History of Timișoara

This article is about the History of Timișoara, the largest and most important city in the Romanian Banat. Timișoara  listen  is also known by the following names: Hungarian: Temesvár, German: Temeswar / Temeschwar / Temeschburg, Serbo-Croatian: Temišvar / Темишвар, Turkish: Tamışvar / Temeşvar.

Antiquity

Timișoara in a 1685 engraving by Wagner

Archaeological discoveries prove that the area where Timișoara is located today has been inhabited since ancient times. The first identifiable civilization in this area were the Dacians who left traces of their past. From coin finds, it is known that the settlement was inhabited during the Roman occupation of Dacia. While no record of the settlement is known from those times, it is generally agreed that the site was inhabited through the Middle Ages when the city was mentioned for the first time. Timișoara region was ruled by Ostrogoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars and Bulgars during three centuries since 630 to 1018, before Hungarian conquest in beginning of 10th century since collapse of Roman rule.

Middle Ages

Archaeological finds from a medieval cemetery show that a community of warriors settled in the region west of the present-day town in the second half of the 10th century.[1][2] Almost half of the 41 graves yielded grave goods (including arrow heads, hair rings, earrings and bracelets), suggesting that those who were buried in the cemetery persisted with their pagan rites.[2] The placing of arrow heads into graves is well documented among 10th-century Hungarian warriors in the Carpathian Basin.[3] The position of the arm bones in ten graves may indicates that Christians or people influenced by Christianity were also buried in the cemetery.[4] Various types of rings point at commercial contacts between the local inhabitants and the Balkan Peninsula.[2] The cemetery was abandoned in the first decades of the 11th century.[2]

The mid-12th-century Muslim geographer, Muhammad al-Idrisi, mentioned a town named "T.n.y.s.b.r" and described it as a prosperous settlement, located to the south of the river "T.y.s.y.a", or Tisza.[5] Historian István Petrovics associates T.n.y.s.b.r with Timișoara, suggesting that Idrisi mislocated it because he had no direct information of the town.[5] Timișoara was named after a fortress: the Hungarian name of the town, Temesvár, refers to a castle (vár) on the river Timiș (Temes).[1] The fortress was first mentioned in the Register of Arad around 1177.[1][5] The document mentioned two villages, "Sep" and "Vrman", on the royal estates attached to the fortress "Demesiensis".[5] It was most probably made of earth and timber, according to historian Ferenc Sebők.[1] The fortress, which was erected on a swampy land, near a tributary of the Timiș, the Bega, was the seat of the ispán, or head of Temes County.[6] In 1241 the city was destroyed during the Mongol invasion of Hungary and Poland, but the walls were rebuilt.

Charles I of Hungary took up his residence in Timișoara in 1315, because a dozen powerful lords who had refused to yield to him controlled large territories in other parts of Hungary.[7][8] In the next years, a royal castle was erected near the old fortress and the latter was rebuilt with stone.[5] According to Petrovics, the church dedicated to Saint Eligius implies that Italian artisans settled in the town during this period, because the saint was primarily venerated in Naples.[9] The Dominicans settled in the town before Csanád Telegdi was consecrated bishop in their local church in early 1323.[10] After Charles I restored royal authority, he transferred his court from Timișoara to the centrally-located Visegrád in the summer of 1323.[7][11]

The "guest settlers" in the town (hospites de Themeswar) were first mentioned in 1341, the burghers of Timișoara (cives de Temeswar) in 1342.[7] The ethnicity of the citizens was rarely mentioned, but their names suggest that most "guest settlers" and burghers were Hungarians.[12] Records of citizens who moved from Șemlacu Mare, Maráz and other nearby villages to Timișoara prove that it had developed into an important regional center.[13] Merchants from Ragusa (now Dubrovnik in Croatia) settled in the town around 1402.[14] Bulgarians, Romanians and Serbians also moved to the town in the 15th and 16th centuries.[15] For instance, the name of Johannes Olaah ("John the Vlach"), who was a burgher of Timișoara in 1539, suggests that he was of Romanian origin.[15]

By the middle of the 14th century, Timișoara was at the forefront of Western Christendom's battle against the Muslim Ottoman Turks. French and Hungarian crusaders met at the city before engaging in the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. Beginning in 1443, John Hunyadi used Timișoara as a military stronghold against the Turks, having built a powerful fortress. The city was repeatedly sieged by the Ottomans in 1462, 1476, 1491, and 1522.

In 1514 the largest peasants' revolt in Hungarian history was defeated in a battle near Timișoara and its Szekler leader György Dózsa was tortured and executed.

Ottoman Rule

Because of Timișoara's strategic location, the Ottomans desired to capture the fortress during their campaigns against the Kingdom of Hungary. Although the Hungarians suffered a devastating loss at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Timișoara was not conquered by the Ottomans until October 1551.

The city was transformed into the administrative centre of an Ottoman province, the Province of Temeşvar . The fortress was rebuilt and, along with Belgrade, used as a major military base by the Ottomans. Because of its military orientation, the city itself developed slowly during the Ottoman administration. Timișoara had two fortified parts: the castle and the city, which was surrounded by wooden and stone walls. 200 guns were used to defend the city as well as water trenches around the walls. Approximately 1,200 houses, schools, hotels, and public baths were to be found inside the walls, while outside the walls around 1,500 other houses were present.

The Habsburg Era

The Ottomans surrendered the city to the Habsburg Imperial armies led by Prince Eugene of Savoy on 12 October 1716 during the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18. Prince Eugene entered the city on October 18 and named one of his officers, Claudius Florimund Mercy, as governor of the city. Because the town had burned down during the siege, the city was completely rebuilt under Mercy's supervision. Timișoara was officially conceded to the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy by the Ottomans in the Treaty of Passarowitz of 1718. Timișoara became the capital of the Banat of Temeswar, a separate Habsburg province. The province was abolished in 1778, reincorporated into Kingdom of Hungary.

Under Habsburg rule, a new stone fortress was built around the city in 1723. Inside the walls houses, hospitals, schools, and churches were being raised, while outside the city factories were being opened. By the 1720 data, most of the inhabitants of the town were ethnic Serbs, and also some Romanians. Later, German, Italian, and Spanish settlers were brought in to settle in the area. The marshland around the city was reclaimed, while the rivers Bega and Timiș became regulated. The city remained a military stronghold with a large garrison. This period was one of strong economic development and population increases. By 1781 Timișoara was one of the most important cities of the Habsburg Monarchy and as such it received a royal free city warrant which would accelerate the development of the city even further. Because of the Habsburg administration, Timișoara was often referred to by the German names Temeschburg, meaning "castle (Burg) on the Timiș" or Temeschwar, based on the Hungarian Temesvár. Temesvar was captured in 1788 and looted by Ottomans in 1789 during Austro-Turkish War (1787-1791).

The 1848/1849 Revolution

During the Revolutions of 1848, revolutionaries took over the Hungarian government. Because the Austrian commander of the city’s garrison decided to defend the Habsburg interests, the Hungarian army began an unsuccessful siege of Timișoara (Hungarian: Temesvár) that lasted for 114 days. In the later stage of the revolution, the city was captured by the Serbian troops and for a short time was a capital of the Serbian Vojvodina.

Modernization of Timișoara

Timișoara in 1910

The development of the city continued after the attempted 1848/1849 revolution. In 1849, Timișoara became the capital of the new Habsburg province named Voivodeship of Serbia and Temes Banat. The province was abolished in 1860. The city became capital of Temes County after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 which united the administrations of the region with those of the Kingdom of Hungary.

In 1853 telegraphy was introduced in the city, and in 1857 Timișoara received gas street lighting. In 1857 a train line linking Timișoara with Szeged was constructed, and in 1867 horse trams were introduced in the city. Timișoara became the first European city to have electric street lights in 1884, while the trams became electric in 1899 (after Bucharest in 1884). Timișoara was also the first city in the Kingdom of Hungary and later Romania to have an ambulance station.

After World War I, following an ephemerous pro-Hungary Banat Republic, and a several occupation by the Serbian Army, Timișoara was incorporated into the Kingdom of Romania in 1919 together with most of the Banat region.

The Romanian Revolution of 1989

In December 1989 a popular uprising began in Timișoara against the Communist regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu. The Hungarian Calvinist pastor László Tőkés was ordered to be deported by the Securitate, or secret police, and as a reaction his house was surrounded by members of his church. People supporting him, including people of Romanian origin, gathered at the central square (Opera Square). The Communist administration ordered the army to fire at the congregation. However, a number of army officers refused to open fire and sided with the people. That was the beginning of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which ended the Communist regime a week later. Timișoara was declared the first Free Town on 20 December 1989, suffering 130 reported deaths and 3,352 wounded during the revolution [source needed].

Timetable of Timișoara history

Timișoara has 22,560 inhabitants.

References

Sources

  • Engel, Pál (2001). The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526. I.B. Tauris Publishers. ISBN 1-86064-061-3. 
  • Gáll, Erwin (2013). Az Erdélyi-medence, a Partium és a Bánság 10-11. századi temetői [10th-11th-century Cemeteries from the Transylvanian Basin, the Partium and the Banat] (in Hungarian). Szegedi Tudományegyetem Régészeti Tanszéke, Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont Régészeti Intézet. ISBN 978-963-306-197-8. 
  • Petrovics, István (2008). A középkori Temesvár: Fejezetek a Bega-parti város 1552 előtti történetéből [Medieval Timișoara: Chapters of the History of the Town on the Bega before 1552] (in Hungarian). JATE Press. ISBN 978-963-482-867-9. 
  • Petrovics, István (2009). "Foreign Ethnic Groups in the Towns of Southern Hungary in the Middle Ages". In Keene, Derek; Nagy, Balázs; Szende, Katalin. Segregation-Integration-Assimilation: Religious and Ethnic Groups in the Medieval Towns of Central and Eastern Europe. Ashgate. pp. 67–88. ISBN 978-0-7546-6477-2. 
  • Sebők, Ferenc (1994). "Temesvár". In Kristó, Gyula; Engel, Pál; Makk, Ferenc. Korai magyar történeti lexikon (9–14. század) [Encyclopedia of the Early Hungarian History (9th–14th centuries)] (in Hungarian). Akadémiai Kiadó. p. 669. ISBN 963-05-6722-9. 
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