Transylvania
Transylvania (Romanian: Transilvania or Ardeal; Hungarian: Erdély; German: Siebenbürgen or Transsilvanien, historically Überwald, also Siweberjen in the Transylvanian Saxon dialect) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains and to the west the Apuseni Mountains. Broader definitions of Transylvania also include the western and northwestern Romanian regions of Crișana and Maramureș, and occasionally Banat. Historical Transylvania also includes small parts of neighbouring Western Moldavia and even a small part of south-western neighbouring Bukovina to its north east (represented by Suceava County). The capital of the region is Cluj-Napoca.
For other uses, see Transylvania (disambiguation).
Transylvania
- 76.42% Romanians
- 17.36% Hungarians
- 4.53% Roma
- 1.69% others
- 91.42% Christianity
- 65.96% Romanian Orthodoxy
- 14.04% Protestantism
- 9.32% Catholicism
- 2.10% other Christian
- 91.42% Christianity
- 0.27% undeclared /
no religion - 0.0% no data
- 8.31% others
Transylvanian
3
64.5/km2 (167.1/sq mi) (122nd)
estimate
$41,633[8]
2023 estimate
dd.mm.yyyy (AD)
right
.roa
Transylvania is known for the scenery of its Carpathian landscape and its rich history, coupled with its multi-cultural character. It also contains Romania's second-largest city, Cluj-Napoca, and other very well preserved medieval iconic cities and towns such as Brașov, Sibiu, Târgu Mureș, Bistrita, Alba Iulia, Mediaș, and Sighișoara. It is also the home of some of Romania's UNESCO World Heritage Sites such as the Villages with fortified churches, the Historic Centre of Sighișoara, the Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains and the Roșia Montană Mining Cultural Landscape.
It was under the rule of the Agathyrsi, part of the Dacian Kingdom (168 BC–106 AD), Roman Dacia (106–271), the Goths, the Hunnic Empire (4th–5th centuries), the Kingdom of the Gepids (5th–6th centuries), the Avar Khaganate (6th–9th centuries), the Slavs, and the 9th century First Bulgarian Empire. During the late 9th century, Transylvania was reached and conquered by the Hungarian tribes, and Gyula's family from the seven chieftains of the Hungarians ruled it in the 10th century. King Stephen I of Hungary asserted his claim to rule all lands dominated by Hungarian lords. He personally led his army against his maternal uncle Gyula III and Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1002.
After the Battle of Mohács in 1526 it belonged to the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom, from which the Principality of Transylvania emerged in 1570 by the Treaty of Speyer. During most of the 16th and 17th centuries, the principality was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire; however, the principality had dual suzerainty (Ottoman and Habsburg).[14][15]
In 1690, the Habsburg monarchy gained possession of Transylvania through the Hungarian crown.[16][17][18] After the failure of Rákóczi's War of Independence in 1711,[19] Habsburg control of Transylvania was consolidated, and Hungarian Transylvanian princes were replaced with Habsburg imperial governors.[20][21] During the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Hungarian government proclaimed union with Transylvania in the April Laws of 1848.[22] After the failure of the revolution, the March Constitution of Austria decreed that the Principality of Transylvania be a separate crown land entirely independent of Hungary.[23] The separate status of Transylvania ended with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867,[24] and it was reincorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary (Transleithania) as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.[25] It was also during this period that Romanians experienced the awakening of self-consciousness as a nation, manifested in cultural and ideological movements such as Transylvanian School,[26] and drafted political petitions such as
Supplex Libellus Valachorum.[27] After World War I, the National Assembly of Romanians from Transylvania proclaimed the Union of Transylvania with Romania on 1 December 1918, and Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Romania by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. In 1940, Northern Transylvania reverted to Hungary as a result of the Second Vienna Award, but it was returned to Romania after the end of World War II.
In popular culture, Transylvania is commonly associated with vampires because of the influence of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula and the many subsequent books and films that the story has inspired.[28][29] Many Transylvanian Saxons were furious with Vlad the Impaler for strengthening the borders of Wallachia, which interfered with their control of trade routes, and his extreme sadism and barbarity, which by a collection of credible historical accounts of diverse origins, most of which were non-Saxon, led to the industrial-scale execution of over 100,000 people by impaling, some of whom were Saxons. The victims were often arranged in grotesque displays intended to terrorize various groups, including the Saxons. In retaliation, the Saxons distributed poems of cruelty and other propaganda characterising the sadistic Vlad III Dracula as a drinker of blood.[30]
The earliest known reference to Transylvania appears in a Medieval Latin document of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1078 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". The Medieval Latin form Ultrasylvania, later Transylvania, was a direct translation from the Hungarian form Erdő-elve, later Erdély, from which also the Romanian name, Ardeal, comes.[31][32] That also was used as an alternative name in German überwald ("beyond the forest") (13th–14th centuries) and Ukrainian Залісся (Zalissia).
Historical names of Transylvania are:
A market scene in Transylvania, 1818
The National Assembly in Alba Iulia (December 1, 1918), declaring the Union of Transylvania with Romania
The first known civilization to inhabit the territory was the Agathyrsi, of the Scythic cultures. From the 4th century BC, Celtic La Tène culture came to domination. The indigenous Dacian tribes engaged in politics from the 1st century BC and united under King Burebista, forming their kingdom Dacia.[36]
The Roman Empire made heavy efforts to seize the territory from King Decebalus, resulting in the formation of Roman Dacia in 106, after Trajan's costly and bloody wars. During Roman rule, the territory, depleted of its indigenous population, was repopulated with Latin colonists and its rich resource stock was systematically exploited. However, the growing threat of East Germanic and Carpic invasions made Emperor Aurelian withdraw his legions and evacuate the citizens south of the Lower Danube in 275, when the province became occupied by the Goths.[37] In 376, a powerful nomadic people, the Huns, defeated and shattered the Goths, and settled in the area. After the death of Hun King Attila, their empire disintegrated and the Gepids conquered the region in 455, under King Ardaric.[38] For two centuries, the Gepids controlled Transylvania. The Ostrogoths systematically pushed the Gepids out of Pannonia. King Elemund, on the other hand, successfully fought battles against the Eastern Roman Empire.[39] They were defeated by the Lombards and Avars in 567.[39] In the following years, the Avars took full control over Transylvania, heavily settling the area with Slavic tribes who accepted their suzerainty. The expansion of the Frankish Empire, however, imposed a growing threat on them and their khaganate was crushed in the Avar Wars.[40][41] The Avars and Slavs, although substantially depleted in number, continued to inhabit the Carpathian Basin.[42] The First Bulgarian Empire expanded into Southern Transylvania in the 9th century.[43] Smaller Slavic polities were also present, nevertheless they could hardly keep their independence.[44]
In the late 9th century, Transylvania was reached and conquered by the Hungarian conquerors. There is an ongoing scholarly debate over the demographics in Transylvania at the time. According to the theory of Daco-Roman continuity, Romanians continuously lived on the territory. Opponents of that hypothesis point to the lack of written, archaeological and linguistic evidence to support it.[45] Hungarian medieval chronicles claimed that the Székely people descended from the Huns, who remained in Transylvania, and later, in combination with the returning Hungarians, conquered the Carpathian Basin.[46][47][48][49] According to the Gesta Hungarorum, the Vlach (Blacorum, Blacus) leader Gelou ruled part of Transylvania before the Hungarians arrived. Historians debate whether he was a historical person or an imaginary figure. The gyulas from the seven chieftains of the Hungarians governed Transylvania in the 10th century. King Stephen I of Hungary asserted his claim to rule all lands dominated by Hungarian lords. He personally led his army against his maternal uncle Gyula III and Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1002.[50] Place names derived from the Hungarian tribes evidence that major Hungarian groups settled in Transylvania from the 950s.[51][52] In the 12th and 13th centuries, Southeast and Northeast Transylvania was settled by Saxon colonists. In Romanian historiography, Romanians constituted an important part of Transylvania's population even on the eve of the Mongol Invasions.[53][54] Hungarian historiography claims that the Vlach population entered Transylvania from the Balkans only in the 12th century,[55] and the devastating invasion of Mongols had also as consequence the large-scale immigration by Romanians, however the immigration of Romanians did not happen all at once, the process of settlement stretched over several centuries.[56] After the Battle of Kosovo and Ottoman arrival at the Hungarian border, thousands of Vlach and Serbian refugees came to Transylvania.
Between 1002 and 1526, Transylvania was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, led by a voivode appointed by the King of Hungary.[57][58] After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Transylvania became part of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom. Later, in 1570, the kingdom became the Principality of Transylvania by the Treaty of Speyer, which was ruled primarily by Calvinist Hungarian princes. The Eastern Hungarian king became the first prince of Transylvania, according to the treaty. The Principality of Transylvania continued to be part of the Kingdom of Hungary in the sense of public law, which stressed in a highly significant way that John Sigismund's possessions belonged to the Holy Crown of Hungary and he was not permitted to alienate them.[59]
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 the Principality of Transylvania as one of the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen,[60] but the territory of the principality was administratively separated[61][62] from Habsburg Hungary,[63][64][65] and subjected to the direct rule of the emperor's governors.[66] In 1699 the Ottomans 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, when 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, and grew into a war for the total independence of the Kingdom of Hungary 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 under the Holy Alliance. Czar Nicholas I answered, and sent an army of 200,000 men 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).
After the Ausgleich of 1867, the Principality of Transylvania was once again abolished. The territory then became part of Transleithania,[67][68] an addition to the newly established Austro-Hungarian Empire. Romanian intellectuals issued the Blaj Pronouncement in protest.[69]
The region was the site of an important battle during World War I, which caused the replacement of the German Chief of Staff, temporarily ceased German offensives on all the other fronts and created a unified Central Powers command under the German Kaiser. Following defeat in World War I, Austria-Hungary disintegrated. Elected representatives of the ethnic Romanians from Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș 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,[70]) 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 and much of the proclaimed territories became part of Romania. Hungary protested against the new state borders, as they did not follow the real ethnic boundaries, for over 1.3 or 1.6 million Hungarian people, representing 25.5 or 31.6% of the Transylvanian population (depending on statistics used),[71][72] were living on the Romanian side of the border, mainly in the Székely Land of Eastern Transylvania, and along the newly created border.
In August 1940, with the arbitration of Germany and Italy under the Second Vienna Award, Hungary gained Northern Transylvania (including parts of Crișana and Maramureș), and over 40% of the territory lost in 1920. This award did not solve the nationality problem, as over 1.15–1.3 million Romanians (or 48% to more than 50% of the population of the ceded territory) remained in Northern Transylvania while 0.36–0.8 million Hungarians (or 11% to more than 20% of the population) continued to reside in Southern Transylvania.[73] The Second Vienna Award was voided on 12 September 1944 by the Allied Commission through the Armistice Agreement with Romania (Article 19), and the 1947 Treaty of Paris reaffirmed the borders between Romania and Hungary as originally defined in the Treaty of Trianon, 27 years earlier, thus confirming the return of Northern Transylvania to Romania.[67]
From 1947 to 1989, Transylvania, along with the rest of Romania, was under a communist regime. The ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureș between ethnic Romanians and Hungarians in March 1990 took place after the fall of the communist regime and became the most notable inter-ethnic incident in the post-communist era.
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, although geographically the two are not identical.
Ethnographic areas:
Cluj-Napoca, commonly known as Cluj, is the second most populous city in Romania (as of the 2021 census), after the national capital Bucharest, and is 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.
Sibiu is one of the most important cultural centres of Romania and was designated the European Capital of Culture for the year 2007, along with the city of Luxembourg.[77] It was formerly the centre of the Transylvanian Saxon culture and between 1692 and 1791 and 1849–65 was the capital of the Principality of Transylvania.
Alba Iulia, a city located on the Mureș River in Alba County, has since the High Middle Ages been the seat of Transylvania's Roman Catholic diocese. Between 1541 and 1690 it was the capital of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom and the later Principality of Transylvania. Alba Iulia also has historical importance: after the end of World War I, representatives of the Romanian population of Transylvania gathered in Alba Iulia on 1 December 1918 to proclaim the union of Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania. In Transylvania, there are many medieval smaller towns such as Sighișoara, Mediaș, Sebeș, and Bistrița.
Transylvania has a very rich and unique religious history. Since the Protestant Reformation, different Christian denominations have coexisted in this religious melting pot, including Romanian Orthodox, other Eastern Orthodox, Latin Catholic and Romanian Greek Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and Unitarian branches. Christianity is the largest religion, but 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, ensured by its religious pluralism.
Transylvania has also been (and still is) a center for Christian denominations other than Eastern Orthodoxy, the form of Christianity that most Romanians currently follow. As such, there are significant numbers of inhabitants of Transylvania that follow Latin Catholicism and Greek Catholicism, and Protestantism. Even though before 1948, the population of Transylvania split between Eastern Orthodox, Greek Catholic and other forms of Christianity, during the Communist Period the Orthodox Church was much more favored by the state which has led to Eastern Orthodoxy being the religion of the majority of Transylvanians.[88][89] However, among the Hungarian and German minorities only a small part are Eastern Orthodox. The main two religions of the Hungarian minority are Reformed (Calvinism) and Roman Catholicism;[90] among Germans the main religions are Roman Catholicism (slightly over half of Germans in Romania), followed by Lutheranism and Eastern Orthodox.[91] There are also Pentecostals and Baptists, particularly in Banat and Crișana. UBB, located in Cluj-Napoca is the only university in Europe that has four faculties of theology (Orthodox, Reformed, Roman Catholic, and Greek Catholic).[92]
There are also small denominations like Adventism, Jehovah's Witnesses and more.
Others
Data refers to extended Transylvania (with Banat, Crișana and Maramureș).[94][95]
Seal of Michael the Brave during his personal union of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania (1599–1600)
Coat of arms of Transylvania (1765)
The first heraldic representations of Transylvania date from the 16th century. The Diet of 1659 codified the representation of the privileged nations (Unio Trium Nationum (Union of the Three Nations)) in Transylvania's coat of arms. It depicted a black eagle (Turul) on a blue background, representing the Hungarians, the Sun and the Moon representing the Székelys, and seven red towers on a yellow background representing the seven fortified cities of the Transylvanian Saxons.[100] The flag and coat of arms of Transylvania were granted by Queen Maria Theresa in 1765, when she established a Grand Principality within the Habsburg monarchy.
In 1596, Levinus Hulsius created a coat of arms for Transylvania, consisting of a shield 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.[101] 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. The coat of arms of Sigismund Báthory beside the coat of arms of the Báthory family, included the Transylvanian, Wallachia and Moldavian coat of arms, he used the title Prince of Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia. A short-lived heraldic representation of Transylvania is found on the seal of Michael the Brave. Besides the Wallachian eagle and the Moldavian aurochs, Transylvania is represented by two lions holding a sword standing on seven hills. Hungarian Transylvanian princes used the symbols of the Transylvanian coat of arms usually with the Hungarian coat of arms since the 16th century because Transylvanian princes maintained their claims to the throne of the Kingdom of Hungary.
While neither symbol has official status in present-day Romania, the Transylvanian coat of arms is marshalled within the national Coat of arms of Romania, it was also a component of the Coat of arms of Hungary.