History of Cluj-Napoca

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The history of Cluj-Napoca covers the time from the Roman conquest of Dacia, when it was known as Napoca, through its flourishing as the main cultural and religious center in the historic province of Transylvania, until its modern existence as a city, the seat of Cluj County in north-western Romania.

Contents

[edit] Ancient times

After the Roman Empire conquered Dacia at the beginning of the 2nd century, Trajan established a legion camp known as Napoca. Hadrian raised Napoca to the status of a municipium, naming it Municipium Aelium Hadrianum Napoca. The locality was later raised to the status of a colonia, probably during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Napoca became a provincial capital of Dacia Porolissensis and the seat of a procurator. However, during the Migrations Period Napoca was overrun and destroyed.

[edit] Middle Ages

„Clavdiopolis, Coloswar vulgo Clavsenbvrg, Transiluaniæ ciuitas primaria“. Gravure of medieval Cluj by Georg Houfnagel (1617)
„Clavdiopolis, Coloswar vulgo Clavsenbvrg, Transiluaniæ ciuitas primaria“. Gravure of medieval Cluj by Georg Houfnagel (1617)

In the 10th century, the region was settled by the Magyars (Hungarians) and became part of the Kingdom of Hungary. The Mongol invasions destroyed the old plank fortress and also the surrounding village. A new castle and a village were built in a new location (present-day Memorandului and Emil Isac street) in the late 13th century. Crown Prince Stephen V of Hungary, Duke of Transylvania encouraged the Transylvanian Saxons to settle down in the new village in 1272.

In 1270 Kuluzsvar (the castle and the village) was donated to the bishopric of Transylvania. In 1316 , the town received privileges from Charles I of Hungary; in memory of this event, the Saint Michael Church started to be built. In 1331 the voivode of Transylvania lost his supremacy over Kuluzsvar. Kolozsvar-Klausenburg became a free royal city in 1405. By this time the number of Saxon and Hungarian inhabitants was equal, and King Matthias Corvinus (born in Klausenburg in 1440) ordered that the office of the chief judge should alternate between Hungarians and Saxons.

Matthias Corvinus heraldry as depicted in Johannes de Thurocz's manuscript (1490)
Matthias Corvinus heraldry as depicted in Johannes de Thurocz's manuscript (1490)

[edit] Principality of Transylvania

In 1541 Klausenburg became part of the independent Principality of Transylvania after the Ottoman Turks occupied the central part of the of the Hungarian Kingdom. Although Alba Iulia served as political capital for the princes of Siebenbürgen (Transylvania), Klausenburg was the main cultural and religious center for the principality. In 1581, Stefan Batory, Governor of Transylvania, took the initiative in founding a Jesuit academy in Klausenburg.

Between 1545 and 1570, large numbers of Germans (Saxons) left the city due to the introduction of Unitarian doctrines. The remaining Germans were assimilated to Hungarians, and the city became a centre for Hungarian nobility and intellectuals. With the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, Klausenburg became part of the Habsburg Monarchy.

[edit] Principality of Siebenbürgen and Austria-Hungary

The town in 1759
The town in 1759

From 1790 to 1848 and again from 1861 to 1867, Klausenburg was the capital of the Grand Principality of Siebenbürgen within the Austrian Empire; the city was also the seat of the Transylvanian diets. Beginning in 1830, the city became the centre of the Hungarian national movement within the principality. During the Revolutions of 1848, Klausenburg was taken and garrisoned in December by Hungarian troops under the command of the Polish general Józef Bem.

In 1776, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria founded a German university in Cluj. But this enterprise was not to survive long, Emperor Joseph II replacing the university with the famous Piarist Highschool, where the teaching was done in Latin. The first Hungarian-language newspaper was published in Klausenburg in 1791, and the first Hungarian theatrical company was established in 1792. In 1798, the city was heavily damaged by a fire.

For lighting, oil lamps were introduced in 1826, gas lamps in 1861 and electric lights in 1906.[1]

After the Ausgleich (compromise) which created Austria-Hungary in 1867, Klausenburg and Transylvania were again integrated into the Kingdom of Hungary. During this time, Kolozsvar was among the largest and most important cities of the kingdom, and was the seat of Kolozs County. In 1897, the Hungarian government decided that only Hungarian place names should be used and therefore prohibited the use of the German or Romanian versions of the city's name in official government documents.[2]

In 1872, the authorities established a University in Cluj, with teaching exclusively in Hungarian, which caused discontent amongst the Romanian population. In 1881 the University was renamed Franz Joseph University after Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.

[edit] 20th Century

Dormition of the Theotokos Cathedral
Dormition of the Theotokos Cathedral

After World War I, Cluj became part of the Kingdom of Romania, along with the rest of Transylvania. The Romanian authorities took over the University of Cluj, transforming it into a Romanian institution. On May 12, 1919, the Romanian University of Cluj was set up, with King Ferdinand proclaiming the University open on February 1, 1920.

In 1940 Cluj was returned to Hungary through the Second Vienna Award, but Hungarian forces in the city were defeated by the Soviet and Romanian armies in October 1944. Cluj was restored to Romania by the Treaty of Paris in 1947. The Northern Transylvania People's Tribunal was set up in Cluj by the post-World War II government of Romania, overseen by the Allied Control Commission, to try suspected war criminals. The Cluj Tribunal passed a total of 100 death sentences, 163 sentences of life imprisonment, and a range of other sentences.

Cluj had 16,763 inhabitants of Jewish ancestry in 1941. After Hungary's German occupation in March 1944, the city's Jews were forced into ghettos under conditions of intense overcrowding and practically no facilities. Liquidation of the ghetto occurred through six deportations to Auschwitz between May and June 1944. Despite facing severe sanctions from the Horthy administration, many Jews escaped across the border to Romania with the assistance of Romanian peasants of neighboring villages. They were then able to flee Europe from the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanţa. Other Jews originating from East European countries were helped to escape from Europe by an Anti-Nazi group led by the Jewish Joint and Romanian politicians in Cluj and Bucharest. The leader of this network, between 1943 and 1944, was Raoul Şorban.

Babeş-Bolyai University
Babeş-Bolyai University

After World War II, the Romanian university (which had moved to Sibiu and Timişoara in the aftermath of the Second Vienna Award) returned to Cluj and took the name "Babeş", after the scientist Victor Babeş. Parts of the Hungarian university moved to Szeged and were later named University of Szeged, which became one of the most distinguished universities in Hungary and in Central Europe. The remaining parts formed the Hungarian University of Cluj and took the name "Bolyai", after the mathematician János Bolyai. The two universities, the Romanian Babeş University and the Hungarian Bolyai University, merged in 1959 forming the Babeş-Bolyai University, with teaching in both Romanian and Hungarian. Nowadays, this is the largest university in Romania.

Hungarians remained the majority of the city's population until the 1960s, when for the first time in its long history, Romanians outnumbered Hungarians. According to the 1966 census, the city's population of 185,663 was composed of 56% Romanians and 41% Hungarians. Until 1974 the official Romanian name of the city was Cluj. It was renamed to Cluj-Napoca by the Communist government to recognize it as the site of the Roman colony Napoca.

[edit] After the Romanian Revolution

Bariţiu Street
Bariţiu Street

Following the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the nationalist politician Gheorghe Funar became mayor for 12 years. His tenure was marked by strong Romanian nationalistic and anti-Hungarian ideas. A number of public art projects were undertaken by the city with the aim of highlighting Romanian symbols of the city, most of them regarded by Hungarian ethnics as a way of obscuring the city's Hungarian ancestry. In June 2004 Gheorghe Funar was voted out of office. He was replaced by Emil Boc of the Democratic Party. The laws on municipal bilingualism have not been applied in administration as the 2002 city census showed less than 20% Hungarians.

In 1994 and 2000, Cluj-Napoca hosted the Central European Olympiad in Informatics (CEOI). It thus made Romania not only the first country to have hosted the CEOI, but also the first country to have hosted it a second time.

The city is known in Hasidic Jewish history for the founding of the Sanz-Klausenburg dynasty.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lazarovici et al. 1997, p.73 (4.1 Centru al mişcării revoluţionare)
  2. ^ Georges Castellan, A history of the Romanians, Boulder, 1989, pp.148
  3. ^ Rabinowicz, Tzvi M. (1996). The Encyclopedia of Hasidism. Jason Aronson, Inc.. ISBN 1-56821-123-6. 

[edit] Bibliography

Languages