Kolozsvár lies on the rivers Small-Szamos and Nádas.
At about 15-20 kms west of the city we find the Gyalu Alps (Öreghavas – Old Alp Peak 1824 m). 5 kms south of the city center stretches the Felek crest (745 m). The Lomb crest (684 m) rises to the north.
One finds a beautiful 360 degree view from the Belvedere point that can be found at a 50 m elevation in the heart of the city.
There are countless archeological findings which ascertain that there were human settlements in this area 120.000 – 80.000 years ago.
The founding date of the settlement is unknown.
The first reference dates back directly to the year 1177 and refers to the count of the castle (Thomas comes Clusiensis – “Thomas the count of Kolozsvár”)
The first written attestation that contains the name of the castle dates back to 1213 (“…de castro Clus”…). In the year 1275 in the Hungarian language, the castle or “castrum” was called: villa Cluswar (the “s” sound is to be pronounced as “g”-as in the case of genre [ˈʒɑːnrə]. „City of Cluswar”). 1316 – Kuluswar (“Civitas nostra Kuluswar vocata” – our city called Kuluswar). 1366 – Coloswar (“in civitate Coloswar” – in the city of Coloswar).
The original settlement was made up of two parts: the count’s castle built on top of the fortified hills of Monostor, in which the Benedictine abbey was founded in the 11th century; and two kilometers to the east, the loose towns that immerged around the ancestor of the Saint-Michael church and the burial grounds that surrounded it.
During the tartar invasion all of these establishments were destroyed along with the settlements surrounding the area.
Thanks to an early record, we find that “…in a certain castle called Clusa, an endless multitude of Hungarians were slaughtered.” („Nota de invasione Tartarorum. …in quodam castro quod dicitur Clusa cecidit infinita multitudo Vngarorum.”).
Following the tartar invasion, starting with the year 1260, king István V. settled Saxons and guests to Kolozsvár and a few of the surrounding villages, in order to compensate for the loss in numbers of the indigenous population.
This was the reason why the ethnic composition of the settlements changed.
Thus the castle being built at that time became and remained for several centuries to come predominantly Saxon. Later on this castle was called Old-Castle.
The Saxons settled here were brought from the lower regions of the Rhine River, the Holland and Luxembourg of today. Their language was not German, but rather Flemish-Dutch.
Thanks to the new settlements, the restoration was quick. This is when the Old-Castle was built, which was much smaller than the preceding settlements, and it was surrounded by a rock-wall.
In 1316, Charles Robert of Anjou (Charles I. of Hungary) gave Kolozsvár city level rights, and thanks to this grant, the settlement started a rapid development process.
Supposedly this was the time when they started building the old church that stood on the place of the Saint Michael’s church of today. In this period the New City was built outside the Old City’s fortified walls. The dominical cloister, the city hall, the first healthcare unit, the Franciscan small cloister in the Farkas Street as well as the church alongside the cloister were all built in the same period.
The townsmen span bridges over the Szamos and the Malomárok and on the banks of these rivers they built several mills that ground the cereals that were harvested in the areas around the city.
The vineyards and orchards overlooking the city bore more than enough fruit to satisfy the needs of the city dwellers. The saloon proprietors were able to make huge profits from their products thanks to the plentiful yield.
The holding facilities, punishment establishments and execution squares all served the benefit and safety of the lives of the civilians.
After the population relocation following the tartar invasion, the majority of the city’s civil population was made up of Saxons. The city leaders were almost exclusively wealthy Saxon civilians.
Due to the fact that in the settlements surrounding the city the population was Hungarian, the ratio between the Saxons and Hungarians soon became balanced in the beginning of the 15th century.
The Hungarians had to fight for a long period in order to have as many representatives in the city leadership as the Saxons, because they were present in larger proportions.
It is likely that after the year 1316, the peasants that sought protection from the city, settled outside the city walls on the properties of the civilians. These areas came to be known as the “hóstát”.
The denomination can undoubtedly be derived from the German word circumscribing the properties of the civilians where the peasantry settled. These settlements were called “hofstadt” or “hovestat” in the German language.
These parts that lay outside the city walls were often burnt to the ground by attackers, but the civilians and peasants were able to survive these attacks because they could seek shelter within the city walls.
Alongside the protection offered by the city, the peasants were attracted by the fact that they could sell their produce and find work within the city.
The city streets became elongated and stretched out through the “hostats”. Later these roads became main roads and other, secondary streets were formed.
As the military maps of the XVIII century show us, all the roads in the “hostats” stayed functional and their position hasn’t changed for ages.
The ethnic composition of the population of the city changed several times during history.
During the tartar invasion, the vast majority of the Hungarian population died out.
After this period Saxons and guests were moved into their place.
Thanks to the Saxons, the first street, hostat and border names were created. By the middle of the 15th century the Saxon-Hungarian ratio was more or less balanced, but this balance was later tipped in favor of the Hungarians.
In the 16th century, during the reformation period, the Saxons started to become more and more Hungarian in their nature. This process was complete by the end of the 17th century.
After Transylvania (Erdély) got under the Habsburg reign in the 18th century, new churches, palaces and several other buildings were built.
At the end of the 18th century, on the hills of Házsongárd in the alley belonging to the church of the Greeks – thanks to the request of the Macedonian and Greek merchants – the city’s first eastern Greek temple was built. This served as a church building also for the Romanians that started settling in the city.
The number of Romanians settling in the city grew gradually in the 19th century, and by the end of it, it had reached 4000 inhabitants (14%). It became more than double than that of the number of 1500 German inhabitants.
In 1811 the Jews gained the right to trade freely here, but their settling was allowed only in 1840. In 1818 they had built a prayer hall made of woven branches, followed by the construction of a synagogue.
In the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century the city changed radically. New, grandiose public buildings, institutions, city hall, schools, universities, hospitals, railway stations, county administration building, court house, theatre, churches, blocks of flats and factories were built.
After the 1867 treaty following the unification of Transylvania with Hungary, Kolozsvár lost its capital status, but kept its status of cultural central.
Following WWI and the so-called “Peace” Treaty of Trianon, the expansion of the city was halted, but after 1920 it started again with the settling of the outskirts of the urban area and creation of new streets.
After 1940 the city became part of Hungary again.
During the era of the communist regime in the beginning of the 1950’s, small worker neighborhoods were built in the Iris site.
The Györgyfalvi housing estate was built on the grounds owned by the “hostátians”. They received nothing instead.
The Monostor housing estate was built mainly on crop-lands. The Hajnal borough, the Házsongárd borough, the gardens of Házsongárd were all built by destroying the family houses of the “hóstát-dwellers”. By creating these huge blocks of flats, in the Magyar (Hungarian) Street, the former sugar factory, the brick factory, the people of the “hóstát” lost everything.
In 1989 following the fall of communism, the forcible industrialization stopped and with it, the building of housing estates as well.
Instead of them, along with the end of the state-wide official atheism, the building of new churches followed.
After the notable change in the ratio of ethnic construction, a few reformed, Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic churches were built. They were far outnumbered though by eastern Greek temples.
After 2002 but mainly after 2004 the building of blocks of flats and smaller residential parks started again
Following the period after Trianon, Kolozsvár still remained the center of the Transylvanian cultural life, and within it, the most important center for literature and arts.
It continues to serve this purpose to our day.
Kolozsvár has a Hungarian theater, opera and university along with several publishing houses, radio and television stations. The city also has a private Hungarian university, the Sapientia Transylvanian Hungarian University. Several leaflets, newspapers and periodicals appear in Hungarian laguage in Kolozsvár.
According to the 2002 census, Kolozsvár had 317.953 inhabitants of which 60.287 Hungarian, 252.453 Romanian, and the rest being of other ethnicity.
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar