Borla, Sălaj
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Borla (hungarian: Szilágyballa) is a small village in Sălaj County, Romania, 15 kilometers away from Zalau city.
The first written source about the village dates back to 1341 and refers to it under the name of Barla. Allegedly Barla is an allusion to ‘barlang’ (i.e. cave), where inhabitants used to retreat from waves of Tatar invasions. Excavations however revealed that the area was populated already in the Bronze Era, and some artifacts are even dated back to the Neolithic Era. The Szilágy-prefix was assigned when the train station was built in 1913, referring to the county.
Around 1450 the village was property of the Várad (Oradea) bishop, who participated on the side of Hunyadi in the battle of Belgrade, and fell hostage to the Turks. Afterwards the village was owned mostly by the Bánffy family until the early 20th century.
The population started to grow beyond the low hundreds in the 19th century when paved road and the railway arrived. Presently there are some 1600 souls in the village, with:
~1450 Hungarian
~ 200 Gypsy (Roma)
~ 20 Romanian ethnicity,
Religions: 998 Reformat (protestant), 290 Baptized and ~ 100 Greek Orthodox (mainly from the Gypsy community). The reformation wave must have reached the village in 1556, due to the influential work of Szegedi Lajos, a reformant priest from Crasna, Sălaj (Kraszna). The Baptized church has been formed in 1904. Few Jews did live in the village (as in most villages in the area), which were deported during the Nazi occupation in WWII. Those surviving did not return to live in there.
After the Trianon treaty, the communal center has been moved to the village of Bocşa.
Local education has its roots in church-owned educational institutions, with written records are of 1852. The present school has been built in 1970, mainly by local effort. The old school building is used as nursery school. Classes are held mainly in Hungarian, except for the Roma community, for which one aggregate class of the first elementary grades is maintained. Afterwards pupils travel to the neighboring Bocsa to study in Romanian.
Borla is considered an important vine-region within the scope of the county. While wine cellars next to the vineyards do not have a tradition (as in other vine-cultivating locations, like Sărmaşăg, Sălaj and Şamşud, Sălaj) the soil is allegedly more acidic which produces a more mature and full tasting vine vs its local competition. The local vine production is exercised by individuals on small scale, and has observed both a small renaissance - due to the organization of a vine contest, and prizes won by local producers on domestic competitions - as well as a setback due to recent falsification scandals by producers who capitalized on the recognition of the local wine.
While the local population has seen a steady growth during the communist era, presently it experiences an exodus of the youth mainly towards Hungary. A significant part of the working population earns a living in Hungary and abroad. Excepting the Gipsy community, the population is in decline.
Very recently the village has met some notable developments, whereby after many years of lobbying and tireless work of enthusiast volunteers, an IMF grant, and not least the contributions of the inhabitants made it possible to pave the streets with a thin layer of asphalt. Shortly after the wireline phone coverage has arrived. A water-pipeline network has also been deployed, but this one is not yet commissioned, pending the deployment of a sewage system.
A wireless Internet access system has been deployed in December 2007.
Entrepreneurship is lackluster in Borla, with most of the youth gone to Hungary. Recent signs are showing some revitalization of the entrepreneurial spirit.
Present leaders of the community are:
DEMJÉN Katalin, vice-mayor
BÓNÉ Vilmos, school director
BOROS Árpád, Reformat priest
KIRÁLY Tibor, Baptized priest
