After the defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs gradually began to impose their rule on the formerly autonomous Transylvania. Apart from strengthening the central government and administration, the Habsburgs also promoted the Roman Catholic Church, both as a uniting force and also as an instrument to reduce the influence of the Protestant nobility. By creating a conflict between Protestant and Catholic elements, the Habsburgs hoped to weaken the estates. In addition, they tried to persuade Orthodox clergymen to join the Uniate (Greek Catholic) Church, which accepted four key points of Catholic doctrine and acknowledged papal authority, while still retaining Orthodox rituals and traditions. In 1699 and 1701, Emperor Leopold I decreed Transylvania's Orthodox Church to be one with the Roman Catholic Church. Many, but not all, priests converted, although it was not clear to them what the difference was between the two denominations.
From 1711 onward, Austrian control over Transylvania was consolidated, and the princes of Transylvania were replaced with Austrian governors. The proclamation (1765) of Transylvania as a grand principality was a mere formality. The pressure of Austrian bureaucratic rule gradually eroded the traditional independence of Transylvania. In 1791 the Romanians petitioned Emperor Leopold II for recognition as the fourth "nation" of Transylvania and for religious equality, but the Transylvanian Diet rejected their demands, restoring the Romanians to their old status.
In early 1848, the Hungarian Diet seized the opportunity presented by the revolution to enact a comprehensive legislative program of reforms, referred to as the April Laws, which also included provision for the union of Transylvania and Hungary. The Romanians of Transylvania initially welcomed the revolution believing that they would benefit from the liberal reforms. However, their position changed due to the opposition of Transylvanian nobles to reforms such as emancipation of the serfs, and the failure of the Hungarian revolutionary leaders to recognise Romanian national interests. A Romanian national assembly at Blaj (Balázsfalva) in the middle of May, produced its own revolutionary program calling for proportionate representation of Romanians in the Transylvanian Diet and an end to ethnic oppression. The Saxons were worried from the start about the idea of union with Hungary, fearing the loss of their traditional privileges. When the Transylvanian Diet met on 29 May the vote for union was pushed through despite the objection of many Saxon deputies. On June 10, the Emperor sanctioned the union vote of the Diet. Military executions, the arrest of revolutionary leaders and other activities which followed the union hardened the position of the Saxons. In September 1848, another Romanian assembly in Blaj denounced union with Hungary and called for an armed rising in Transylvania. Warfare erupted in November with both Romanian and Saxon troops, under Austrian command, battling the Hungarians led by the Polish general Józef Bem. Within four months, Bem had ousted the Austrians from Transylvania. However, in June 1849, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia responded to an appeal from Emperor Franz Joseph to send Russian troops into Transylvania. After initial successes against the Russians, Bem's army was defeated decisively at the Battle of Timişoara (Temesvár) on 9 August. The surrender of the Hungarians followed.
After quashing the revolution, Austria imposed a repressive regime on Hungary and ruled Transylvania directly through a military governor, with German again becoming the official language. Austria abolished the Union of Three Nations and granted citizenship to the Romanians. Although the former serfs were given land by the Austrian authorities, it was often barely sufficient for subsistence living. Their poor conditions obliged many Romanian families to cross into Wallachia and Moldavia searching for better lives. However, in the compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867, which established the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the special status of Transylvania ended and it became a province under Hungarian control.
Transylvania as part of Romania
Although King Ferdinand I of Romania was a Hohenzollern, Romania refused to join the Central Powers and stayed neutral when the First World War began. In 1916 Romania joined the Triple Entente by signing the Military Convention with the Entente, which recognised Romania's rights over Transylvania. As a consequence of the Convention, Romania declared war against the Central Powers on 27 August 1916, and crossed the Carpathians into Transylvania, thus forcing the Central Powers to fight on yet another front. A German-Bulgarian counter-offensive began the following month in Dobrudja and in the Carpathians, driving the Romanian army back into Romania by mid-October and eventually leading to the capture of Bucharest. The exit of Russia from the war in March 1918 in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk left Romania alone in Eastern Europe, and a peace treaty between Romania and Germany was negociated in May 1918. However, the resulting Treaty of Bucharest, never ratified in Romania, was denounced in October 1918 by the Romanian government, which then re-entered the war on the Allied side. The Romanian Army advanced to the Mureş River in Transylvania.
By mid-1918 the Central Powers were losing the war, and the Austro-Hungarian empire had begun to disintegrate. The nations living inside Austria-Hungary proclaimed their independence from the empire during September and October 1918. The leaders of Transylvania's National Party met and drafted a resolution invoking the right of self-determination (Woodrow Wilson's 14 points) of Transylvania's Romanian people, and proclaimed the unification of Transylvania with Romania. In November, the Romanian National Central Council, which represented all the Romanians of Transylvania, notified the Budapest government that it had assumed control of twenty-three Transylvanian counties and parts of three others. A mass assembly on 1st of December 1918 in Alba Iulia passed a resolution calling for unification of all Romanians in a single state. The National Council of the Germans from Transylvania approved the Proclamation, and so did the Council of the Danube Swabians from Banat.
In December 1918 the Romanian army was stationed behind the Mureş (Maros), but crossed the demarcation zone and advanced up to Cluj (Kolozsvár) and then up to Sighetu Marmaţiei (Máramarossziget), after making a request to the Powers of Versailles on the grounds of protecting the Romanians in Transylvania. In February 1919, the escalating violence in the area - Bolshevik elements were making efforts to spread the "Bolshevik Revolution" - led to the creation of a Neutral Zone between Romania and Hungary.
The Prime Minister of the newly proclaimed independent Republic of Hungary resigned in March 1919, refusing to officially recognize the Treaty of Versailles which placed Transylvania under the sovereignty of Romania. When the Communist Party of Hungary, led by Béla Kun, came to power in March 1919 it proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic and after promising that Hungary would regain the lands that were under its control during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it decided to attack Czechoslovakia and Romania. The Hungarian Army began the offensive in Transylvania in April 1919 along the Someş (Szamos), Körös, and Mureş (Maros) rivers. A Romanian counter-offensive pushed forward to reach - and halt at - the Tisza River in May. A new Hungarian offensive in July penetrated 60 km into Romanian lines before a further Romanian counter-offensive led to the occupation of the Hungarian capital Budapest in August, putting an end to the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The Romanian army withdrew from Hungary between October 1919 and March 1920.
The Treaty of Versailles, formally signed in June 1919, recognised the sovereignty of Romania over Transylvania. The Treaties of St. Germain (1919) and Trianon (signed on June 1920) further elaborated the status of Transylvania and defined the new border between the states of Hungary and Romania. King Ferdinand I of Romania and Queen Maria of Romania were crowned at Alba Iulia in the year 1922.
In August 1940, during the Second World War, Hitler awarded the northern half of Transylvania to Hungary by the second Vienna Award (Vienna Arbitration Award or Vienna Diktat). The Treaty of Paris (1947) at the end of the Second World War rendered the Vienna Award void, and the territory of northern Transylvania was returned to Romania. The post-WWII borders with Hungary, agreed on at the Treaty of Paris were identical with those set out in 1920.
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Coat of Arms of Transylvania
The Coat of Arms of Transylvania has three parts:
- a lammergeier (a bearded vulture representing the medieval nobility) with the Sun and the Moon (both representing the Szeklers) on a blue background
- a red dividing band
- seven red towers on a yellow background representing the seven castles of the Transylvanian Saxons
The Coat of Arms of Transylvania is also part of the Coat of Arms of Romania.
See also
- Aftermath of World War I
- Austria-Hungary
- History of Hungary
- History of Romania
- List of Transylvanian rulers
Tourist attractions
- Medieval city of Sighişoara (Schäßburg / Segesvár)
- Braşov (Kronstadt/Brassó) city and Poiana Braşov ski resort
- The Saxon fortified churches
- Hunedoara (Eisenmarkt / Vajdahunyad) - 14th century Hunyadi Castle (Castelul Huniazilor)
- Maramureş (Maramuresch / Máramaros) area - Wooden Churches of Maramureş
- Dacian Fortresses of the Orastie Mountains (Sarmizegetusa)
- The medieval city of Sibiu (Hermannstadt / Nagyszeben)
- The medieval city of Alba Iulia (Karlsburg / Gyulafehérvár)
Culture
- Johannes Honter - important reformer and cultural personality of Transylvania
- Transylvania in fiction - in the Western world, Transylvania is famously the home of Bram Stoker's Count Dracula.
References
External links
- The Real Transylvania (http://www.therealtransylvania.com) - about contemporary Transylvania
- Historical Literature about Transilvania and Neighbouring Territories (http://people.freenet.de/Transsylvania/), Klaus Popa, Germany
- Subjective Transylvania: A case study of post communist nationalism (http://www.osi.hu/ipf/publications/AlinaPP-nation.html), Alina Mungiu Pippidi, Bucharest, Romania
- Tolerant Transylvania-Why Transylvania will not become another Kosovo (http://www.ce-review.org/99/14/lovatt14.html), Katherine Lovatt, in Central Europe Review, Vol 1, No 14 27 September 1999.
- An Outline of Transilvanian-Saxon History (http://people.freenet.de/Transsylvania/Out.htm), Klaus Popa, Germany
- The History Of Transylvania And The Transylvanian Saxons (http://www.sibiweb.de/geschi/7b-history.htm), Dr. Konrad Gündisch, Oldenburg, Germany
- Hungarian Human Rights Foundation (http://www.hhrf.org)
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