HISTORICAL.
Transylvania is interesting not only on account of its geographical
position, but likewise with regard to the several races which inhabit
it, and the peculiar conditions under which part of these have obtained
possession of the soil.
Situated between 45° 16’ and 48° 42’ latitude, and 40° to 44° of
longitude (Ferro), the land covers a space of 54,000 square kilometres,
which are inhabited by a population of some 2,170,000 heads.
Of these the proportion of different races may be assumed to be pretty
nearly as follows:
Roumanians 1,200,400
Hungarians 652,221
Saxons 211,490
Gypsies 79,000
Jews 24,848
Armenians 8,430
Some one has rather aptly defined Transylvania as a vast storehouse
of different nationalities; and in order to account for the _raison
d’être_ of so many different races living side by side in one small
country, a few words of explanation are absolutely necessary to render
intelligible the circumstances of daily life in Transylvania, since it
is to be presumed that to many English readers the country is still
virtually a “land beyond the forest.”
Not being, however, of that ferocious disposition which loves to
inflict needless information upon an unoffending public, I pass over
in considerate silence such very superfluous races as the Agathyrsi,
the Gepidæ, the Getæ, and yet others who successively inhabited these
regions. Let it suffice to say that in the centuries immediately
preceding the Christian era the land belonged to the Dacians, who were
in course of time subjugated by Trajan, Transylvania becoming a Roman
province in the year 105 A.D. It remained under the Roman eagle for
something over a century and a half; but about the year 274 the Emperor
Aurelian was compelled to remove his legions from the countries over
the Danube and abandon the land to the all-ravaging Goths.
I have only here insisted on the Dacian and Roman occupation of
Transylvania, because one or other or both of these peoples are
supposed to be the ancestors of the present Roumanian race. The
Roumanians themselves like to think they are descended directly from
the Romans; while Germans are fond of denying this origin, and maintain
this people to have appeared in these regions at a much later period.
According to the most reliable authorities, however, the truth would
seem to lie between these two opposite statements, and the Roumanians
to be the offspring of a cross-breed between the conqueror and the
conquered—between Romans and Dacians.
After the Roman evacuation the country changed hands oftener than can
be recorded, and the rolling waves of the _Völkerwanderung_ passed
over the land, each nation leaving its impress more or less upon
the surface, till finally the Magyars began to gain something of a
permanent hold, towards the eleventh century. This hold, however, was
anything but a firm one, for the Hungarian king had alike outward
enemies and inward traitors to guard against, and was in continual
fear lest some affectionate relation should rob him of one of his
crown-jewels.
To add to this, the province of Transylvania was but thinly peopled,
and ill qualified to resist attacks from without. In view, therefore,
of all these circumstances, King Geisa II. bethought himself of
inviting Germans to come and establish colonies in this scantily
peopled land, promising them certain privileges in return for the
services he expected. Hungarian heralds began, consequently, to appear
in German towns, proclaiming aloud in street and on market-place the
words of their royal master. Their voices found a ready echo among the
people, for this promised land was not absolutely unknown to the German
yeomen, who many of them had passed through it on their way to and from
the Crusades; besides, this was the time when feudal rights weighed
most oppressively on unfortunate vassals, and no doubt many were glad
to purchase freedom even at the price of expatriation.
As a German poet sings:
“When castles crowned each craggy height
Along the banks of Rhine,
And ’neath the mailèd warriors’ might
Did simple burghers pine;
“When bowed the common herd of men,
Serfs to a lord’s commanding,
The holy Roman Empire then
For free men had no standing.
“Then off broke many and away,
Another country questing;
‘We’ll found another home,’ said they—
‘A house on freedom resting.
“‘Hungarian forests, wild and free,
Are refuge for us keeping;
From home and home’s dear ties will we
Emancipate us, weeping.’”
Or in the words of another:
“We’ll ride away to the east,
Away to the east we go—
O’er meadows away,
O’er meadows so gay;
It will be better so.
“And when we came to the east,
’Neath the lofty house came we,
They called us in,
O’er meadows so gay,
And bade us welcome be.”
In thus summoning German colonists to the country, the Hungarian
monarch showed wisdom and policy far in advance of his century, as the
result has proved. It was a bargain by which both parties were equally
benefited, and thereby induced to keep the mutual compact. The Germans
obtained freedom, which they could not have had in their own country,
while their presence was a guarantee to the monarch that this province
would not be torn from his crown.
In the midst of a population of serfs, and side by side with proud
and overbearing nobles, these German immigrants occupied a totally
different and neutral position. Without being noble, they were free
men every one of them, enjoying rights and privileges hitherto unknown
in the country. Depending directly from the King, they had no other
master, and were only obliged to go to war when the monarch in person
commanded the expedition. For this reason the country inhabited by the
Germans was often termed the Königsboden, or Kingsland, and on their
official seal were engraved the words, “Ad retinendam coronam.”
The exact date of the arrival of these German colonists in Transylvania
is unknown, but appears to have been between 1141 and 1161. That they
did not all come at the same time is almost certain. Probably they
arrived in successive batches at different periods; for, as we see by
history, all did not enjoy exactly the same privileges and rights, but
different colonies had been formed under different conditions.
[Illustration: SAXON BURGHER IN OLDEN TIMES.]
Also the question of what precise part of the German father-land was
the home of these outwanderers is enveloped in some obscurity. They
have retained no certain traditions to guide us to a conclusion, and
German chronicles of that time make no mention of their departure.
The Crusades, which at that epoch engrossed every mind, must have
caused these emigrations to pass comparatively unnoticed. Only a sort
of vague floating tradition is preserved to this day in some of the
Transylvania villages, where on winter evenings some old grandam,
shrivelled and bent, ensconced behind the blue-tiled stove, will relate
to the listening bairns crowding around her knees how, many, many
hundred years ago, their ancestors once dwelt on the sea-shore, near
to the month of four rivers, which all flowed out of a yet larger and
mightier river. In this shadowy description probably the river Rhine
may be recognized, the more so that in the year 1195 these German
colonists are, in a yet existing document, alluded to as _Flanderers_.
The name of _Sachsen_ (Saxons), as they now call themselves, was, much
later, used only as their general designation; and it is more than
probable, from certain differences in language, customs, and features,
that different colonies proceeded from widely different parts of the
original mother-country.
Although the Hungarian kings generally kept their given word right
nobly to the immigrants, yet these had much to suffer, both from
Hungarian nobles jealous of the privileges they enjoyed, and from
the older inhabitants of the soil, the Wallachians, who, living in a
thoroughly barbaric state up in the mountains, used to make frequent
raids down into the valleys and plains, there to pillage, burn, and
murder whatever came into their hands. If we add to this the frequent
invasions of Turks and Tartars, it seems a marvel how this little
handful of Germans, brought into a strange country and surrounded
by enemies on all sides, should have maintained their independence
and preserved their identity under such combination of adverse
circumstances. They built churches and fortresses, they formed schools
and guilds, they made their own laws and elected their own judges; and
in an age when Hungarian nobles could scarcely read or write, these
little German colonies were so many havens of civilization in the midst
of a howling wilderness of ignorance and barbarism.
The German name of Transylvania—Siebenbürgen, or Seven Forts—was
long supposed to have been derived from the seven principal fortresses
erected at that time. Some recent historians are, however, of opinion
that this name may be traced to _Cibinburg_, a fortress built near the
river Cibin, from which the surrounding province, and finally the whole
country, was called the land of the Cibinburg—of which, therefore,
Siebenbürgen is merely a corruption.
Transylvania remained under the dependence of the Magyars till the year
1526, when, after the battle of Mohacs, which ended so disastrously for
the Hungarians, Hungary was annexed to Austria, and Transylvania became
an independent duchy, choosing its own regents, but paying, for the
most part, a yearly tribute to Turkey.[1]
After something more than a century and a half of independence,
Transylvania began to feel its position as an independent State to be
an untenable one, and that its ultimate choice lay between complete
subjection to either Turkey or Austria. Making, therefore, a virtue of
necessity, and hoping thereby to escape the degradation of a conquered
province, Transylvania offered itself to Austria, and was by special
treaty enrolled in the Crown lands of that empire in 1691.
Finally, in 1867, when the present emperor, Francis Joseph, was crowned
at Pesth, Transylvania was once more formally united to Hungary, and,
like the rest of the kingdom, divided into _komitats_, or counties.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Turkish sway does not seem to have been a very oppressive one,
if we are to believe this account of how the Turkish tax-collector used
to gather his tithes:
“In a cart harnessed with four horses, the Turkish tax-collector used
to drive round the villages in Transylvania; and when he cracked his
whip the people came running out and threw, each according to his
means, a piece of money into the vat. Sometimes it was but a groat,
sometimes even less, for there was but little money in the land at that
time; but the Turk was satisfied with what he got, and drove on without
further ado.”