TRANSYLVANIA / ERDÉLY / SIEBENBÜRGEN

The whole area surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains is Transylvania. Historically, Transylvania includes only the plateau in the centre of Romania. The exact origin of the German name Siebenbürgen (seven citadels) has not been clarified; it is probably based on the administrative division of the Region into seven areas, in the Middle Ages. Transylvania is not commonly used in the German language. The name means “land beyond the forest”. The abundance of forests is a sign of the Transylvanian countryside.

 

Thus, Transylvania was always a profitable area for humans. In antiquity, the Dacians founded here their capital Sarmisegetusa. From 106 before Christ, partly Roman province, with its Daco-Roman, then Romanian population from the year 271 on, the fertile area was criss-crossed for centuries by migrant peoples like the Goths, Huns and Avars, as well as by Slavs who came from the east.

 

Some cities in Transylvania act simultaneously as valuable museums and memorials as warning to future generations against the industrial rage for modernization. The architecture of the old Transylvanian city centres is characterized by the style of the Habsburgs, but also has its peculiarities. On the buildings of individual cities there can be observed that many people of different ethnic groups have lived or still live together here. In Romania, alongside Romanians, live Hungarians, Transylvanian Saxons, Landler, Armenians, Jews, Serbs, Ukrainians and others.