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The Medieval History of
Transilvania: 1000 - 1900 |
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from the Middle Ages through to the middle 20th Century was largely
dominated by Austrian and Hungarian Rule, from early Magyar mercenaries,
through Ottoman administration and the Habsburg, Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.
Soon after
Transilvania's King Stephen the I of Hungary enforced Catholicism in 1009,
the region's borders were populated by the Székelys. The
Carpathian basin was then was filled with Saxon settlers in the 12th and
13th Centuries and Transilvania began to function as a modern economy.
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From the Rest Romania Website at
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Late Middle Ages: Transilvania as part of the Kingdom of Hungary
In 1000 Vajk, chieftain of the Magyars 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 Transilvania, antagonised the new king by giving refuge to his
opponents. Gyula also maintained control of the economically important
Transilvanian salt mines.
In 1003, Stephen led an army into Transilvania and Gyula surrendered
without a fight. This made possible the organisation of the Transilvanian
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 Székelys, a Hungarian-speaking community of
uncertain origin, may have entered Transilvania before the Magyars
conquered the Carpathian basin. By the 12th century the Székelys were
established in eastern and south-eastern Transilvania as border guards.
The Colonists in Eastern Hungary and Siebenbürgen
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 Transilvania, derives from the seven
principal fortified towns founded by these Transilvanian 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
Transilvania in the Burzenland from the Cumans. After the Order began
expanding their territory outside of Transilvania and acting
independently, Andrew expelled the knights in 1225.
In 1241 three great Mongol armies invaded Hungary, two of which
attacked Transilvania. The first army led by Kadan Khan crossed the
Carpathians at the Rodna pass and attacked the Saxon-populated town Rodna,
Bistriţa, Cluj-Napoca, and the
Mezőség region. The other army led by Bogutaj Khan marched into the
country at the Oituz pass and ravaged southern Transilvania. A separate
Mongol division destroyed the western Cumans near the
Şiret river in the Carpathian region and annihilated the Cuman
Bishopric of Milcov. Estimates of population decline in Transilvania owing
to the Mongol invasion range from 15-20% to 50%.
From the Rest Romania Website at
"The Deeds of the Hungarians", c. 1200
Gesta Hungarorum, by Anonymous
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The Gesta Hungarorum (Latin for The Deeds of the Hungarians), a
record of early Hungarian history written by the unknown author
Magister P. also called Anonymous.
It is preserved in a manuscript from around 1200. It is a mixture
of oral tradition, older sources and inventions of the author.
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The chronicle was written as a literary work based on similar
western chronicles which were fashionable at that time. The author
tries to define all local ruling families of the Kingdom of Hungary as
descendants of the ruling Árpáds or at least of their allies, and to
glorify the merits of the Árpáds with respect to the Magyar occupation
of the Carpathian basin in the 10th century.
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The Western and Eastern Cumans converted to Roman Catholicism, and, after
they were defeated by the Mongols, looked for refuge in central Hungary;
Erzsebet, a Cumanian princess, married Stephen V of Hungary in 1254.
The administration of Transilvania was in the hands of a
voivod appointed by the King. The word
voivod or voievod first
appeared in historical documents in 1193. Prior to that, the term ispán
was used for the chief official of the County of Alba. The whole
historical territory of Transilvania came under the rule of the
voievod after 1263, when the functions of Count of
Szolnok (Doboka) and Count of Alba were terminated. The voivod controlled
seven comitatus. According to Chronica Pictum, Transilvania's first voivod
was Zoltán Erdoelue, King Stephen's relative.
The three most important dignitaries of the 14th century were the
voivod, the Bishop of Transilvania and the Abbot of Kolozsmonostor
(outskirt of present day Cluj-Napoca).
Transilvania was organized according to the system of Estates.
Transilvanian Estates were privileged groups or universities (the central
power acknowledged some collective or communal "liberties") with power and
influence in socio-economic and political life; nevertheless they were
organized according to certain ethnic criteria as well.
As in the rest of the Hungarian kingdom, the first Estate was the
aristocracy (lay and ecclesiastic), ethnically heterogeneous, but
undergoing a process of homogenization around its Hungarian nucleus. The
basic document that granted privileges to the entire aristocracy was the
Golden Bull issued by king Andrew II in 1222.
The other Estates were
Saxons, Székelys and Romanians, all with an ethnic and ethno-linguistic
basis. The Saxons, who had settled in southern Transilvania in the 12th-
13th centuries, were granted privileges in 1224 by the Golden Bull, also
called the Andreanum. Székelys and Romanians were not regarded as
newcomers (colonists) in Transilvania, thus they were not granted general
but partial privileges.
In 1293 AD King Endre of Hungary adopted a resolution in which
inhabitants of Wallachia would come into the empire as an estate.
During this period, significant districts of Wallachia came under direct
Hungarian rule as far east as Prahova, Buzau and over to the
Şiret river until 1330.
The territory between the Olt river (North to Transilvanian Alps) and
the present day Muntenia formed a principality ruled by the Holy Crown.
These parts represented the basis for the so-called Univeris Olcahis.
After Muntenia became an independent Principality under Woywode Basarab
the Romanians have lost their independent status and privileges; however,
Ţara Oltului remained an estate of the Wallachian Prince.
Romanians Removed from Power
Through the late 1200s and early 1300s, when the king or the voivod
summoned the general assembly of Transilvania attended by the four
Estates: noblemen, Saxons, Székelys, Romanians. The Romanian Estate
was known as "Universitas Valachorum", roughly, the
realm of the Wallachians. While Székelys kept on consolidating
these privileges and extended them over the entire ethnic group, Romanians
had difficulty keeping their old privileges throughout Muntenia and
Wallachia, and ended up by gradually losing the rank of a distinct Estate.
After 1366 Romanians lost their status as an Estate and were excluded from Transilvania's assemblies.
The main reason was religion: during Louis I's proselytizing campaign,
privileged status was deemed incompatible with that of "schismatic" in a
state endowed with an apostolic mission by the Holy Seed: through the
Decree of Turda/Torda, in 1366, the king redefines nobility in terms of
appurtenance to the Roman Catholic Church, thus excluding the Eastern
Orthodox schismatic Romanian.
After 1366 the nobility status is determined not only by ownership over
land and people, but also by the possession of a royal donation
certificate. Since Romanians' social elite, chiefly made up by aldermen
(iudices) or knezes' (kenezii), who ruled over their villages according
to the old law of the land (ius valachicum), managed to a small extent to
procure writs of donation, they came to be expropriated. Lacking land
property and/or the official status of owner and being officially excluded
from privileges as schismatic, the Romanian elite was not able any more to
form an Estate and participate in the country's assemblies
From the Rest Romania Website at
In 1437 Hungarian and Romanian peasants, the petty nobility and
burghers from Cluj/Kolozsvár/Klausenburg under the leadership of Budai
Nagy Antal upraised against their feudal masters and proclaimed their own
Estate (universitas hungarorum et valachorum - the Estate of Hungarians
and Romanians) see: Bobâlna revolt). In order to suppress the revolt, the
Transilvanian nobility, the Saxon burghers and the Székelys formed the
Unio Trium Nationum (The Union of the Three Nations), an alliance of
mutual aid against the peasants, jointly pledging to defend their
privileges against any power except that of Hungary's king. By 1438, the
rebellion was crushed. From 1438 onwards the political system was based on
the Unio Trium Nationum and the society was leaded by these three
privileged nations (Estates): the nobility (mostly Magyars), the Székelys
and the Saxon burghers. These nations, however, corresponded more to
social and religious rather than ethnic divisions. Being explicitly
directed against the peasants, the Union limited the number of Estates,
implicitly excluding the Orthodox from political and social life in
Transilvania.
However Eastern Orthodox Romanians were not given to build up local
self-government (like the Székelys, Saxons in Transilvania, Cumans and
Iazyges in Hungary), the Romanian ruling class the "nobilis kenezius" had
the same rights like Hungarian "nobilis conditionarius". Contrary to
Maramureş, after the Decree of
Turda/Torda 1366 in proper Transilvania the
only possibility to remain or access nobility was for them through
conversion to Roman Catholicism. In order to conserve their positions some
Romanian families converted to Catholicism, being subsequently Magyarized
(see the Bedőházi, Bilkei, Ilosvai, Drágffy, Dánfi, Rékási, Dobozi,
Mutnoki, Dési, Majláth, Hunyadi/Corvinus etc. families). Some of them even
reached the highest ranks of the society (Nicolaus Olahus became
Archbishop of Esztergom, while half Romanian Governor John Hunyadi's son -
Mathias Corvinus - became king of Hungary).
The Black ChurchThe Lutheran Cathedral in Braşov,
the church of Protestant Saxon Transilvania
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The Hunyadi Coat of Arms |
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John Hunyadi
A hand-coloured woodcut from the Johannes de
Thurocz Chronicle
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Nevertheless, since the overwhelming majority of Romanians refused to
convert to Roman Catholicism, in the constitutional system of the three
nations there was no place left for them up to the 19th century, to be
politically represented. Thus, they remained deprived of their rights and
subject to specific segregation such as not being allowed to dwell or
acquire houses in the cities, to build stone churches, or enjoy fair
justice.
Several examples of legal decisions taken by the three nations some
hundred years after Unio Trium Nationum (1542-1555) are illustrative: the
Romanian could not appeal to justice against Hungarians and Saxons, but
the latter could turn in the Romanian (1552); the Hungarian (Hungarus)
accused of robbery could be defended by the oath of the village judge and
three honest men, while the Romanian (Valachus) needed the oath of the
village knez, four Romanians and three Hungarians (1542) ; the Hungarian
peasant could be punished after being accused by seven trustworthy people,
while the Romanian received punishment after he was accused by three
trustworthy people (1554).
John Hunyadi, Prince of Transilvania
A key figure to emerge in Transilvania in the first half of the 15th
century was John Hunyadi, son of a Magyarized Romanian or Serbian noble,
who married Erzsébet Szilágyi (c.. 1410-1483), a Hungarian noblewoman.
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
Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) and the voivodship of Transilvania.
Near Sibiu in 1442, Hunyadi annihilated an immense Ottoman presence,
and recovered for Hungary the suzerainty of Wallachia and Moldavia; in
July, he vanquished a third Turkish army near the Iron Gates at the Danube
River
These military exploits against the Ottoman Empire brought him
further status as the governor of Hungary in 1446 and papal recognition as
the Prince of Transilvania in 1448. John Hunyadi was also the father of
Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.
Transilvania 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
Transilvania, 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 was elected king of Hungary, 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 Transilvania under Ottoman
suzerainty, where Austrian and Turkish influences vied for supremacy for
nearly two centuries.
Transilvania 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, however only for Lutherans, Calvinists, Unitarians and
of course Catholics, with the Christian Orthodox Confession being
explicitly banned).
The Báthory family, which came to power on the death of John II in
1571, ruled Transilvania as princes under the Ottomans, and briefly under
Habsburg 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 Transilvania involving the Transilvanians, the
Austrians, the Ottomans, and the Romanian voivod of Wallachia, Prince
Michael the Brave.
From the Rest Romania Website at
The Whipping BoyarThe ruling class could be
thoroughly vile to their peasant population
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Michael the BraveFormed the First United Romania,
1599
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Transilvania, 1606
After the Peace of Zitava and Peace of Vienna
accords
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While surrounded by the Ottoman Empire and Austria,
Transilvania's Geography served to buffer the trans-Carpathian basin
heartland
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Michael gained control of Transilvania in 1599 after the Battle of
Şelimbăr in which he defeated Andrew Báthory's army. Báthory was killed by
Szeklers who hoped to regain their old privileges with Michael's help. In
May 1600 Michael also gained control of Moldavia, uniting the three
principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transilvania (the three main
parts of present-day Romania).
Michael
the Brave was never made a prince by the Transilvanian nobility, and the
governments of the two countries remained separate. Michael did however
install Wallachian boyars in certain offices, but even so, he did not
interfere with the Transilvanian Estates, and sought support from the
Hungarian nobility. The union did not last long, however, as Michael was
assassinated by Walloon mercenaries under the command of the Habsburg
general Giorgio Basta in August 1601. The rule of Michael the Brave was
marred by the pillaging of Wallachian and Serbian mercenaries as well as
Székelys avenging the Szárhegy Bloody Carnival of 1596.
After the defeat of Michael at Miriszló, the Transilvanian Estates swore
allegiance to the Habsburg Emperor, Rudolph. As Basta finally subdued
Transilvania 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.
The period between 1599 (Battle of Şelimbăr) - and 1604 (fall of gen.
Basta) was the most tragic period of Transilvania since the Mongol
invasion. "Misericordia dei quod non consumti sumus" (only God's merciful
save us from annihilation) carachterised this period an anonymous Saxon
writer.
Autonomous Transilvania's Golden Age, 1613 - 1659
From 1604-1606, the Calvinist magnate of Bihar county Stephen Bocskai
led a successful rebellion against Austrian rule. Bocskai was elected
Prince of Transilvania 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 Peace of
itava (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 Transilvania. Almost equally important was
the twenty years Peace of itava, negotiated by Bocskai between Sultan
Ahmed I and Emperor Rudolf II.
Under Bocskai's successors Transilvania 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 Transilvania. They lavished money
on the embellishment of their capital Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár,
Weißenburg), which became the main bulwark of Protestantism in Eastern
Europe. During their reign Transilvania was also one of the few European
countries where Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, and Unitarians
lived in mutual tolerance, all of them belonging to the officially
accepted religions, while Orthodoxy was barely tolerated.
Mikó Castle, Miercurea-Ciuc
The original castle was built by Hungarian king
Saint Ladislaus I (1077-1095), later destroyed in 1661 during the
Tatar raids. Using the old foundations, the present castle was erected
by Hungarian noble Ferenc Mikó, finishing in 1621.
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The main point of interest in Miercurea-Ciuc's
centre is the Mikó Castle, built in a late Renaissance style. It
was meant to be a fortified residential palace, rather than a military
object. Mainly used as a barracks, today it houses the Csík Székely
Museum.
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The fall of Várad (1660) marked the decline of Transilvania which ended
with a fully integration in the Habsburg Empire. Under Prince Kemeny, the
diet of Transilvania proclaimed the secession of Transilvania from the
Ottomans (April 1661) and appealed for help to Vienna but a secret
Habsburg-Ottoman agreement resulted in further ruination of the
Principality of Transilvania.
Austrian Rule and the Austro-Hungarian Empire 1683 - 1918
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
Transilvania. 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
Transilvania'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 Transilvania was consolidated,
and the princes of Transilvania were replaced with Austrian governors. The
proclamation (1765) of Transilvania as a grand principality was a mere
formality. The pressure of Austrian bureaucratic rule gradually eroded the
traditional independence of Transilvania. In 1791 the Romanians petitioned
Emperor Leopold II for recognition as the fourth "nation" of Transilvania
and for religious equality, but the Transilvanian Diet rejected their
demands, restoring the Romanians to their old discriminating status.
In early 1848, the Hungarian Diet took 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 Transilvania and Hungary. The Romanians of Transilvania initially
welcomed the revolution believing that they would benefit from the liberal
reforms.
However, their position changed due to the opposition of Transilvanian
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 in the middle of May,
produced its own revolutionary program calling for proportionate
representation of Romanians in the Transilvanian Diet and an end to social
and 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 Transilvanian 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 Transilvania.
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 Transilvania.
However, in June 1849, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia responded to an appeal
from Emperor Franz Joseph to send Russian troops into Transilvania. After
initial successes against the Russians, Bem's army was defeated decisively
at the Battle of Temesvár (Timişoara) on 9 August; the surrender of
Hungary followed.
From the Rest Romania Website at
The Austrians clearly rejected the October demand that the ethnical
criteria become the basis for internal borders, with the goal of creating
a province for Romanians (Transilvania grouped alongside the Banat and
Bukovina), as they did not want to replace the threat of Hungarian
nationalism with the potential one of Romanian separatism. Yet they did
not declare themselves hostile to the rapid creation of Romanian
administrative offices within Transilvania, one which prevented Hungary
from including the region in all but name.
The territory was organized in prefecturi ("prefectures"), with Avram
Iancu and Buteanu as two prefects in the Apuseni. Iancu's prefecture, the
Auraria Gemina (a name charged with Latin symbolism), became the most
important one as it took over from bordering areas that were never really
fully organized.
In the same month, the administrative efforts were put to a halt, as
Hungarians under Józef Bem carried out a sweeping offensive through
Transilvania. With the discreet assistance of Imperial Russian troops, the
Austrian army (except for the garrisons at Alba Iulia and Deva) and the
Austrian-Romanian administration retreated to Wallachia and Wallachian
Oltenia (both were, at the time, under Russia's occupation).
Avram Iancu's remained the only resistance force: he retreated to harsh
terrain, mounting a guerrilla campaign on Bem's forces, causing severe
damage and blocking the route to Alba Iulia. He was, however, challenged
by severe shortages himself: the Romanians had few guns and very little
gunpowder. The conflict dragged on for the next months, with all Hungarian
attempts to seize the mountain stronghold being overturned.
In April 1849, Iancu was approached by the Hungarian envoy Ioan Dragoş
(in fact, a Romanian deputy in the Hungarian Parliament). Dragoş appeared
to have been acting out of his own desire for peace, and he worked hard to
get the Romanian leaders to meet him in Abrud and listen to the Hungarian
demands. Iancu's direct adversary, Hungarian commander Imre Hatvany, seems
to have taken profit on the provisoral armistice to attack the Romanians
in Abrud. He did not, however, benefit from a surprise, as Iancu and his
men retreated and then encircled him. In the interval, Dragoş was lynched
by the Abrud crowds, in the belief that he was part of Hatvany's ruse.
Hatvany also angered the Romanians by having Buteanu captured and
murdered. While his position became weaker, he was permanently attacked by
Iancu's men, until the major defeat of May 22. Hatvany and most of his
armed group were massacred by their adversaries, as Iancu captured their
cannons, switching the tactical advantage for the next months. Kossuth was
angered by Hatvany's gesture (an inspection of the time dismissed all of
Hatvany's close collaborators), especially since it made future
negotiations unlikely.
However, the conflict became less harsh: Iancu's men concentrated on
taking hold of local resources and supplies, opting to inflict losses only
through skirmishes. The Russian intervention in June precipitated things,
especially since the Poles fighting in the Hungarian revolutionary
contingents wanted to see an all-out resistance to the Tsarist armies.
People like Henryk Dembiński mediated for an understanding between Kossuth
and the Wallachian émigré revolutionaries. The latter, understandably
close to Avram Iancu (especially Nicolae Bălcescu, Gheorghe Magheru,
Alexandru G. Golescu, and Ion Ghica) were also keen to inflict a defeat on
the Russian armies that had crushed their movement in September 1848.
Bălcescu and Kossuth met in May 1849, in Debrecen. The contact has for
long been celebrated by Romanian Marxist historians and politicians: Karl
Marx's condemnation of everything opposing Kossuth had led to any Romanian
initiative being automatically considered reactionary. In fact, it appears
that the agreement was in no way a pact: Kossuth meant to flatter the
Wallachians, by getting them to champion the idea of Iancu's armies
leaving Transilvania for good, in order to help Bălcescu in Bucharest.
While agreeing to mediate for peace, Bălcescu never presented these terms
to the fighters in the Apuseni. His personal documents (commented by Liviu
Maior) show that the un-realistic assumptions of Kossuth had made him view
the Hungarian leader as a demagogue.
From the Rest Romania Website at
Even more contradictory, the only thing Avram Iancu agreed to (and which
no party had asked for) was his forces' neutrality in the conflict between
Russia and Hungary. Thus, he secured his position as the Hungarian armies
suffered defeats in July, culminating in the Battle of Segesvár, and then
the capitulation of August 13.
After quashing the revolution, Austria imposed a repressive regime on
Hungary and ruled Transilvania 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. These 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 Transilvania ended and it
became a province under Hungarian control. While part of Austria-Hungary,
Transilvania's Romanians were oppressed by the Hungarian administration
through Magyarization; the German Saxons were also subject to this policy,
but not as heavily as were Romanians.
During the time of Austria-Hungary, Hungarian-administered
"Transilvania proper" consisted of a 15-county (Hungarian: megye) region,
covering 54,400 km˛ in the southeast of the former Kingdom of Hungary. The
Hungarian counties at the time were Alsó-Fehér, Beszterce-Naszód, Brassó,
Csík, Fogaras, Háromszék, Hunyad, Kis-Küküllő, Kolozs, Maros-Torda, Nagy-Küküllő,
Szeben, Szolnok-Doboka, Torda-Aranyos, and Udvarhely.
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Hungarian minority in Romania |
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