Ákos Egyed

The 1848 Revolution in Kolozsvár

Kolozsvár/Cluj has been the capital of Transylvania and a focal point of the contemporary political life. After receiving the news about the revolutions in Vienna and Bratislava, the Hungarian politicians elaborated the program of future actions in Transylvania. The program comprised the abolishment of feudalism and the transition towards a civil society. The Hungarians from Transylvania set the re-unification with Hungary at the top of the list of future actions, because they thought that Transylvania on her own would not be able to liberate itself from the absolutist regime of the Habsburg-rule. On the 30th of May, 1848, the last diet (the Transylvanian parliament) of the era of noble privileges convened in Kolozsvár/Cluj. After the diet voted the necessary bills, and the unification with Hungary, the representatives of the Transylvanian diet participated in the general assembly of all Hungarians (the Hungarian parliament), organized in Pest. Up to this moment, the revolution in Transylvania has been a peaceful one, in a constitutional spirit, but after the autumn of 1848, due to a number of reasons, a civil war broke out between the different nations in Transylvania.

Mihály Fülöp-Gábor Vincze

The Relations between the Two „People’s Democracies”

The relations between the two „people’s democracies”, Romania and Hungary, during the first Cold War and the Stalinist terror in East-Central Europe were anything but friendly. Romania practically shut down „the movement to Hungary of persons and ideas”. An eastern version of the „Iron curtain” was established toward the „western-like” Hungarian communist regime. Stalin accorded a territorial „gift” to Romania in 1945. While he imposed the pro-soviet Groza government to King Michael, he handed over Northern Transylvania to the left-wing Romanian regime. Playing Romania and Hungary against each other, Stalin’s „divide and rule” policy  proved to be an efficient means to turn Romania communist. Having one and a half million Hungarian inhabitants, Transylvania suffered from the Soviet-led terror applied by their Romanian agents, the members of the „Securitate”. The Romanian communists wanted to transform a multinational country into a totalitarian Romanian nation-state by a forced assimilation of the Hungarians, destroying their political, economic, cultural and religious institutions and eliminating their leaders. The outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 ended this period. The Hungarians in Transylvania who manifested their solidarity were arrested, while Romania, wishing to keep Transylvania, offered its military assistance to the Soviets to invade Hungary.

Sándor Ilyés

Subculture, Group Cultures in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár)

The definition of the word subculture includes a variety of cultures that are produced and used by groups differing by age, sex, religious beliefs or professional activities. Therefore the specific clubs of the working class can be dealt with under the same label. The present paper focuses on some of these clubs from Cluj-Napoca run by their own syndicates in the 20th century, and tries to apply the theory of subculture on these groups and then to explore the historical material related to them. It seems that the vast majority of the so-called historical papers are propaganda materials of the communist ideology according to which the syndicates and the clubs of the working class are a significant part and an important step in the evolution of the communist phenomenon.

András Kiss

From a „Wealthy Kolozsvár” to a „Dete-riorated Kolozsvár”

The citizens of Kolozsvár, which became a city at the beginning of the 14th century, then a free royal city in 1405, lead a wise and diligent life, due to the privileges given to them by the Hungarian kings. As a result, the city was named „Transsilvaniae civitas primaria”, respectively „metropolis Transsilvaniae” in the 16th century, and the contemporaries called it „wealthy Kolozsvár”. However, the flourishing, growing city had to share the fatal destiny of the country lead to ruin by the unlucky Polish campaigns of II. Rákóczi György. Thus, at the end of the 17th century, the wealthy Kolozsvár was only a memory for its citizens; the leaders of the city once subscribed their letter in the name of the deteriorated Kolozsvár. The author presents the process that lead to the assessment of the city as a „wealthy” one, and then describes the catastrophe that reached the country, as a result of which Kolozsvár lost its free royal city status, together with its „wealthy” title, and eventually occupied a lower status in the hierarchy of the settlements: it became a noble city. The author also presents the growing fortunes of the guild merchants, the vineyard owners, the farmers, together with the documents certifying this fact. It also describes the influences of the Renaissance in the Transylvanian architecture, interior decoration, clothes, culture, as well as in the lifestyle of the citizens. Eventually, being a result of the entire country’s deterioration, we witness the deterioration of the city, its damages and losses of population.

András Kovács

The House of Humanist Parson, of Astrologer Mayor and of Princely Diplomat

The most representative monument of Renaissance architecture in Cluj (Kolozsvár) is the Wolphard-Kakas house. A gothic building with cellars and ground-floor consisting of three premises was transformed beginning with the constructions of the last catholic parson of Cluj for the Reformation, former student of Wien and Bologna, Adrian Wolphard (1491-1544), and continued by his nephew Stephen, former student of Wittenberg, a famous astrologer mayor of Cluj (1533/1534-1585/1586), and then finalized by his successor, diplomat of Transylvanian Principality in England, Polen and Rudolphian Prague, Stephen Kakas (1561-1603), former student of Bologna and Padova. All three of them contributed to the enlargement and decoration of the house, which was considered to be the most beautiful and valuable building of the town in 1603. The decorations of the so-called zodiac-room, was inspired by the cuttings of John Honterus, humanist and Lutheran reformer of Transylvania, printed in Basel in 1541 and 1551. The orderer, Stephen included the coat-of-arms of King Matthias „Corvinus” (1458–1490), the great son of Cluj into the series of zodiac signs carved in the consoles. His interest for astrology is illustrated by his two sundials carveds in stone too.

János Kristóf Murádin

There was a Suomi Square

My paper offers a consideration about a very interesting moment of the history of Kolozsvár. The story leads back to the „winter war” between Finland and the Soviet Union (1939-1940), when a little nation tried to defend its country against an enemy who had the advantage of the repeated superiority in number. Finland with its five million inhabitants in front of the enormous Red Empire… The nations of Eastern Europe and expecially the Hungarians – whose origins are common with the Finnish – were following the dramatic struggle with strained attention. One of the so many symbolic representations of this sympathy can be discovered in the case of Kolozsvár, after its reannexation to Hungary. When the old Hungarian names of the streets were reestablished at the beginning of January 1941, a little square and four streets got different denominations referring to Finland and the Finnish history. In this way there were born the Suomi Square and the Kalevala, Karjala, Helsinki and Sibelius streets, all in the quarter named „Pillangótelep”. These names with Finnish connotations remained unchanged until the end of the war, 1945.