Transylvania in the Kindom of Hungary until 1921

Principality of Transylvania

These images and texts focus on cities, towns, buildings and natural scenery of Transylvania. Transylvania had been the integral part of the Kingdom of Hungary since 1000 until 1921, and is the citadel of the Hungarian culture in the Carpathian Basin. At the end of World War I, as part of the Treaty of Trianon, 1920, the Allies annexed Transylvania from Hungary to Romania (to whom Transylvania had never belonged before), however, the region remains a treasury of the one-thousand-year old Hungarian culture and people in the Carpathian Basin.

INTRODUCTION

Geographically, Transylvania lies in the Carpathian Basin. The Magyars invaded this part of Europe in 896 AD. See "Magyar Conquest of Hungary". During the centuries and after many wars, the Hungarian kings invited other ethnicities, such as the Saxons from Germany, to settle and fill the place of the decreased Hungarian population, and to replenish the land of Transylvania again. For several centuries the state administration was based on the alliance of the following three nations: the Hungarian nobles, the Szeklers, and the free peasants and tradesmen of the autonomous Saxon territories. Other groups, such as the Rumanians in historic books mentioned as Vlachs, came in Transylvania later. Their first groups are mentioned in chronicles dated the 13th century, quoting them as poor shepherds wandering with their flocks from Wallachia across the Carpathian Mountains to seek asylum and refuge in Hungarian territory.

In 1541, due to the Ottoman Turkish power in Central Europe, the Hungarian kingdom disintegrated into three parts. Between 1542 and 1688 Transylvania was a relatively independent principality, keeping its ties with Hungary. It paid tribute but was free from Turkish occupation. Between 1591 and 1606 civil wars between rival dukes destroyed Transylvania's unity. Later, Duke Gabor Bethlen (1613-1629) reestablished the stability and order in Transylvania.

In 1687, after defeating the Turks, the Habsburgs made Transylvania into an Austrian crown colony (1688-1867). Although the Habsburg rule contributed to the development of western culture in Transylvania, it also limited the rights of the different nationalities living in Transylvania, especially that of the Hungarians and Saxons. The reduction of the Hungarians' national rights lead to the revolt of the Kuruces under the leadership of Duke Ferenc Rakoczi II (1703-1711). The goal was national independence. The unresolved tensions lead to the armed revolution of 1848-1849. During this revolution the Saxons, who wanted to defend their rights, and the Romanians, who sought national recognition, supported the Habsburgs against the Hungarian revolutionaries. In 1849 the Hungarian revolutionary government seceded from Austria, declared it´s independance as a souvereign state and the Transylvanian Diet declared the unification of Transylvania with Hungary.

With the help of Russian army units the Habsburg defeated this Hungarian revolution in blood, and after it executed a huge number of leading high hungarian officers. In the following period (1849-1860) Vienna suppressed all of Transylvania's nationalities, but mostly the hungarians, which were blamed ever after by the austrians for the revolution. Apart from the abolition of serfdom, none of the nations were pleased with the results of the revolution.

The autonomous Transylvanian constitution was reintroduced by the Diploma of October 1860. The desire to reunite Transylvania with Hungary lead to the compromise of 1867 and to the creation of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, a real union under one monarch. Saxons, fearing of loosing their national rights, and Romanians, desiring an independent state, were not happy with this union.

The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy fell apart after the First World War. Despite Hungarian protest, the Romanian National Assembly proclaimed the joining of Transylvania to Romania, in the declaration of Alba Julia on December 1, 1918. The Allied and Associated Great Powers confirmed this and anexed Transylvania to Romania by the Treaty of Trianon, 1920(June 4, 1920 in Versai, France), were Hungary was punished as none state in Europe before.

The resulting "treaty" lost Hungary an unprecedented 2/3 of her territory, and 1/2 of her total population or 1/3 of her Hungarian-speaking population. Add to this the loss of up to 90% of vast natural resources, industry, railways, and other infrastructure. This was done to a nation whose borders were established over a thousand years earlier (896 A.D.) and one who lost countless lives defending the rest of Europe from numerous invasions from the Mongolian Tatars and the Ottoman Turks.

But there is another ethnic group within the territory of Transylvania proper, about which, very few words are usually spoken; these are the SZÉKELYs. The Székely people live in their very nice Székely-land (Hung. Székelyföld) for more than a thousand years, longer than the Hungarians, Germans, Rumanians or anybody else in Transylvania. Read more on SZÉKELY-LAND