Awesome Backroads of Transylvania

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• published: 14 Nov 2012
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Transylvania has been dominated by several different peoples and countries throughout its history. It was once the nucleus of the Kingdom of Dacia (82 BC--106 AD). In 106 AD the Roman Empire conquered the territory, systematically exploiting its resources. After the Roman legions withdrew in 271 AD, it was overrun by a succession of various tribes, bringing it under the control of the Carpi (Dacian tribe), Visigoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars, Slavs and Bulgarians. It is a subject of dispute whether elements of the mixed Daco--Roman population survived in Transylvania through the Dark Ages (becoming the ancestors of modern Romanians) or the first Vlachs appeared in the area in the 13th century after a northward migration from the Balkan Peninsula.[8][9] There is an ongoing scholarly debate over the ethnicity of Transylvania's population before the Hungarian conquest (see Origin of the Romanians). The Magyars conquered much of Central Europe at the end of the 9th century. According to Gesta Hungarorum, Transylvania was ruled by Vlach voivode Gelou after the Hungarians arrived. The Kingdom of Hungary firmly established control over Transylvania in 1003, when king Stephen I, according to legend, defeated the prince named Gyula.[10][11][12][13] Between 1003 and 1526, Transylvania was a voivodeship in the Kingdom of Hungary, led by a voivode appointed by the King of Hungary.[citation needed] After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Janos Szapolyai which, in 1571, was transformed into the Principality of Transylvania ruled primarily by Calvinist Hungarian-speaking princes. However, ethnic groups that lived in this principality also included numerous Romanians and Germans. For most of this period, Transylvania, maintaining its internal autonomy, was under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. A market scene in Transylvania, 1818 The Habsburgs acquired the territory shortly after the Battle of Vienna in 1683. In 1687, the rulers of Transylvania recognized the suzerainty of the Habsburg emperor Leopold I, and the region was officially attached to the Habsburg Empire. The Habsburgs acknowledged Principality of Transylvania as one of the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen,[14] but the territory of principality was administratively separated [15][16] from Habsburg Hungary[17][18][19] and subjected to the direct rule of the emperor's governors.[20] In 1699 the Turks legally conceded their loss of Transylvania in the Treaty of Karlowitz; however, some anti-Habsburg elements within the principality submitted to the emperor only in the 1711 Peace of Sathmar. After the Ausgleich of 1867, the Principality of Transylvania was abolished and its territory was absorbed into Transleithania [11][13] or the Hungarian part of the newly established Austro-Hungarian Empire. Following defeat in World War I, Austria-Hungary disintegrated. The ethnic Romanian majority in Transylvania elected representatives, who then proclaimed Union with Romania on December 1, 1918. The Proclamation of Union of Alba Iulia was adopted by the Deputies of the Romanians from Transylvania, and supported one month later by the vote of the Deputies of the Saxons from Transylvania. In 1920, the Treaty of Trianon established a new border between Romania and Hungary, leaving the whole of Transylvania within the Romanian state. Hungary protested against the new border, as over 1,600,000 Hungarian people (who were a minority in Transylvania in comparison with 2,800,000 Romanians)[21] were living on the Romanian side of the border, mainly in Székely Land of Eastern Transylvania, and along the newly created border, which was drawn through some areas with a Hungarian majority. In August 1940, in the midst of World War II, Hungary gained about 40% of Transylvania by the Vienna Award, with the aid of Germany and Italy. That territory was assigned back to Romania in 1945 and this was confirmed in the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties.[11]