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This is an article about the history of Transylvania

Ancient History: Transylvania as the heartland of the Dacian state

Herodotus gives an account of the Agathyrsi, who lived in Transylvania during the 5th century BC.

A kingdom of Dacia was in existence at least as early as the beginning of the 2nd century BC under a king, Oroles. Under Burebista, the greatest king of Dacia and a contemporary of Julius Caesar, the Dacian kingdom reached its maximum extent. The area now constituting Transylvania was the political center of Dacia.

The Dacians are often mentioned under Augustus, according to whom they were compelled to recognize Roman supremacy. However they were by no means subdued, and in later times seized every opportunity of crossing the frozen Danube during winter and ravaging the Roman cities in the recently acquired Roman province Moesia.

The Dacians built several important fortified cities, among them Sarmizegetusa, near today's Hunedoara.

The Roman Empire expansion in the Balkans brought the Dacians into open conflict with Rome. During the reign of Decebalus, the Dacians were engaged in several wars with the Romans (from 85 to 89). After two severe reverses, the Romans gained an advantage, but were obliged to make peace owing to the defeat of Domitian by the Marcomanni. As a result, the Dacians were left independent, but had to pay an annual tribute to the Emperor.

In 101-102 Trajan began a military campaign (Dacian Wars) against the Dacians which included the siege of the Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa and the occupation of part of the country. Decebalus was left as a client king under a Roman protectorate. Three years later, the Dacians rebelled and destroyed the Roman troops in Dacia. The second campaign (105-106) ended with the suicide of Decebalus and the conversion of parts of Dacia into the Roman province Dacia Trajana. The history of the Dacian Wars is given in Dio Cassius, but the best commentary upon it is the famous Column of Trajan in Rome.

Dacians were divided into two classes: the aristocracy (tarabostes) and the common people (comati). Following his subjugation, Decebalus complied with Rome for a time, but was soon inciting revolt among tribes against them and pillaging Roman colonies across the Danube. True to the intrepid and optimistic nature he had become renowned for, Trajan rallied his forces once more in 106 for a second war against the Kingdom of Dacia.

Unlike the first conflict, the second war involved several skirmishes that proved costly to the Roman military, who, facing large numbers of allied tribes, struggled to attain a decisive victory. Eventually, however, Rome prevailed and took Dacia. An assault against the capital Sarmizegethusa proved successful and it was burned to the ground. Decebalus fled, but soon committed suicide rather than face capture.

The battle for Sarmizegetusa Regia took place at the beginning of the summer of 106 BC with the participation of the ADRIUTIX II and FLAVIA FELIX legions and of a detachment (vexillatio) from the FERRATA VI Legion. The Dacians repelled the first attack, but the water pipes from the Dacian capital were destroyed. The city was on fire, all of the pillars of the sacred sanctuaries were cut down, and the entire fortification system was destroyed. But the war went on. By the treason of Bacilis (a confidant of the Dacian king) the Romans found Decebal's treasure in the river of Sargesia (evaluated by Jerome Carcopino at 165500 kg of gold and 331000 kg of silver). The last battle with the army of the Dacian king took place at Porolissum (Moigrad).

The Dacians had a very powerful custom which encouraged them not to be afraid of death. This is why it was said that they left for war merrier than for any other journey. In his retirement in the mountains, Decebal is followed by the Roman cavalry lead by Tiberius Claudius Maximus. The Dacian religion of Zalmoxis admitted suicide as a last resort by those who were in pain and misery. The Dacians who listened Decebal's last speech spread and commit suicide. Only the unkneeled king greater than his god would not seek to forget about his death, but would try to retread from the Romans, hoping that he could still find in the mountains and in the unwalked woods the means to prepare the recommencement of the battle and to seek revenge. But the Roman cavalry followed him without rest. They almost caught him, and at that point the great Decebal meets his destiny by ending his life. The great scene of his death may be found on Trajan's Column in Rome.

Early Middle Ages: From Dacia to the Great Migrations

The Romans exploited the gold mines in the province extensively, building access roads and forts to protect them, like Abrud. The region developed a atrong infrastructure and economy, based on agriculture, cattle farming and mining. Colonists from Thracia, Moesia, Macedonia, Gaul, Syria, and other Roman provinces were brought in to settle the land, developing cities like Apulum (now Alba Iulia) and Napoca (now Cluj Napoca) into municipiums and colonias.

The Dacians rebelled frequently, with the biggest rebellion occurring at the death of Trajan. Sarmatians and Burs were allowed to settle inside Dacia Trajana after repeated clashes with the roman administration. During the 3rd century increasing pressure from the free Dacians (Carpians) and Visigoths forced the Romans to abandon exposed Dacia Trajana.

In 271, the Roman emperor Aurelian abandoned Dacia Trajana and reorganised a new Dacia Aureliana inside former Moesia Superior. The abandonment of Dacia Trajana by the Romans is mentioned by Eutropius in his BREVIARIVM LIBER NONVS.

The province of Dacia, which Trajan had formed beyond the Danube, he gave up, despairing, after all Illyricum and Moesia had been depopulated, of being able to retain it. The Roman citizens, removed from the town and lands of Dacia, he settled in the interior of Moesia, calling that Dacia which now divides the two Moesiae, and which is on the right hand of the Danube as it runs to the sea, whereas Dacia was previously on the left.

The first wave of the Great Migrations, (300 to 500 AD) brought the influence of migratory tribes, especially the Germanic tribes. The Visigoths established a kingdom north of Danube and Transyilvania between 270-380. The region was known by Romans as Guthiuda and includes the region between Alutus (Olt) and Ister (Danube) too. It is unclear whether they used the term Kaukaland (land of the mountains) for Transylvania proper or the whole Carpathians. The (Vizi)Goths were unable to preserve the region's Roman era infrastuctures. The goldmines of Transylvania were ruined and unused during the Early Middle Age. Ulfilas had carried (around 340) Homoean Arianism to the Goths living in Guthiuda with such success that the Visigoths and other Germanic tribes became staunch Arians. When the Goths entered the Roman Empire (around 380) and founded successor-kingdoms, most had been Arian Christians.

In 380 a new power reached Transylvania, the Huns. They drow back every Germanic people from the Carpathian Basin exept the Gepids. The Alans, Vandals, Quads left the region toward the Roman Empire. The Huns extended their rule over Transylvania after 420AD. After the disintegration of Attila's empire, Transylvania was inhabited by the remnants of various Hunnic, and a Germanic tribe, the Gepids. The Transyilvanain Gepids had a semiindependent status inside the Kingdom of Gepids, but this relative autonomy came to an end in the late 6th century.

The rule of Gepids was crushed by a Langobards and Eurasian Avars attack in year 567 AD. In fact the Gepids were exterminated from the region. We know only about slight Gepid remnants (cemeteries) in the Banat region after 600. In Transyilvania we have no traces wich indicate a Gepids continuity after 567. By 568, the Avars under the capable leadership of their Kagan, Bayan, established in the Carpathian Basin an empire that lasted for 250 years. During this 250 years the Slavs were allowed to settle inside Transylvania and they started to clear the Carpathian's virgin forests. The Avars meet their demise with the rise of Charlemagne's Frankish empire. After a fierce seven year war and civil war between the Kagan and Yugurrus which lasted from 796-803 A.D., the Avars were defeated. The Transylvanian Avars were, subjugated by the Bulgars under Khan Krum at the beginning of the 9th century and Transylvania, along with eastern Pannonia, was incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire.

In 862, Moravian Prince Ratislav rebelled against his lord, hired Magyar troops to help him, and with their aid he won his independence. This is the first time when Magyar expedition troops entered the Carpathians Basin. After a devastating Bulgar and Pecheneg attack the Magyar tribes crossed the Carpathians and occupied the entire basin without significant resistance. According to the prime Gesta Ungarorum from the 11th century they entered Transylvania first, where Prince Almos was killed: "Almus in patria Erdelw occisus est, non enim potuit in Pannoniam introire". According to some archeological findigs near Turda (Golds of Prince Berthold of Bavaria) Transylvanian Magyars also participated in several raids against the West, Italy, or the Balkans. Although the defeat in the Battle of Lech in 955 stopped the Magyar raids against western Europe, the raids on the Balkan Peninsula continued for one more decade.

The history of Transylvania during the early Middle Ages is difficult to ascertain due to the scarcity of reliable written or archeological evidence. There are two major conflicting theories concerning whether or not the Romanized Dacian population (one of the ancestors of the Romanians) continued to live in Transylvania after the withdrawal of the Romans, and therefore whether or not the Romanians were present in Transylvania at the time of the Great Migrations, particularly at the time of the Magyar migration; see: Origin of Romanians. These conflicting hypotheses are often used to back competing nationalistic claims by Hungarian and Romanian chauvinists.

Late Middle Ages: Transylvania as part of the Kingdom of Hungary

In 1000 Stephen, prince of Hungary, swore allegiance to Rome, and became King Stephen I of Hungary, adopting Catholicism and bringing about the Christianization of the Magyars. Stephen's maternal uncle Gyula, the ruler of Transylvania, antagonised the new king by giving refuge to his opponents. Gyula also maintained control of the economically important Transylvanian salt mines. In 1003, Stephen led an army into Transylvania and Gyula surrendered without a fight. This made possible the organisation of the Transylvanian Catholic episcopacy which was finished in 1009 when the bishop of Ostia as the legate of the Pope paid a visit to Stephen; together they approved the division of the dioceses and their boundaries. The authority of the Kings of Hungary over Transylvania was consolidated in the 12th and 13th centuries.

The Szeklers, a Hungarian-speaking community of uncertain origin, may have entered Transylvania before the Magyars conquered the Carpathian basin. By the 12th century the Szeklers were established in eastern and southeastern Transylvania as border guards.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, the areas in the south and northeast were settled by German colonists called (then and now) Saxons. Siebenbürgen, the German name for Transylvania, derives from the seven principal fortified towns founded by these Transylvanian Saxons. The German influence became more marked when, early in the 13th century, King Andrew II of Hungary called on the Teutonic Knights to protect Transylvania in the Burzenland from the Cumans, who were followed in 1241 by the Mongols. The Cumans converted to Catholicism, and, after they were defeated by the Mongols, looked for refuge in Transylvania; Erzsebet, a Cumanian princess, married Stephen V of Hungary in 1254.

The administration of Transylvania was in the hands of a voivod, who by the mid-13th century controlled the whole region.

After the suppression of the Budai Nagy Antal-revolt in 1437, the political system was based on Unio Trium Natiorum (The Unity of the Three Nations). Society was divided into three privileged nations, the nobility (mostly Magyars), the Szeklers, and the Saxon burghers. These nations, however, corresponded more to social and religious rather than ethnic divisions. The Romanians were Orthodox, having the right to own land or access to nobility only through conversion to Catholicism, thus they were only tolerated by this system. Although the class of serfs consisted mostly of Romanians, it also included people of Saxon, Szekler, and Hungarian origin. On the other hand, a few Romanians succeeded in entering the ranks of the nobility after converting to Catholicism. Romanian culture developed during this period- for instance, the first Romanian book was printed there.

A key figure to emerge in Transylvania in the first half of the 15th century was John Hunyadi, who was of a Magyarized Romanian family. 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 Transylvania. His subsequent military exploits against the Ottoman Empire brought him further status as the governor of Hungary in 1446 and papal recognition as the Prince of Transylvania in 1448. John Hunyadi was also the father of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. .

Transylvania as an independent principality

When the main Hungarian army and King Louis II Jagiello were slain by the Ottomans in the Battle of Mohács (1526), John Zapolya, governor of Transylvania, took advantage of his military strength and put himself at the head of the nationalist Hungarian party, which opposed the succession of Ferdinand of Austria (later Emperor Ferdinand I) to the Hungarian throne. As John I he was elected king of Hungary, while another party recognized Ferdinand. In the ensuing struggle Zapolya received the support of Sultan Suleiman I, who after Zapolya's death in 1540 overran central Hungary on the pretext of protecting Zapolya's son, John II. Hungary was now divided into three sections: West Hungary, under Austrian rule; central Hungary, under Turkish rule; and semi-independent Transylvania, where Austrian and Turkish influences vied for supremacy for nearly two centuries.

Transylvania was now beyond the reach of Catholic religious authority, allowing Lutheran and Calvinist preaching to flourish. In 1563, Giorgio Blandrata was appointed as court physician, and his radical religious ideas increasingly influenced both the young king John II and the Calvinist bishop Francis David, eventually converting both to the Anti-Trinitarian (Unitarian) creed. In a formal public disputation, Francis David prevailed over the Calvinist Peter Melius; resulting in 1568 in the formal adoption of individual freedom of religious expression under the Edict of Turda (the first such legal guarantee of religious freedom in Christian Europe).

The Báthory family, which came to power on the death of John II in 1571, ruled Transylvania as princes under the Ottomans, and briefly under 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 Transylvania involving the Transylvanians, the Austrians, the Ottomans, and the Romanian voivod of Wallachia, Prince Michael the Brave.

Michael the Brave gained control of Transylvania 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 Transylvania (the three main parts of present-day Romania). Michael the Brave was never made a prince by the Transylvanian 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 Transylvanian 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 merceneries as well as Székelys avenging the Szárhegy Bloody Carnival of 1596. After the defeat of Michael at Miriszló, the Transylvanian Estates swore allegiance to the Habsburg Emperor, Rudolph. As Basta finally subdued Transylvania in 1604 and initiated a reign of terror in which he was authorised to appropriate the land of noblemen, Germanize the population, and reclaim the principality for Catholicism through the Counter Reformation.

The period betwen 1599 (Battle of Şelimbăr) - and 1604 (fall of gen. Basta) was the most tragic period of Transylvania 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.

From 1604-1606, the Calvinist magnate of Bihar county Stephen Bocskai led a successful rebellion against Austrian rule. Bocskai was elected Prince of Transylvania on 5 April 1603 and prince of Hungary two months later. The two main achievements of Bocskai's brief reign (he died 29 December, 1606) were the Peace of Vienna (June 23, 1606), and the Truce of Zsitvatorok (November 1606). By the Peace of Vienna, Bocskai obtained religious liberty and political autonomy, the restoration of all confiscated estates, the repeal of all "unrighteous" judgments, and a complete retroactive amnesty for all Hungarians in Royal Hungary, as well as his own recognition as independent sovereign prince of an enlarged Transylvania. Almost equally important was the twenty years Truce of Zsitvatorok, negotiated by Bocskai between the emperor and the sultan.

Under Bocskai's successors Transylvania had its golden age, especially under the reigns of Gabriel Bethlen and George I Rákóczi. Gabriel Bethlen, who reigned from 1613 to 1629, perpetually thwarted all efforts of the emperor to oppress or circumvent his subjects, and won reputation abroad by championing the Protestant cause. Three times he waged war on the emperor, twice he was proclaimed King of Hungary, and by the Peace of Nikolsburg (December 31, 1621) he obtained for the Protestants a confirmation of the Treaty of Vienna, and for himself seven additional counties in northern Hungary. Bethlen's successor, George I Rákóczi, was equally successful. His principal achievement was the Peace of Linz (September 16, 1645), the last political triumph of Hungarian Protestantism, in which the emperor was forced to confirm again the articles of the Peace of Vienna. Gabriel Bethlen and George I Rákóczi also did much for education and culture, and their era has justly been called the golden era of Transylvania. They lavished money on the embellishment of their capital Alba Iulia, Weißenburg), which became the main bulwark of Protestantism in Eastern Europe. During their reign Transylvania was also one of the few European countries where Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, and Unitarians lived in mutual tolerance. Orthodox Romanians, however, were denied equal rights. Despite the efforts of Inochentie Micu-Klein, a Romanian Greek Catholic bishop, the nation status promised to those Romanians who converted to Catholicism was also not granted.

Austrian Rule and the Austro-Hungarian Empire

After the defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs gradually began to impose their rule on the formerly autonomous Transylvania. Apart from strengthening the central government and administration, the Habsburgs also promoted the Roman Catholic Church, both as a uniting force and also as an instrument to reduce the influence of the Protestant nobility. By creating a conflict between Protestant and Catholic elements, the Habsburgs hoped to weaken the estates. In addition, they tried to persuade Orthodox clergymen to join the Uniate (Greek Catholic) Church, which accepted four key points of Catholic doctrine and acknowledged papal authority, while still retaining Orthodox rituals and traditions. In 1699 and 1701, Emperor Leopold I decreed Transylvania's Orthodox Church to be one with the Roman Catholic Church. Many, but not all, priests converted, although it was not clear to them what the difference was between the two denominations.

From 1711 onward, Austrian control over Transylvania was consolidated, and the princes of Transylvania were replaced with Austrian governors. The proclamation (1765) of Transylvania as a grand principality was a mere formality. The pressure of Austrian bureaucratic rule gradually eroded the traditional independence of Transylvania. In 1791 the Romanians petitioned Emperor Leopold II for recognition as the fourth "nation" of Transylvania and for religious equality, but the Transylvanian Diet rejected their demands, restoring the Romanians to their old status.

In early 1848, the Hungarian Diet 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 Transylvania and Hungary. The Romanians of Transylvania initially welcomed the revolution believing that they would benefit from the liberal reforms. However, their position changed due to the opposition of Transylvanian nobles to reforms such as emancipation of the serfs, and the failure of the Hungarian revolutionary leaders to recognise Romanian national interests. A Romanian national assembly at Blaj in the middle of May, produced its own revolutionary program calling for proportionate representation of Romanians in the Transylvanian 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 Transylvanian Diet met on 29 May the vote for union was pushed through despite the objection of many Saxon deputies. On June 10, the Emperor sanctioned the union vote of the Diet. Military executions, the arrest of revolutionary leaders and other activities which followed the union hardened the position of the Saxons. In September 1848, another Romanian assembly in Blaj denounced union with Hungary and called for an armed rising in Transylvania. Warfare erupted in November with both Romanian and Saxon troops, under Austrian command, battling the Hungarians led by the Polish general Józef Bem. Within four months, Bem had ousted the Austrians from Transylvania. However, in June 1849, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia responded to an appeal from Emperor Franz Joseph to send Russian troops into Transylvania. After initial successes against the Russians, Bem's army was defeated decisively at the Battle of Temesvár (Timişoara) on 9 August; the surrender of Hungary followed.

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 (Transylvania 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 Transylvania, 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 Transylvania. 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 Transylvania 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.

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 Transylvania directly through a military governor, with German again becoming the official language. Austria abolished the Union of Three Nations and granted citizenship to the Romanians. Although the former serfs were given land by the Austrian authorities, it was often barely sufficient for subsistence living. 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 Transylvania ended and it became a province under Hungarian control. While part of Austria-Hungary, Transylvania'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 this historical period, when Transylvania was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire under Hungarian administration, "Transylvania proper" consisted of a 15-county (Hungarian: megye) region, covering 54,400 km² in the southeast of the former Kingdom of Hungary. In addition to Transylvania proper, modern Transylvania includes part of the Banat, part of the Pannonian plain, and the former Partium.

Transylvania as part of Romania

Although Kings Carol I and Ferdinand I were of the German Hohenzollern dynasty, the Kingdom of Romania refused to join the Central Powers and stayed neutral when the First World War began. In 1916 Romania joined the Triple Entente by signing the Military Convention with the Entente, which recognised Romania's rights over Transylvania. As a consequence of the Convention, Romania declared war against the Central Powers on 27 August 1916, and crossed the Carpathian mountains into Transylvania, thus forcing the Central Powers to fight on yet another front. A German-Bulgarian counter-offensive began the following month in Dobruja and in the Carpathians, driving the Romanian army back into Romania by mid-October and eventually leading to the capture of Bucharest. The exit of Russia from the war in March 1918 in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk left Romania alone in Eastern Europe, and a peace treaty between Romania and Germany was negotiated in May 1918. However, the resulting Treaty of Bucharest, never ratified in Romania, was denounced in October 1918 by the Romanian government, which then re-entered the war on the Allied side. The Romanian Army advanced to the Mureş river in Transylvania.

By mid-1918 the Central Powers were losing the war, and the Austro-Hungarian empire had begun to disintegrate. The nations living inside Austria-Hungary proclaimed their independence from the empire during September and October 1918. The leaders of Transylvania's National Party met and drafted a resolution invoking the right of self-determination (Woodrow Wilson's 14 points) of Transylvania's Romanian people, and proclaimed the unification of Transylvania with Romania. In November, the Romanian National Central Council, which represented all the Romanians of Transylvania, notified the Budapest government that it had assumed control of twenty-three Transylvanian counties and parts of three others. A mass assembly on 1 December in Alba Iulia passed a resolution calling for unification of all Romanians in a single state. The National Council of the Germans from Transylvania approved the Proclamation, as did the Council of the Danube Swabians from the Banat. In response, the Hungarian General Assembly of Cluj reaffirmed the loyalty of Hungarians from Transylvania to Hungary on December 22 1918.

In December 1918 the Romanian army was stationed on the Mureş river, but crossed the demarcation zone and advanced up to Cluj and then up to Sighet, after making a request to the Powers of Versailles on the grounds of protecting the Romanians in Transylvania. In February 1919, the escalating violence in the area - Bolshevik elements were making efforts to spread the "Bolshevik Revolution" - led to the creation of a Neutral Zone between Romania and Hungary.

The Prime Minister of the newly proclaimed independent Republic of Hungary resigned in March 1919, refusing to officially recognize the Treaty of Versailles which placed Transylvania under the sovereignty of Romania. When the Communist Party of Hungary, led by Béla Kun, came to power in March 1919 it proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic and after promising that Hungary would regain the lands that were under its control during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it decided to attack Czechoslovakia and Romania. The Hungarian Army began the offensive in Transylvania in April 1919 along the Someş, and Mureş rivers. A Romanian counter-offensive pushed forward to reach - and halt at - the Tisa River in May. A new Hungarian offensive in July penetrated 60 km into Romanian lines before a further Romanian counter-offensive led to the occupation of the Hungarian capital Budapest in August, putting an end to the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The Romanian army withdrew from Hungary between October 1919 and March 1920.

The Treaty of Versailles, formally signed in June 1919, recognised the sovereignty of Romania over Transylvania. The Treaties of St. Germain (1919) and Trianon (signed on June 1920) further elaborated the status of Transylvania and defined the new border between the states of Hungary and Romania. King Ferdinand I of Romania and Queen Maria of Romania were crowned at Alba Iulia in the year 1922.

In August 1940, during the Second World War, Adolf Hitler gave the northern half of Transylvania to Hungary by the second Vienna Diktat. The Treaty of Paris (1947) after the end of the Second World War rendered the Vienna Diktat, and the territory of northern Transylvania was returned to Romania. The post-WWII borders with Hungary, agreed on at the Treaty of Paris were identical with those set out in 1920.

Greater Romania (România Mare)

The Romanian expression România Mare (literal translation "Great Romania") generally refers to the Romanian state in the years between the First and Second World Wars and, by extension, to the territory Romania covered at the time (see the map). Romania achieved at that time its greatest territorial extent, managing to unite all the historic Romanian lands (which were also inhabited by a majority of Romanians). Historically, "Great Romania" represented one of the ideals of Romanian nationalism. It is still seen by many as a "paradise lost", often by comparison with the "stunted" Communist Romania.

To exploit the nationalistic connotation of the term, a a nationalist political party uses it as its name.

The Romanian term "România Mare" is sometimes translated as "Great Romania", both to refer to the historic notion, and to translate the name of the political party.

In 1918, at the end of World War I, Transylvania and Bessarabia united with the Romanian Old Kingdom, Transylvania united by a Proclamation of Union of Alba Iulia voted by the Deputies of the Romanians from Transylvania; Bessarabia, having declared its independence from Russia in 1917 by the Conference of the Country (Sfatul Ţarii), called in Romanian troops to protect the province from the Bolsheviks who were spreading the Russian Revolution. The union of the regions of Transylvania, Maramureş, Crişana and Banat with the Old Kingdom of Romania was ratified in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon which recognised the sovereignty of Romania over these regions and settled the border between the independent Republic of Hungary and the Kingdom of Romania. The union of Bucovina and Bessarabia with Romania was ratified in 1920 by the Treaty of Versailles. Romania had also recently acquired the Southern Dobrudja territory called the Quadrilateral from Bulgaria as a result of its victory in the Second Balkan War in 1913.

Historical population

Coat of arms of Transylvania

The Diet of 1659 codified the representation of the privileged nations in Transylvania's coat of arms. While the Hungarians, Saxons, and Szeklers were represented, the Romanians were not, despite their proposal to include a representation of Dacia. Because the Romanian administrative divisions are not regions but counties (judeţe), the historical arms is now only used within the coat of arms of Romania. The historical Transylvanian arms depicts:

• on a blue background, a lammergeier (a bearded vulture) representing the medieval nobility, which was primarily Magyar. The Sun and the waning crescent Moon above the lammergeier represent the Szeklers.
• a red dividing band
• seven red towers on a yellow background representing the seven castles of the Transylvanian Saxons

See also

• Aftermath of World War I
• Austria-Hungary
• History of Hungary
• History of Romania
• List of Transylvanian rulers
• The Ancient History of Transylvania