Sathmar

around Satu Mare

Hungarian: Szatmárnémeti; Yiddish: Satmar, Satmer or Sacmer; Latin: Satmarinum

The town’s official name was changed to Satu Mare in 1919; previously, the names Sătmar or Sătmar-Mintiu were in common use in Romanian. There are several competing theories regarding the origin of the place name, ranging from a derivation from the German ‘Salzmarkt’ to a connection with the personal name ‘Zothmar’ or the Romanian term for ‘large village’, ‘sat mare’. The Hungarian name for Mintiu, ‘Németi’, comes from the Slavic ‘nemci’, meaning ‘Germans’.

Sathmar lies at 47° 47′ north latitude, 22° 52′ east longitude in the north-western border region of Romania, approximately 10 km from the Romanian–Hungarian border and about 70 km north-west of Frauenbach/Baia Mare/Nagybánya.

The town is situated in the north-west of the historic region of Sathmar, which also included areas that are now part of Hungary. It lies on the River Somesch (Romanian: Someș, Hungarian: Szamos) at an altitude of 126 metres above sea level. Until the regulation of the rivers Somesch and Crasna (Hungarian: Kraszna) and the drainage of the Ecsedi Marshes in the 18th and 19th centuries respectively, the area was marshy with extensive forests.

Sathmar forms part of the historic Partium (gen. pl. of *Partes regni Hungariae adnexae*), which, together with the Banat and historic Transylvania (Romanian: Ardeal, Hungarian: Erdély), constitutes the wider region now known as Trans(s)ylvania (Romanian: Transilvania, Hungarian : Erdély). The Partium – that is, the eastern Hungarian counties lying beyond the Tisza (Hungarian: Tisza, Romanian: Tisa) – belonged to the domain of the Transylvanian princes from the mid-16th century until the late 17th century.

Romania. From 1952 to 1960, Sathmar belonged to the district of Frauenbach (also known as Neustadt; Romanian: Baia Mare, Hungarian: Nagybánya); from 1960 to 1968 it belonged to the county of Marmarosch (Romanian: Maramureş, Hungarian: Máramaros); and since 1968 it has been the county town of the county of the same name.

The towns from which present-day Sathmar emerged were situated on both banks of the Somes River: Sathmar to the south and Mintiu to the north. The latter was one of the first German settlements (1006) under the protection of Queen Gisela of Hungary (984/985–1060), wife of St Stephen (969–1038). Zothmar Castle already existed before the arrival of the Hungarians, though it is no longer possible to date it precisely.

The German settlement was first mentioned in a charter dated 1230, which granted privileges to the settlers. In 1241, the Tatars ravaged the area, so the earthwork castle that stood there at the time was probably destroyed on that occasion. From 1310 onwards, monks were permitted to sell their salt in the town, which led to the settlement becoming a centre for the salt trade.

The castle played a central role in the defence of the region for centuries and changed hands frequently. Among others, it belonged to King Matthias Corvinus (1443–1490), the Somlyó branch of the Báthory dynasty, Prince Gabriel Bethlen (c. 1580–1629), Prince Stefan Bocskay (1557–1606), George Rákóczi I (1593–1648) and Emmerich Thököly (1657–1705). In the 16th century, when the Báthorys acquired the castle, they had it fortified. Following the re-routing of the river, it now stood on an island, which significantly increased its strategic value. In the second half of the century, the surrounding area became the scene of fierce fighting and was ravaged on several occasions. The victorious imperial troops fortified the castle, and Emperor Maximilian II (1527–1576) and Emperor Rudolf (1552–1612) reaffirmed, in 1571 and 1577 respectively, the privileges of both towns, which were permitted to hold markets four times a year. Another milestone was the settlement of German soldiers; which later led to several conflicts between them and the local population, culminating in an armed clash, following which King and Emperor Leopold I (1640–1705) imposed a series of sanctions on the rebellious nobles, including the death penalty.

Since the first census in 1880, the population had risen from 19,708 to 34,892 in 1910. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, growth was uninterrupted; the population doubled between 1956 (52,096) and 1977 (101,860) and rose to 130,584 by 1992. Since then, the figure has fallen dramatically; in 2011, only 102,411 people were recorded.^[2]

In 1880, 88.9 per cent of the population stated Hungarian as their mother tongue, five per cent Romanian and 3.8 per cent German. By 1910, the proportion of Hungarian speakers had increased further, with 94.8 per cent of the population declaring it as their mother tongue; Romanian stood at 2.8 per cent and German at 1.8 per cent. Affiliation with the new state following the First World War was also reflected in the statistics: in 1920, 66 per cent were Hungarians, 12.2 per cent Romanians, 0.4 per cent Germans and 21 per cent Jews. The figures from the official censuses shifted so significantly as a result of the repeated changes in power that they can hardly be regarded as reliable data; rather, they serve to illustrate the exercise of power. In 1966, 46.4 per cent of the population were Romanians, 50.5 per cent Hungarians, 0.8 per cent Germans, 0.7 per cent Jews and 1.2 per cent Roma. By the time of the last census in 2011, the proportions had shifted once again: 54.2 per cent Romanians, 34.6 per cent Hungarians, one per cent Germans (just under 1,000 people of various mother tongues, as language loss is well advanced) and 1.2 per cent Roma.

Although one cannot speak of a continuous Jewish presence in Sathmar, they had a decisive influence on its history and economic life. It was not until the 17th century that they were permitted to move into the town, but they were expelled shortly afterwards. There are conflicting accounts for the 18th century: on the one hand, it is said that seventeen Jews lived in Sathmar in 1735; on the other hand, later censuses did not record any Jewish population. The Jewish community was officially established in 1842, and from that point onwards the town’s Jewish population grew steadily. By 1910, 20.6 per cent of Sathmar’s population was Jewish. By 1880, 80 per cent of Jews were Hungarian-speaking; this proportion rose to almost 100 per cent by the First World War. From 1950 onwards, emigration to Israel began, a trend that was later intensified by the policies of Nicolae Ceauşescu (1918–1989).

For the Swabians in the region, Sathmar is the cultural and political centre; it is home to the headquarters of the Democratic Forum of the Germans of the District, the associated Sathmar Foundation for International Cooperation, and the German-Romanian Economic Association for the Sathmar Region. For over twenty years, the Sathmar Foundation has been supporting small businesses and medium-sized enterprises in the surrounding villages where Swabians live.

For centuries, the economy of Sathmar was based on craft trades organised into guilds. From the 16th century onwards, the number of guilds grew steadily; by the 19th century, there were 1,075 master craftsmen living in the town. The extension of the Großkarol–Sathmar railway line (1871), Sathmar–Marmaroschsiget/Sighetu Marmaţiei/Máramarossziget (1872) and Sathmar–Frauenbach (1884) gave fresh impetus to the town’s economic development. At the start of the 20th century, there were several factories in the town, such as ‘Unio’, which opened in 1912 and produced railway carriages. Between the two world wars, there were just under thirty banks in the town. During the communist era, industry was expanded; factories were particularly expanded in the second half of the 1970s. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city’s favourable location attracted several investors, the most significant of which were German companies, followed by Danish and French ones. Of particular importance are the mechanical engineering, food and textile industries.

From the 13th century onwards, the Catholic parish of Sathmar was an archdeaconry and was directly subordinate to the Archbishop of Gran/Esztergom. In 1527, the Reformation reached the area; it took hold so quickly that the Catholic parishes in the region’s towns were soon dissolved. After the local Ruthenians, Serbs and Greeks were granted the freedom to practise their Orthodox faith, and following the Ottoman occupation of the town and fortress of Großwardein in 1660, a number of Serbs and Greeks settled in Sathmar.

For centuries, Sathmar has been the cultural centre of the region, boasting numerous educational institutions. As early as the 13th century, there was a school run by the Dominican friars in the town. During the Reformation, the Catholic educational institutions were closed and replaced by new Protestant ones. The ever-expanding range of educational opportunities (including the Jesuit College, the Paulaner College, the Girls’ Grammar School, the municipal school, the Jewish school, the Roman Catholic school and the Reformed school, as well as the teacher-training colleges) attracted many young people to the town in the 19th and early 20th centuries, thereby contributing to its development.

Among the most renowned schools today are the Mihai Eminescu Grammar School, the German Theoretical Johann Ettinger Grammar School (founded in 1997, with over 600 pupils from all ethnic groups living in Sathmar) and the Ferenc Kölcsey Grammar School. After 1990, several higher education institutions and university branches were established, including a regional centre of Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca/Kolozsvár.

The Sathmar branch of ASTRA (Romanian: Asociaţiunea Transilvană pentru Literatura Română şi Cultura Poporului Român; German: Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature and Culture of the Romanian People), the Kölcsey Circle (Hungarian: Kölcsey Kör) and the Democratic Forum of the Germans shape the city’s cultural landscape through their cultural activities.

The first theatre, built in the mid-19th century, had to be demolished; the present-day Neoclassical building was inaugurated in 1892. The city has employed a permanent Hungarian theatre company since 1956 and, since 1968, a Romanian one as well. The Sathmar Philharmonic Society, founded in 1921, now operates as the Dinu Lipatti Philharmonic following several transformations and name changes. There are several literary circles in the city, named, for example, after Ioan Slavici (1848–1925) and Endre Ady (1877–1919).

The Satu Mare County Museum (Muzeul Județean Satu Mare) has a historical section and an ethnographic and art section, and also carries out international research projects, including some on the Swabian minority.

Various architectural styles intermingle on Sathmar’s main square: Art Nouveau, Classicism, Neo-Gothic, Eclecticism and the architectural style of the Communist era. The former Vécsey Palace now houses the Art Museum, whilst an art gallery is situated in the new centre.

The painter Aurel Popp (1879–1960), who belonged to the second generation of the so-called ‘Frauenbach School of Painting’, and the graphic artist Pál Erdős (1913–1996) lived and worked in Sathmar.

The town’s first newspaper was the *Szatmáry Értesítő* (*Sathmarer Bote*), which was followed by numerous others; in the second half of the 20th century, 24 new newspapers were founded in the town. Today, there are several local Romanian and Hungarian newspapers; the Schwabenpost (in German, Hungarian and Romanian) is also published once a month.

The Hungarian poet Jenő Dsida (1907–1938) was born in Sathmar; two well-known contemporary Hungarian authors, Zsolt Láng and András Ferenc Kovács, also hail from the town. Famous figures such as Ferenc Kölcsey (1790–1838), author of the Hungarian national anthem, the Hungarian writers Margit Kafka (1880–1918) and Gyula Krúdy (1878–1933), and the Romanian author Ioan Slavici (1848–1925) all attended school in Sathmar.

In the early 1920s, there was a debate amongst Romanian intellectuals as to whether the name ‘Sătmar’ – used by the general public and some historians, including Nicolae Iorga (1871–1940) – or ‘Satu Mare’, as officially advocated by the politician Vasile Lucaciu (1852–1922) should be officially recognised.

Even today, minor disputes frequently arise between Hungarians and Romanians when it comes to symbolic issues such as street names or other matters of public representation.

The question of identity amongst the Swabians, who are predominantly Hungarian-speaking, is mainly raised in the run-up to local elections and is also a topic of debate when children start school, as the existence of classes or schools depends on their numbers. The position of the German-language classes has been weakened by the Hungarian state support programmes designed for Hungarians living abroad.

• Anders E. B. Blomqvist: Economic Nationalisation in the Ethnic Borderlands of Hungary and Romania. Stockholm 2014. URL: su.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:753257/FULLTEXT01.pdf.
• László Bura: Zsidó oktatás Szatmárba [Jewish Education in Sathmar]. In: Satu Mare – studii şi comunicări XV−XVI [Sathmar – Essays and Papers XV−XVI]. Satu Mare 1988–1989, pp. 471–482.
• László Bura: Iskolavárosunk Szatmárnémeti [Our School Town of Sathmar]. Csíkszereda 1999.
• László Bura: The Founding and Development of Sathmar as Reflected in its Buildings and Monuments. Szatmárnémeti 2005.
• Viorel Ciubotă, Liuba Horvat, Mihailo Delegan: The Church of ‘Saint Nicholas’ in Mintiu – Satu Mare: History and the Present Day. Satu Mare 2010.
• Ioan Corneanu, Lacrima Camelia-Teocan: The Jews of Satu Mare. History and Fate. Arad 2010.
• Sándor Muhi: A Guide to Szatmárnémeti [A Guide to Sathmar]. 2nd, expanded edition. Szatmárnémeti 2003.
• Josef Volkmar Senz: History of the Danube Swabians. From the Beginnings to the Present Day. A Popular Account. Munich 1987 (Contributions to Danube Swabian Local History and Ethnography III/37).
• Patrik Tátrai: Changes in the Ethnic Spatial Structure in Historical Sathmar. Budapest 2010.
• András Vári, Judit Pál, Stefan Brakensiek: Rule on the Border. A Microhistory of Power in Eastern Hungary in the 18th Century. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2014 (Adelswelten 2).

• www.satu-mare.ro (the town’s website)
• www.muzeusm.ro/ (District Museum website)

[1] The Kurucs (Hungarian: kurucok, Romanian: curuţi, Slovenian: kuruci) were members and troops of the anti-Habsburg insurgency (1672–1711) in Hungary. The supporters of the Habsburgs were the Labancs (Hungarian: labancok, Romanian: labanţi, Slovenian: labanci).

[2] The following applies to the figures on population size and composition cited here and below: Data from the Romanian censuses are available on the website of the Romanian National Institute of Statistics: www.recensamantromania.ro/istoric/lista-recensafmintelor-populaaiei/ (accessed 12 February 2015), whilst the yearbooks of the Hungarian Statistical Office can be consulted at epa.niif.hu/01600/01678 (accessed 12 February 2015).

Enikő Dácz: Sathmar/Satu Mare. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2015. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32245 (accessed 16 February 2021).