Transylvania
Transylvania
Names in other languages
Latin: Transsilvania, Ultra Silvas; Romanian: Ardeal, Transilvania; Hungarian: Erdély; Polish: Siedmogród; Turkish: Erdel.
In Romanian, a shift in meaning took place after 1918, whereby ‘Transilvania’ came to refer to all the western territories acquired from Hungary, thus including the (Romanian) Banat, the Kreisch region and the Sathmarregion. In German, too, a shift took place after 1990, with the term being interpreted more broadly, such that the Sathmarregion, for example, is referred to as ‘Northern Transylvania’.
Etymology
The origin of the German name cannot be definitively determined; it is conceivable that the term ‘Sieben Stühle’ – initially used only in the Hermannstadt area – gradually came to be applied to the whole region, or that it derives from the idiom ‘behind the seven mountains’, referring to a region that is (from the perspective of the German states) far away. The interpretation ‘seven castles’ is questionable, as both the dialectal form and the early depictions on coats of arms tend to suggest mountains.
Both the Latin and Hungarian forms of the name – and, by extension, the Romanian form – have their origins in the phrase ‘behind the forests’ (as seen from Pannonia) and date back to the settlement that took place as part of the Hungarian conquest from the west.
Location and topography
Transylvania proper is a hilly highland (altitude 300–800 m above sea level) that is almost entirely enclosed by the Carpathian Mountains, as if by a fortress: to the east, towards the River Moldau, lie the Eastern Carpathians; to the south, towards Wallachia (Muntenia and Oltenia) the Southern Carpathians or Transylvanian Alps (up to 2,544 m), and to the west, towards the Pannonian Plain, the Transylvanian Western Mountains. The north merges into the mountainous regions of the Forested Carpathians and the Maramureș . It covers an area of 62,000 km² (slightly smaller than Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein combined). The main rivers are, in the south, the Olt (Romanian: Olt), which flows into the Danube; in the central region, the Mureș (Romanian:Mureș) with its two Târnava rivers (Romanian: Târnava); and in the north, the Someș (Romanian:Someș), which flow into the Tisza. The climate is continental, with hot summers and cold winters. The arable land is exceptionally fertile; the low mountain ranges are well suited to livestock farming (transhumance), whilst the forests – which remain densely wooded but are threatened by unregulated deforestation – are still rich in wildlife.
Historical Geography
Geographical conditions have, for the most part, dictated political boundaries throughout history. Whilst, in Roman times, only parts of the south and west were included within their sphere of influence, and in the centuries that followed only small, barely definable political entities had developed, following the Hungarian conquest, during the transition from the High to the Late Middle Ages, a voivodeship emerged covering the territory of the later principality, within which the heirs to the throne were repeatedly able to prove themselves as representatives of the Crown. With the downfall of the Kingdom of Hungary after 1526, this political entity gained a certain degree of autonomy as a principality, and by the end of the 17th century, Hungarian counties (Partes adnexae, also known as Partium or Partes) of varying sizes joined it in the west and north by the end of the 17th century. Upon the transfer of power to the House of Austria , these counties reverted to Hungary, whilst Transylvania remained part of the overall state as a principality (and, from 1765, a Grand Principality). It was not until the implementation of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867 that the annexation to Hungary, long demanded by the Hungarian side, took place.
Following its annexation to the centrally organised Kingdom of Romania in 1918/20 , it, like all other historical regions, was not granted any special status, although some old legal provisions remained in force for decades afterwards. In 1940, the north of Transylvania, including the ‘Szekler Corner’, was ceded to Hungary under the dictates of the Axis powers, thereby dividing the country for the first time in historically documented times (until 1945). An administrative division modelled on the Soviet system following the Second World War was succeeded in 1968 by the county division (Romanian:județe) which remains in force today; however, the state did not establish administrative structures based on the historical regions.
Transylvania did not have a capital city in the classical sense, a fact also linked to the estates-based autonomies that had characterised the region for centuries. Weißenburg ( known as Karlsburg from the 18th century onwards, Romanian: Alba Iulia) held a special position as the seat of the Catholic bishop and, at times, of the voivode or, later, the prince. For the Saxon Nation, Hermannstadt/Sibiu was the political centre, whilst the other two nations had varying central seats. With the establishment of Austrian rule at the beginning of the 18th century, Sibiu became the seat of the highest provincial authorities and the Commanding General; at the end of the 18th century, the seat of these authorities was moved to Cluj until their dissolution.
Common symbolism
A set of symbols representing Transylvania as a whole only emerged once the constitution of the Electorate had fully taken shape and the princes, at the end of the 16th century, needed to represent their own domain on seals and coins. Prior to this, only the bodies of the Saxon Nation had possessed a variety of coats of arms since the 14th century. From the overall provincial coat of arms – which represented the nobility with the half-eagle in the upper field, the Székelys with the moon and sun, and the Saxons (and thus the three estates) with the seven castles in the lower field – the three national seals were developed by incorporating these symbols; these, in turn, were necessary to (usually in conjunction with the princely seal) to confer the force of law upon the resolutions of the provincial parliament. The aforementioned symbolism and layout remained largely unchanged over the centuries (although in the 17th and 18th centuries, coins and medals sometimes featured only the seven castles); since its elevation to a Grand Duchy by Maria Theresa in 1765, the design within the shield has remained the same. In this form, it was incorporated into the Austrian Imperial Coat of Arms, the Great Hungarian State Seal, and the shield of the Romanian State Coat of Arms of 1921; disappeared during the period of socialist rule and, following the political changes of 1989, returned unchanged to Romania’s current national coat of arms.
Alongside the national coat of arms, the Saxons of Transylvania in particular have developed a distinctive system of symbolism. Alongside a wide variety of coats of arms for counties, districts, towns, market towns and, in some cases, even villages, the overarching symbols consist, on the one hand, of the seven castles, which at the beginning of the 20th century were adopted by the nation as a political representation of all Germans in Transylvania, and, on the other hand, the triangle of lime leaves, which first appeared under a crown in 1372 as a symbol of the Province of Sibiu and was ultimately to develop into the emblem of the nation itself (preserved to this day in the coat of arms of the city of Sibiu and as a protected emblem of the Working Group for Transylvanian Regional Studies).
Prehistory and Early History
During the Neolithic period, large parts of Transylvania – particularly the south-west, lying before the Carpathian passes, and the mountainous regions to the east and west – were part of the so-called Danube civilisation, an advanced civilisation that flourished between the 6th and 4th millennia BC. Examples from this period include the Tărtăria tablets from the Mieresch Valley in Alba County (late 6th millennium BC), which, as part of the Vinča culture, are among the very oldest examples of European writing. Finds from the Bronze and Iron Ages are also diverse in Transylvania; notable examples include the Bronze and Late Bronze Age finds at Wietenberg near Sighișoara/Sighişoara, which gave their names to the Wietenberg culture (c. 2200–1600 BC) and the Noua culture near Kronstadt/Braşov (c. 1600–1300 BC).
Antiquity
The first peoples known by name to have inhabited the region were the Agathyrsi in the 6th–4th centuries BC and the Celts in the 3rd–2nd centuries BC. From the 2nd century BC onwards, the Thracian tribe of the Dacians managed to consolidate their rule over the region, notably under King Burebista (assassinated in 44 BC); following repeated raids on Roman territory south of the Danube and the re-establishment of Dacian rule under King Decebalus from 85 AD onwards, several Dacian Wars ensued, culminating in the defeat of Dacian rule under Emperor Trajan from 102 AD. As the only part of the empire north of the middle and lower reaches of the Danube, the Romans established the province of Dacia, later divided into Dacia Inferior (between the Danube, the Alt and the Carpathians), Dacia Superior (southern and south-western Transylvania) and Dacia Porolissenis (northern Transylvania). These provinces became important to the Romans primarily because of the salt and precious metal deposits in the Carpathians; however, the development and exploitation of the land remained limited, not least due to the threat posed by various barbarian tribes. The withdrawal of both the military and the civilian population towards the west and south had already begun before the formal evacuation of the areas by Emperor Aurelian in 271; in their place, the provinces of Dacia Ripensis and Dacia Mediterranea were established south of the Danube.
An issue that has shaped not only the historiography of Transylvania but, above all, the region’s politics to this day is the question of what happened in the wake of these events: Did a sufficiently Romanised population remain in significant numbers, capable of forming a substrate for the Romance-speaking Vlachs who later emerged here over the course of around 1,000 years (the continuity theory), or did the Latin language and culture disappear with the withdrawal of the Romans, only to return to the region in the late Middle Ages with the Balkan Romans practising transhumance (migration theory)? Even if one might occasionally get the impression that the debate is becoming more objective in favour of scholarly argumentation, it is repeatedly reignited in a polemical manner by historians or politicians who feel attached to the idea of ‘two thousand years of Romanian statehood’ developed during the era of national communism. In fact, this debate is irrelevant, as the demographic circumstances of both Transylvania and its neighbouring regions have been undisputed for many generations.
Roman rule was followed by a period of instability in the Danube-Carpathian region. Following the Roman withdrawal, the Visigoths and their allies advanced into the region and were able to hold their ground there until the invasion of the Huns at the end of the 4th century, after which they retreated southwards into the Roman Empire. A Hun interlude was followed for a good century by the East Germanic Gepids, until, from 567 onwards, the Avars – the migratory people to whom the region’s place names can be traced – arrived. During their rule, Slavs spread throughout the entire area, leaving the most lasting traces in the region’s place-names. The collapse of Avar rule was followed by the influence of the First Bulgarian Empire and, in the west, most likely that of the Great Moravian Empire. However, Transylvania was likely characterised by small-scale Slavic settlements when, in the late 9th century, the Magyars (Hungarians) and their allies swept across the land from the east.
The Middle Ages (up to 1526)
After the Hungarians had been halted in their westward expansion at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955, they had settled permanently in the Pannonian Plain and, under King Stephen I around the turn of the millennium, had founded a kingdom aligned with the Western Church; the ‘conquest’ then gradually extended northwards and eastwards as well. To this end, castles were built beyond the Carpathians, and the counties (burgraviates), which were expanding ever further eastwards, were named after them. Strips of fortified settlements secured the borders and were pushed further and further forward. To develop the territory and secure the borders, the Hungarian kings employed so-called ‘auxiliary peoples’, such as the Székelys, who initially took on military duties in the south and centre, and later in the east. From the mid-12th century onwards, the Hungarian Crown recruited western settlers (hospites) for tracts of land in the southern part of Transylvania that had been vacated by the resettlement of these groups, hoping they would bring innovation, tax revenue and help secure the realm. Both the Szeklers and the settlers – who were predominantly German and came mainly from the lands on the left bank of the Rhine within the Holy Roman Empire – were granted collective legal systems within their own territories, which were excluded from the county structure. The counties themselves were administered and governed by the nobility, thus identifying the three groups that were to develop into the three state-supporting estates (nations): the county nobility as the natio Hungarica, the Szekler nation and the Saxon nation. In 1438, the first co-operation between these three ‘nations’ took place to safeguard the country’s legal stability against social unrest. In the process, different areas of focus emerged for the three estates: the nobility administered the counties and assumed political responsibilities, providing, for example, the country’s voivodes; the Székelys lived as militiamen and were primarily responsible for national defence. Although the Saxons were also required to provide military service, they had shifted their focus, alongside agriculture, primarily to trade, mining and crafts, and their economic power generated the highest tax revenue in the country. Furthermore, they were able to continually expand and consolidate their legal association until 1422 and to restrict the Crown’s rights within their jurisdiction, so that, with the confirmation of the Nationsuniversität (the supreme representative body of the chairs and districts, a quasi-parliament), their internal autonomy was fully established in 1485. However, some of the German settlements had mostly arisen as secondary settlements on land belonging to the county nobility and thus did not form part of the privileged legal association; nevertheless, they were linked to the parishes in the Nations territory via the church organisation.
Ottoman rule (1526–1687)
The threat posed by the Ottomans and their allies began as early as the end of the 14th century and subsequently led to a series of wars, which King Sigismund (1368–1437), for example, temporarily directed from Transylvania. One consequence was the further fortification not only of the towns but also of the village churches, giving rise in Southern Transylvania to the landscape of fortified churches that remains a defining feature to this day. In 1526, Hungary, which was inadequately equipped militarily, collapsed under the Ottoman assault; the young King Louis II perished along with parts of the country’s elite, and the nation was plunged into the turmoil of a protracted and costly succession dispute involving the Transylvanian voivode John Szapolyai (Zapolya) (1487–1540), representing the ‘national party’, on the one hand, and Ferdinand of Habsburg, who held claims to the throne, on the other. By 1541, the country had split into three parts: Royal Hungary under Ferdinand (comprising Northern or Upper Hungary and Western Hungary), an Ottoman pashalik of Buda (Central and Southern Hungary), and a largely autonomous Regnum of Transylvania comprising several eastern Hungarian counties. In the latter, the Rex electus from the House of Szapolyai initially continued to reign; however, following his death, it became an elective principality in which the three nations or estates—the nobility, the Székelys and the Saxons—exercised decisive legislative power in the provincial assembly. This principality was nominally under Ottoman suzerainty, which manifested itself in the obligation to pay tribute, the duty to provide troops, the Sultan’s confirmation of the prince elected by the estates, and the expectation that the prince would align himself with the basic principles of Ottoman foreign policy . A skilful policy of balancing between Vienna and Constantinople on the part of the Transylvanian rulers afforded the partially sovereign Principality of Transylvania considerable scope in foreign policy, which was reflected in some one hundred treaties under international law with European powers. Even though the prince and the estates sought to acknowledge Transylvania’s historical and legal ties to the Crown of Hungary under the ruling Habsburgs, the aforementioned policy of balancing powers afforded the country the freedoms to establish, between the 1550s and 1570s, a system of religious diversity that was unrivalled in Europe: Alongside the Lutherans , Calvinists and Antitrinitarians (Unitarians) were recognised as equal, together with Catholicism , which had been severely curtailed, whilst the followers of the Eastern Orthodox Church, who were not entitled to hold office, were regarded as tolerated. The estates henceforth guarded this religious freedom as the apple of their eye, treating it as a central component of the state constitution; however, their understanding of it did not correspond to modern notions of tolerance, and the estates were certainly able to impose restrictions within their respective jurisdictions. Nevertheless, on this basis, further religious refugees were able to find safety here over the course of time, such as the Hutterites (Moravian Brethren) or Armenians; Jews were granted the right of settlement exclusively at the princely court in Weißenburg . The Ottoman overlords were indifferent to matters of religion, although they preferred Protestant denominations to the Catholic Church, which represented their political opponents. Economically and culturally, however , Transylvania declined during the Ottoman period because many trade routes were cut off, and border skirmishes and raids, but also because numerous military campaigns and the terror inflicted by the imperial soldiery and Hungarian rebel nobles repeatedly ruined and depopulated the country.
Habsburg rule (1687–1867)
Following the failure of the second Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 and the subsequent conquest of Ottoman Hungary by the House of Habsburg , Transylvania was occupied by imperial forces as early as 1687, even though its annexation under international law did not take place until the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. During a brief period of weakness at the Viennese court, the estates of Transylvania succeeded in securing confirmation of the provincial constitution – comprising the three nations and four recognised denominations – in the Diploma Leopoldinum of 1690–91. As a result, the principality was not only integrated into the Habsburg Empire , but was also the only province within the monarchy to enjoy extensive freedom of religion. Nevertheless, a massive wave of re-Catholicisation set in; however, despite the efforts of the Jesuits and the military, it was far from achieving the same success as in other provinces, with the result that in the 18th century, Protestant ‘transmigrants’ from the hereditary lands, as well as Prussian prisoners of war , were forcibly deported to Transylvania. The period of Habsburg rule was characterised by the growing presence of Romanians, who, as a demographic factor, could no longer be ignored and, after 1700, largely became members of the GreekCatholic (Uniate) Church, as well as by a struggle between the estates and the central authorities over the reform of administrative structures, taxation and economic systems. A certain degree of modernisation was achieved by the only provincial governor of Saxon origin, Samuel von Brukenthal (1774–1787), whose reforms continued to have an impact well into the 19th century. As a rule, however, the estates were intent on preserving their vested interests, with the two ‘Hungarian estates’—the nobility and the Székelys, amongst whom a noble class had by then also established itself—frequently opposing the Saxons. The Transylvanian Military Frontier, established in the 18th century along a broad strip of land stretching from the south-west to the north-east, marked a turning point in the rights of the estates, whilst at the same time providing significantly greater military security and opportunities for development for the Romanians, a group that was largely outside the estates system. The need to resolve the issue of the largest linguistic group became clear during the Revolution of 1848–49, when population groups throughout Hungary began to define themselves in national terms and, in the case of the Hungarians, it became apparent that national consciousness had shifted from the nobility to broad bourgeois, ethnically quite heterogeneous circles, and that Hungarian state consciousness was now scarcely distinguishable from national Hungarian consciousness. The Austrian neo-absolutism that followed the crushed revolution was only able to suppress these nationalisms temporarily, and as early as 1867 the unified state was forced to yield to the pressure of the Hungarian elites and, as part of a ‘Compromise’, grant the Hungarian part of the empire extensive autonomy. Yet developments within Transylvania in the preceding years had been so promising, and the Romanians had been recognised as the fourth nation at the last Transylvanian Diet, with their denominations likewise acknowledged as equal, that the foundations for a ‘Switzerland of the East’ could have been laid.
Austro-Hungarian Dualism (1867–1918)
Hungary, which regarded itself as a centralised state, completed its union with Transylvania in the year following the Compromise with the Imperial House in 1868, thereby bringing an end to Transylvania’s existence as an independent political entity. Following the dissolution of the Transylvanian Diet and the Transylvanian central authorities, the administrative reform of 1876 also abolished the remaining administrative autonomies of the Saxons and Szeklers in Transylvania. Regional distinctiveness was to be eradicated everywhere in favour of uniform structures across all areas of administration and social life in Hungary. Even the names of historical regions disappeared, so that in German, for example, the phrase ‘in the Transylvanian parts of Hungary’ came into use. Social, political and economic reforms brought an enormous surge of modernisation to the Hungarian part of the empire, though this was also accompanied by massive pressure to Magyarise the non-Hungarian-speaking minorities – the Hungarians themselves now constituted only a relative majority within their own territory, a circumstance which the state sought to counteract through assimilation. In Transylvania, both the Saxons and the Romanians responded with counter-measures, such as the expansion of the education system, the press and political parties, and the promotion of their own credit institutions and commercial enterprises. The Nationalities Act, which came into force in 1868, had no practical effect, particularly as it took account only of individual rights and not those of groups. Rather, new waves of Magyarisation – such as the stricter school laws of 1907 – contributed increasingly to the alienation of the minorities from the state’s population, so that, despite all the lasting successes in the areas of infrastructure development, industrialisation, hygiene and healthcare, etc., the nationality question must be regarded as Hungary’s central unresolved problem on the eve of the First World War. Nevertheless, the loyalty of the overwhelming majority of the population to the Monarchy remained beyond question during the war. It was only towards the end of the war that serious thoughts of alternative political solutions began to emerge. In the case of Transylvania, however, its Romanian politicians in particular envisaged regional autonomy for the future, whether within the Hungarian state or under the Romanian crown.
As part of Romania
However, the rapid succession of events during the break-up of Austria-Hungaryled in a different direction and resulted not only in Transylvania, but also in the majority of the Banat, the Kreisch region, the Sathmarregion and the Maramureș region, to come under the rule of the Kingdom of Romania , but also placed them under central government administration without any provision for a transitional period or consideration of regional particularities. A Romanian assembly had resolved on 1 December 1918 to join Romania, and the political representatives of the Saxons decided on 8 January 1919 to take the same step on behalf of their own language group. Only the Hungarians were unable to come to terms with the new reality for some time and did not enter the country’s political life until the course of the 1920s. Romania’s new constitution, which—in addition to the aforementioned parts of Hungary —had also acquired Bukovina from Austria and Bessarabia from Russia , failed in 1923 to take account of the country’s changed character as a multi-ethnic state; nor did it honour the promises made to the nationalities in 1918; it favoured the ‘state people’ just as much as the Orthodox faith, thereby missing an important opportunity to create a community of loyal citizens. Revisionist ideas, latent anti-Semitism, discriminatory measures against non-Romanian-speaking groups, as well as persistent race to the bottom and traditional patronage politics, poisoned the political and social climate of the country, which actually possessed excellent opportunities for economic development. An unstable royal house (Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen) compounded the situation, leading to the emergence of radicalising factions. By 1938 at the latest, King Carol II believed he could only counter this development by stripping Parliament of its powers; yet, in view of the escalating situation in Europe, his autocratic rule also led to a dead end: Romania sought to align itself with Hitler’s Germany not only for economic reasons, but was nevertheless forced, in 1940, as a consequence of the Hitler–Stalin Pact, to cede Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia to the Soviet Union, and , following the ‘Second Vienna Award’, cede Northern Transylvania and the Székely Land to Hungary – a mutilation of the country, which was constitutionally indivisible, that forced the king to abdicate in favour of his nineteen-year-old son Michael (Mihai) and ushered Romania into an authoritarian regime under Marshal Ion Antonescu (1882–1946). Under pressure from the German Reich, the German minority was granted the collective rights they had longed for over two decades, with partially autonomous structures; however, this came at the expense of the previous plurality of opinion and was accompanied by complete alignment with Nazi ideology. In 1941, Romania, as an ally of the German Reich , took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union and cooperated in the persecution and extermination of the Jews, particularly in Bukovina, Moldavia and Bessarabia. Shortly before the Red Army’s advance, the young king succeeded in staging a coup against Marshal Antonescu, and Romania switched sides to join the Allies at the end of August 1944. Subsequent developments were heavily influenced by Moscow; the communists, who had previously been virtually non-existent, gained increasing influence and were able to assume key positions of power as early as 1945. Supporters of Romanian fascist groups were dealt with just as mercilessly in the settlement, whilst the German minority was collectively stripped of its rights and its able-bodied members were deported en masse to the Soviet Union for so-called ‘reconstruction work’. Men fit for military service in both the Romanian and Hungarian parts of the country were recruited into German combat units from 1942/43 onwards under intergovernmental agreements, the Saxons of Northern Transylvania had, for the most part, been evacuated by 1944, so that the German minority had been decimated and almost only the elderly and children remained. Nevertheless, there was no expulsion, and the expropriations carried out in the immediate post-war period were later partially reversed, at least as regards the farms. In the 1950s, even under Stalinist rule, there was an endeavour to foster harmonious relations between the various linguistic groups, leading to the establishment, between 1952 and 1968, of a so-called Autonomous Hungarian Region in Szeklerland in the central part of Transylvania. This did not prevent the regime from taking rigorous action in show trials against anyone who might even appear to undermine the ideology of those in power; this had a disastrous impact not only on the minorities , as the elites of all linguistic groups increasingly sought to emigrate. Thanks to support from Israel, this exodus initially led the Jewish community , for the most part, to leave the country, followed by the German minority, who were gradually permitted to leave from the 1970s onwards in return for concessions from the Federal Republic of Germany . This demographic exodus – despite an apparent political opening around 1970 – went hand in hand with increasing economic hardship caused by mismanagement, corruption and the delusional repayment of all foreign debts, but also with a new form of nationalism – ‘national communism’ – which openly engaged in historical falsification, postulated a two-thousand-year-old Dacian-Roman state and sought to suppress everything non-Romanian.
It was upon this impoverished and technologically backward society, disoriented by ideological brainwashing, that Romania had to rebuild following the violent political upheaval in early 1990. Society gradually began to come to terms with its historical missteps, though it was unable to prevent old networks from persisting within the structures of power, nor to stop corruption from remaining a tool of politics. In a laborious process, the emerging civil society is fighting against these structures, with successes and setbacks alternating. In 2004, the country joined NATO and in 2007 the European Union, whose support and monitoring mechanisms provide the country with vital guidance.
Population
The population of Transylvania towards the end of the 16th century[1]
| Hungary, including the Székelys | Saxony | Romanians | Others (Raizen, Ukrainians) | Total approx. | |
| Székely Land | 150,000 | ? | -- | -- | 160,000 |
| Saxony | ? | 65,000 | 15,000 | -- | 85,000 |
| Noble counties | 210,000 | 20,000 | 170,000 | ? | 400,000 |
| Partes | 140,000 | -- | 90,000 | 80,000 | 300,000 |
| Total approx. | 500,000 | 90,000 | 280,000 | 85,000 | 955,000 |
The population of Transylvania by ethnicity (in per cent)[2]
| Year | Romanians | Hungarians | Germans | Roma | Jews | Others | Total | Total population |
| 1766 | 58.90 | 27.50 | 13.60 | -- | -- | -- | 100.00 | 953.8860 |
| 1766* | 52.00 | 41.00 | 6.50 | -- | -- | 0.50 | 100.01 | 1,453,7421 |
| 1,773 | 63.50 | 24.20 | 12.30 | -- | -- | -- | 100.01 | 1,066,0170 |
| 1,786 | 30.50 | 49.70 | 18.20 | 0.70 | 0.20 | 0.70 | 100.01 | 1,664,5450 |
| 1,794 | 50.00 | 33.00 | 12.50 | 4.30 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 100.01 | 1,458,5590 |
| 1,844 | 60.01 | 28.60 | 10.00 | 0.80 | 0.20 | 0.30 | 100.02 | 2,143,3100 |
| 1850/51 | 59.50 | 25.90 | 9.40 | 3.80 | 0.80 | 0.60 | 100.02 | 2,062,3790 |
*Two data series are available for this year.
Economy
As early as Roman times, Transylvania was known for its mineral resources; the extraction of salt and precious metals led the Romans to make great efforts to secure the region. It was not until Transylvania came under the rule of the Hungarian Crown that mining was resumed on a professional basis, with specialists being recruited from the German states: It is primarily these miners and the Saxon mining laws they brought with them that gave rise to the stereotype of the ‘Saxones’ (Hungarian: szászok) applied to all Germans in south-eastern Europe. Precious metal mining was to remain one of Transylvania’s most important economic pillars throughout the Middle Ages. However, as the region was developed, significant additional trade goods were introduced: huge herds of cattle, for example, were exported as far as Vienna and beyond; hides, furs and natural products were traded westwards; whilst towards the Levant, it was the handicrafts from the Saxon towns that formed the basis of a successful long-distance trade. The shifting of long-distance trade routes, the collapse in precious metal prices following the exploitation of the Americas, and the Turkish Wars caused the far-reaching relationships of the Transylvanian towns, which had been extensive in the Middle Ages, to become increasingly close in the Early Modern period. As a result, the region’s prosperity declined significantly, a fact clearly evident in the surviving works of art, such as those in the churches, which until the mid-16th century had been on a par with Central European standards and in which artistic styles appeared almost simultaneously; these were now mostly replaced by simplified, cost-effective artistic solutions, and it was not until the Late Baroque period that the quality once again approached Central European standards. For it was only with integration into the Habsburg Empire and its markets that the economic situation gradually recovered. Nevertheless, from an empire-wide perspective, Transylvania remained underdeveloped, predominantly agrarian in character and only reluctantly adapting to mercantilism. It was not until the 19th century that the establishment of credit institutions, the introduction of new farming methods, relevant training programmes and the founding of the first factories led to an economic upswing, which rapidly gained momentum during the era of Austro-Hungarian dualism (1867–1918). The larger towns, and particularly the Saxon ones, played a special role in this, as they were able to make good use of the knowledge transfer from the German states, as well as craftsmanship and entrepreneurial spirit. In the 20th century, this laid the foundations for the expansion of major industries, for example in Kronstadt and Klausenburg, but soon also in numerous medium-sized towns. Romania’s targeted population policy was able to build on this, initially during the interwar period, but even more so after the Second World War, when the communist regime massively promoted the expansion of heavy industry. At the same time, this led to the neglect of the agricultural sector, which was state-controlled and suffered from severe mismanagement. Ultimately, during the socialist era, the basic needs of the population could only be met through limited private farming. The fresh start following the political transition of 1989 – which brought about the collapse of the large industrial plants – proved difficult, but a talent for improvisation and a willingness to take risks, as well as a proven track record of reliability towards investors, ensured that economic development in Transylvania, particularly in the south and around the larger cities, with many small and medium-sized enterprises, so that a solid economic foundation had been laid by the time of accession to the European Union in 2007. Today, Transylvania, together with the greater Bucharest region and the Banat region around Timișoara , is one of Romania’s economic powerhouses, with a relatively high proportion of foreign investment.
4. The Germans of Transylvania
The main features of the history of the Germans of Transylvania have been outlined in the chapters on the history of the region, as they, as a social class, made a significant contribution to it. It is therefore appropriate to highlight the distinctive features of this group at this point. These can already be traced back to the first grants of rights by the Hungarian Crown in the 12th century, which were expressly confirmed and recorded by King Andrew II in 1224 (the Andreanum): The law granted to the first generations of settlers, the hospites (the ‘invited ones’), was modelled on German municipal law (such as the Law of Ofen), though here it applied not to a single town but to a larger territory whose boundaries were clearly defined: Within this territory, ‘the people should be one’ (unus sit populus), meaning that all should possess the same rights and be governed and judged only by their peers; people subject to a different law should not be permitted to settle there. This principle was upheld and developed over the centuries and was to become a prerequisite for the long-term survival of this group. Crucial to this were equal rights for all (that is, all male owners of houses, farms and land), equal tax liability for all, eligibility for public office, free choice of parish priest, etc. Above all, this principle excluded aristocratic privileges—such as tax exemption and a separate jurisdiction—and led to a centuries-long struggle against the erosion of this legal principle, for instance by members of the ‘noble nation’. By the end of the 15th century, the increasingly successful and self-assured nation ( in the sense of legal status, and thus, in a sense, collectively equal to the nobility) had managed to either push its own minor nobility (the ‘counts’), which had developed predominantly from the settlers of the early settlement period, into the counties (counties) of the nobility or to persuade them to relinquish their claims to privileges. Although the city families eligible for council membership (the cives) held prominent positions and had priority rights to council offices, here too, by 1500 at the latest, new social classes were pushing their way to the top and forcing greater social mobility. Around this time, the right of exclusivity within the now-expanded legal territory (Königsboden, fundus regius), whose political and judicial centre was Sibiu , was defined in such a way that only German-speaking people were permitted to settle in the towns; however, this should not be understood as an ethnic distinction; for, in essence, any merchant or craftsman could settle in these towns provided they submitted unreservedly to Saxon law, claimed no legal exemptions, and conformed in terms of religion and language. Even if individual wealthy merchants acquired noble rights, they could only continue to reside in the Saxon towns if they waived the application of their other laws within that jurisdiction. Even though, over the centuries, the Crown or the Electors attempted to alienate parts of the legal jurisdiction and, as elsewhere, grant them as fiefs or gifts to their followers, the Nation contested this until the former legal status was restored. As the Saxon nation was among the most important taxpayers, possessed the most advanced technology (for example, in armour-making) and, at times, held key positions at the mountain passes, it was able to defend its legal position consistently. This tenacity in defending its own legal status led, in the later early modern period—when, for instance, during the Habsburg era, the traditional economic sectors had largely collapsed or been taken over by other groups—to ossified structures and a rigid clinging to established rights. With the widespread growth of the Romanian-speaking population, the dispute over the exclusive right of settlement on royal land gradually took on an ethnic dimension as well, although the defensive struggle was still directed against the aggressively behaving nobility of the counties and the Székelys.
Alongside the settlements that sprang up on the King’s freehold land – hence ‘Königsboden’ – there were other localities, usually in the immediate vicinity within the counties, where noble rights applied. Of a total of around 500 settlements originally established, some 250 were still regarded as Saxon settlements in the 19th and 20th centuries, of which about two-thirds were on royal land and one-third on county land; the other settlements had fallen into disuse by the late Middle Ages or saw a change in their population during the early modern period. Saxons on county land did not enjoy the rights of German settlers on royal land and became increasingly subject to land-based servitude and serfdom. In ecclesiastical terms, however, the settlements were linked through the parish brotherhoods of the settlement period, so that even the villages on county land took part in the Reformation and were fully integrated into the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession; the landlords permitted this development. As a result, the linguistic group remained intact regardless of legal status and was able to undergo the transformation into an ethnic group collectively in the 19th century (so that it was only at this point that the original legal term ‘Saxons’ came to be applied to all of them, whereas previously they had generally referred to themselves as Germans). To this group, which spoke various variants of Transylvanian Saxon (a Moselle Franconian dialect similar to the Letzeburgish spoken in Luxembourg today), were continually joined by individual immigrants; in the 17th century, for example, numerous religious refugees from Spiš or Silesia, and from the 18th century onwards, entire groups of settlers as well. Among the most significant of these were the crypto-Protestants from the Erblanden (known as ‘Landler’), who were forcibly resettled by the Austrian central authorities and who preserved their distinctive character in several southern Transylvanian towns right up into the 20th century.
From as early as the late Middle Ages, the German settlements were characterised by a well-developed education system. In addition to the Latin schools in the towns, numerous village schools are also documented; however, the school system introduced with the Reformation provided a long-term foundation, particularly as the reformer Johannes Honterus (1498–1549) was in fact an educator and humanist rather than a theologian. Several town grammar schools not only provided qualifications for university entry but also offered pre-university courses. A sophisticated scholarship system enabled students of limited means but with ability to study at a European university, mostly in the German states, and – since the Reformation – preferably at Protestant institutions . This close connection to Central Europe also meant that most intellectual movements reached Transylvania with only a slight delay, with the Saxon towns reflecting the Lutheran world , whilst the Hungarian towns of Transylvania generally reflected the Calvinist world . Catholic and Austrian influences only began to emerge very gradually from the 18th century onwards.
The 19th century brought about a lasting transformation, which had already begun with the gradual erosion of the old class privileges under Joseph II (abolition of the exclusive right of settlement in 1781). Beginning with the revolution of 1848–49, Romanians were granted more rights on the royal domain; in 1853 the Saxon Land Law was replaced by the General Civil Code, which had been in force in Austria since 1811, and in 1876 the Hungarian government abolished what remained of self-government. A new political framework had to emerge to replace the old one, and this had already come to fruition in the preceding decades with the growing importance of the Protestant Church, which, under theand far-sighted Bishop Georg Daniel Teutsch from 1867 onwards, had been developed into a ‘people’s church’ that would influence most areas of the social life of the Protestant Germans of Transylvania and provide them with a sense of communal stability until the end of the 20th century. One of the Church’s central measures was the complete integration of the education system into its framework and its comprehensive and systematic expansion based on models from within Germany. Primary schools, grammar schools, girls’ schools, teacher-training colleges and institutions for the training of nursery school teachers, right through to new agricultural and vocational schools as well as commercial and secondary schools, were open to all denominations and religious communities. The political ground that had been lost was thus regained through education and economic strength, which was based on craft enterprises expanded into factories, agricultural innovation and a sophisticated credit and co-operative system.
Many visitors, particularly from within Germany, were impressed by these achievements and this development, and highlighted the exemplary nature of the region for other German minorities in Eastern Europe. This continued even after 1933, when the Transylvanian Saxons increasingly came under the scrutiny of the National Socialists and even gave rise to a ‘renewal movement’ operating in the spirit of the latter. However, both groups overlooked a central aspect of Transylvanian life: whilst there was generally a clear isolationism within Transylvanian society – people lived alongside one another rather than with one another – this coexistence took place in largely peaceful harmony, free from racism. Jews , too, had been living since the turn of the century around 1800, primarily in towns – including Saxon ones – but their interactions with other groups were virtually free of conflict. As disappointment with the Romanian nation-state grew and the National Socialists’ success continued, sympathy for their movement increased, with the result that by 1940 the majority of the German population of Transylvania had allowed themselves to be brought into line with Nazi ideology by envoys from the German Reich, whilst the majority of men fit for military service were recruited into Hitler’s Germany’s combat units in 1942–43. This marked the beginning of the gradual dissolution of this minority, as these soldiers generally remained in the western zones of Germany or in Austria after the war (a few returned in the 1950s). The Saxons of Northern Transylvania, whose territory had been ceded to Hungary in 1940, had been evacuated in 1944 and only a small proportion of them returned, mostly under duress; they remained in Austria or later moved to the Ruhr region. In early 1945, the entire remaining German population of working age was deported to the Soviet Union for ‘reconstruction work’; many died there, were released into the Eastern Zone of Germany, or returned to Romania after four to five years.
In the immediate post-war years, there were a few cases of family reunification with relatives in the West. Those who remained in Romania were confined until further notice; although the communist education system provided them with German-language schools right through to university entrance level, their only independent refuge was the Evangelical Church A.B. Agriculture had been completely collectivised and businesses had been fully expropriated. Arbitrary deportations within the country in the 1950s, as well as Stalinist persecution, led to extreme uncertainty, but were never able to completely suppress the social and cultural life of the Transylvanian Saxons. This gradually intensified with the onset of the political thaw in the 1960s, but suffered as a result of increasing emigration to the Federal Republic of Germany and the rise of national communism under Nicolae Ceauşescu in the 1970s. Under pressure from the Romanian-German associations in Germany, the Federal Government sought ways to buy out those wishing to leave, which it increasingly succeeded in doing during the 1970s, with the result that by the end of the 1980s, over half of the Transylvanian Saxons were already living in the West. Traumatised by the Ceauşescu regime, the majority of the German minority left Romania following the political upheaval of 1989.
The Germans who remained there have gradually been able to establish themselves as a minority group, albeit at a very low demographic level. The German minority schools have continued to operate and are very popular amongst the majority population, although they increasingly lack native-speaking teaching staff. In the face of rampant corruption in the country, there has been sporadic but strong support within society for the German minority’s political organisation, the Democratic Forum, with the result that its representatives have repeatedly been elected to political office. The best-known example is Klaus Johannis, mayor of Sibiu, who was eventually elected President of Romania in 2014 (and re-elected in 2019). A good and constructive relationship has developed since the fall of the Berlin Wall with the compatriots who emigrated – most of whom live in Germany, but also in Austria, the USA, Canada and Switzerland – a relationship that is also reflected in a wide range of joint projects.
Bibliography
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Periodicals/Series
- Anuarul Institutului de Istorie “George Bariţiu” Cluj-Napoca [Yearbook of the “George Bariţiu” Institute of History in Cluj-Napoca] (since 1958).
- Archive of the Society for Transylvanian Regional Studies (Hermannstadt, Kronstadt, Old Series 1843–1851, New Series 1853–1944), continued as: Transylvanian Archive (Cologne et al., since 1962).
- Erdélyi Múzeum (Cluj-Napoca, 1874–1946, 1991–).
- Research on Folklore and Regional Studies (Hermannstadt, since 1959).
- Schriften zur Landeskunde Siebenbürgens (Cologne et al., since 1976).
- Transylvanian Semester Papers (Munich 1987–1999).
- Reflections (Munich, since 2006, a continuation of the Südostdeutsche Vierteljahresblätter, founded in 1952).
- *Studia Transylvanica* (Cologne and elsewhere, since 1968).
- *Transylvanian Review* (Cluj-Napoca/Klausenburg, since 1990).
- Hungary Yearbook (Munich, Regensburg, since 1969).
- Journal of Transylvanian Regional Studies (Heidelberg/Gundelsheim, since 1978, 4th series of the *Korrespondenzblatt* of the Society for Transylvanian Regional Studies, founded in 1878).
Web links
- www.siebenbuergen-institut.de (Transylvanian Institute with the OPAC of the Transylvanian Library and other digital resources, including a collection of documents on the history of the Germans in Transylvania)
- www.icsusib.ro (Hermannstadt Institute of Humanities of the Romanian Academy)
- www.teutsch.ro (Culture and Community Centre of the Evangelical Church A.B. in Romania, with a central archive and library)
- institutuldeistoriegeorgebaritiu.ro/ (Cluj-Napoca Institute of History of the Romanian Academy)
- www.ikgs.de (Institute for German Culture and History in South-Eastern Europe, Munich)
- leibniz-ios.de/bibliothek/ (Library of the former South-East Institute, forming part of the collections of the Leibniz Institute for East and South-East European Studies, Regensburg)
- www.ungarisches-institut.de/ (Hungarian Cultural Institute)
- www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/wikidata/Q39473 (Images relating to Transylvania in the image archive of the Herder Institute, Marburg)
Notes
[1] Béla Köpeczi (ed.): A Brief History of Transylvania. Budapest 1990, p. 269
[2] Based on contemporary denominational registers, estimates and the 1850–51 census. Ibid., p. 411.
Citation
Harald Roth: Transylvania. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2022. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32598 (accessed 14 June 2022).
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