History of Timisoara
The history of Timisoara goes back to the beginning of the 1st century. Archaeological excavations have confirmed traces of human life in the area around today's Timișoara since the Neolithic . Originally founded as a Roman fortification in the Dacian era , Timișoara was one of the most important fortresses in the Banat in the Middle Ages . After belonging to the Hungarian kingdom for centuries, the city fell to the Ottoman Empire for 164 years before becoming part of the Habsburg monarchy until the end of the First World War . After years of deprivation, it was the triggering city for the revolution against the communist regime in Romania . In 2009, Timișoara was the second largest city in Romania after Bucharest with 311,586 inhabitants . In the course of its history, the city has had names such as Zambara, Temeschburg, Temeswar, Temesvár and ultimately Timișoara.
Antiquity
The Roman Empire under the leadership of Emperor Marcus Ulpius Traianus conquered the Dacia region in the two Dacian Wars (101-103 and 105) , which the victors later called Dacia Ripensis .
The Greek scholar Claudius Ptolemy mentioned in his Geographike Hyphegesis in the area of today's Timișoara a Roman fortification from the time of the Dacians with the name Zambara or Zurobara . There is disagreement as to whether this settlement was identical to the city of Tibiscum .
After the Roman rule, other peoples moved through the Banat, such as the Vandals , the Goths , the Gepids , the Sarmatians , and after a brief rule by Constantine the Great , the Huns followed .
middle Ages
Early middle ages
From 553 the Avars ruled over the area of today's Timișoaras for two hundred years and built a new seal called Beguey on the ruins of the village of Zambara , strategically located between the Beghei Bega (Tisza) and Temesch rivers .
In 790 Charlemagne drove out the Avars, after which the Pechenegs moved to the Banat. Also Cumans , Bulgarians and Vlachs were located here, followed by the Magyars at the end of the millennium.
It is believed that the fortress was built in Avar architecture as early as the 10th century and, surrounded by moats, was located on the site of today's National Theater and Opera House in Timișoara .
Kingdom of Hungary
Stephan I.
After defeating the Wallachian ruler Achtum the region of the first Hungarian king was Stephen I in the Kingdom of Hungary added. The Temesch Castle has been documented as Castrum Regius Temesvar since 1212 with a document issued by the Arpádic King Andreas II of Hungary . The mention of the city as Dibiscos , Bisiskos , Tibiskos , Tibiskon , or Timbisko in a document of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II from 1019 is considered controversial.
Béla IV.
In the Mongol storm of 1241, the Mongols invaded from the north and devastated the Banat. After their expulsion, the Hungarian King Bela IV called German settlers to the depopulated country, who rebuilt the fortress. The earth and stone walls of the fortress were fortified with lime-bound stones and bricks, and the moats deepened and widened.
Temesh Comes that time were baiting or Helze (1214) Gylet (1233), Matthew (1235), Dionisius (1240) and Stefan Csáky (1270). King Ladislaus IV visited the fortress in 1278 accompanied by the bishop of Csanád Gregor and gathered his army here, which he sent against the Wallachian voivode Litowoj under the leadership of Magister Georgius .
Charles I.
In 1301 the last king of the Árpád tribe died, now Charles I of Hungary ascended the Hungarian throne as the first representative of the House of Anjou . Soon after taking office, he came into conflict with the Hungarian nobility. He visited Timisoara for the first time in 1307 to win over the Transylvanian and Banat nobles. On this occasion he gave instructions for the construction of a new royal fortress.
The Begh (Bega - at that time also Little Temesch ) branched into three arms near Timisoara, the middle of which flowed along today's Strada Alba Iulia . The Timisoara fortress from the time of the Árpáden stood between the middle and the western arm (near today's State Opera, see above). Charles I left the existing earth fortress and built a new stone fortress between the central and eastern arms, which temporarily led to two Timisoara fortresses.
On this island, Charles I had his royal fort built in eight years, one of the strongest fortifications of the Middle Ages. This building was the basis for the later Hunyadi Castle . Charles I inspected the construction work carried out by Italian builders in 1313, 1314 and 1315. The castle was built between 1307 and 1315 as the seat of Charles I, from where he ruled for almost eight years. Timisoara Comes of the then Hungarian capital was the noble Wallachian Nicolae Teutul .
It was the splendid and luxurious heyday of the fortress, the maintenance of which, however, resulted in considerable costs, for which the king brought in the capitular vicars and the Orthodox Church . During this time immoral life also found its way into the castle, which the king especially enjoyed. After the capital was moved to Ofen ( Buda ) in 1316, Charles I visited the fortress in 1330 when he went to the field against the Wallachian voivode Basarab via Timisoara , from which he returned with only a few companions. He was there for his last visit at the end of December 1332. After his death in 1342, the royal palace became the property of the crown. Since then, the place has been referred to in the documents as the market town of Oppidum Themesvar .
In 1338 dense swarms of locusts migrated across the country and destroyed the vegetation in the region, so that a famine broke out the following year. This was followed by an earthquake , and in 1340 the plague broke out, claiming numerous victims.
The fortress lost its importance for the time being and its walls were exposed to decay. Due to the threatened expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe and the use of gunpowder , the fortifications were adapted to the current state of war technology in the following years. Strong oak trunks were used to build the walls and palisades were built, which were surrounded by two to three moats. The walls were equipped with loopholes and the defensive towers were manned with cannons.
Ludwig I.
The following King Ludwig I the Great visited Timisoara twice. The first time he marched against the Serbian ruler Stefan Uroš V in 1358 , and the second time in October and November of 1368 he led his army over the fortress against the Wallachian voivode Vlaicu . Temescher Comes at this time were Nikolaus Pap and Sigismund Andrásy (1333), Dionisie Bebec (1366), Ladislaus Korogh (1367), Benedikt Heem (1366, 1368, 1371), and Wladislaw (1370). A county constitution was introduced for the first time in 1371.
The establishment of a craft guild was documented in 1370.
After the death of Ludwig I in 1382, his widow Queen Elisabeth visited Timisoara with her daughter Maria in 1385 , where they lived for a long time in the castle of the fortress. Maria was his successor on the Hungarian throne. Great unrest broke out in Hungary under their rule.
Sigismund
Hungarian nobles under Johann Horváth took Maria prisoner and locked her in the Novigrad castle in Dalmatia , where she was freed by her husband, the later Roman-German Emperor Sigismund von Luxemburg . Sigismund also ascended the Hungarian throne in 1387. He then appointed Stefan Losonczy (also Lossontzy or Losoncius ) to Temescher Comes, expelled the rebel leader Johann Horváth from Syrmia and persecuted him until he was finally executed in Fünfkirchen ( Pécs ).
Between 1389 and 1391, King Sigismund made the fortress his home. From here he moved against the Serbian ruler Stefan. Timişoara then served as the king's command center in the fight against the Ottomans, who invaded Syrmia for the first time in 1392 and then in 1396 into the Banat. Only the Timisoara occupation was able to prevent looting. Sigismund returned here in 1396, 1397, 1409, 1426 and 1428.
In the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, the Franco-Hungarian army was defeated by an Ottoman force , and the Ottomans advanced as far as the vicinity of Timisoara, causing devastation and deportations. After his escape from Constantinople via Dalmatia , Sigismund convened the Diet in Timisoara in 1397 . Here the nobility of the country should be obliged to fight the invading enemy under their command of the army. The nobles did not recognize this new danger and refused to contribute. To convince the nobility, the king called again the Diet in Timisoara in 1399. Sigismund chose this meeting point in order to be able to move quickly against the Turks in an emergency.
Timişoara was on the front line of expansion from the Orient. However, the situation in the region eased due to the attacks of the Mongol army leader Timur on the Ottoman Empire. In the Battle of Ankara in 1402, 70,000 soldiers were defeated by an overwhelming superiority of 160,000 Turk-Mongolian warriors. Sultan Bayezid I was captured and taken to Asia Minor in a cage . A few months later he died in the Anatolian city of Akşehir . For a little over a decade , the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist .
Temescher Comes were Ladislaus Sarow (1392), Nikolaus Csáky and Nikolaus Marcyaly (1396-1402), as well as the Wallachian Nikolaus Garai (1402), and Philippo Scolari (1407-1424). The latter had numerous Italian artists and builders come to Timişoara, who built a residence for the Comes in Italian style. Among them were the painter Lodovico Mazzolino and the architect Amantini .
In 1418 (another source cites July 1416) the Ottoman Bey of Bosnia set Ikah , Ishak or Ikah-Beg with two armies across the Danube and invaded the Timisoara area.
His troops were chased away by Nikolaus Péterfy and he himself was killed. In 1419 King Sigismund even expelled the Turks from Serbia and Bulgaria. While the king then fought against the Hussites in Bohemia , the Ottomans devastated the Banat several times. Temescher Comes were between 1424 and 1439 Stefan Rozgony and Stefan Bathos . Sigismund stayed in Timisoara for a longer period of time in 1428 after suffering a great defeat at the gates of Golubach Castle. He died in 1437.
Sigismund's successor, Albrecht II , only ruled from 1437 to 1439. When he moved to the Danube in September 1439 to recapture Smederevo from the Ottomans, the dysentery broke out in his camp , and he too fell victim.
The castle was repaired by Pippo Spano di Ozora . The fortification, which was still called oppidum (market town), was surrounded by earth walls and palisades at that time. The fortress had four gates: the Lippa Gate (“Praiko”), the Transylvanian Gate , the Arad Gate and the Water Tower Gate . All the houses in the market town were made of wood or clay mixed with chaff. The development of the suburbs Small and Large Palanka , which were surrounded by palisades, began.
Johann Hunyadi
The Ottoman Empire threatened Christian Europe more and more, and therefore King Władysław III appointed. 1441 Johann Hunyadi , the illegitimate son of a Transylvanian Wallachin and King Sigismunds, to Temescher Comes and captain of Belgrade, who in 1443 repulsed the Ottomans as far as Sofia . His predecessor in office was the Temescher Obergespan Nikolaus Ujlaky .
On June 5, 1443 Timisoara was hit by a devastating earthquake. The fort and the walls of the fortress were badly damaged and partially destroyed by the tremors. After Hunyadi's return from his campaign, he had the fort and the fortress walls rebuilt, with the fortifications being adapted to the war techniques that had been changed by the invention of gunpowder. Old throwing machines were replaced by cannons. The Anjou Fort, which was badly damaged by the earthquake, was removed and the new Hunyadi Palace was erected across the floor plan of Charles I's fort.
The fort was equipped with several bastions and cannons and provided with three gates, one in the east, one in the west and one in the north. The construction work on the castle lasted from 1443 to 1447 and was carried out by the architect Paolo Santini da Duccio . The two-story building served Johann Hunyadis as quarters.
The new fortress walls were provided with defensive towers in the north and north-east, and double moats were dug in front of them. Oak palisades were erected in the south and west, where the fortress met the Bega marshes. Only the foundation stones and the water tower remain of the old Anjou fortress. The new fortress walls ran along today's Strada Marasesti, Strada Eugeniu-de-Savoya and Strada Bocsa, to the southeast along the later Transylvanian barracks, and to the south they surrounded Hunyadi Castle.
The two suburbs of Große Palanka and Kleine Palanka in Elisabethstadt in the area of today's factory town were also reinforced with palisades, earth walls and moats. The stone material required for the construction of the defense was brought from the Werschetz Mountains, sand and gravel came from Lipova, and the necessary wood from the nearby forests. Wallachians and Serbs who had settled in the area of today's factory town served as workers.
Johann Hunyadi held the office of Temescher Comes until 1446. During the time when he was Prince of Transylvania, he moved to Klausenburg ( Cluj-Napoca ). After King Władysław III. died on November 13, 1444 in the battle of Varna in a defeat suffered with Hunyadi, Hunyadi was appointed imperial administrator of Hungary, representing the underage son of Albrecht II, Ladislaus Postumus . In 1447 Hunyadi returned to Timisoara with his wife Elisabeth Szilágyi and his sons Ladislaus and Matthias from Cluj- Napoca. In 1448 Hunyadi suffered another defeat in the battle of the Blackbird Field against the Ottomans , when he was captured by the Serbian ruler Georg Brankovic in Smederevo and Sultan Murad II was extradited.
In 1449 he returned to Timisoara. Hunyadi had his seat in Timisoara until 1453, in that year he also resigned his office as imperial administrator, and Ladislaus Posthumus ascended the throne of Hungary. In 1455 Ladislaus Posthumus auctioned the royal fortress Timisoara for 20,000 florins to Johann Hunyadi. From then on it remained in the possession of the Corvins until 1490. Hunyadi remained Hungary's most important military strategist, which earned him the envy of many nobles. Ulrich von Czilley , who exerted a great influence on the inexperienced king, became his greatest opponent. Hunyadi decided to leave the royal court and returned to his family in Timisoara.
On June 22nd, 1456, Hunyadi stayed in Timisoara for the last time. On that day he marched from here against the Ottomans, who had attacked Bulgaria and Serbia with around 200,000 men. Sultan Mehmed II appeared on June 13, 1456 with 150,000 men and 300 cannons before Belgrade. After some initial difficulties, the Christians defeated the Ottomans. This battle was the greatest triumph for Hunyadi, but it was also his last campaign. In Semlin ( Zemun ) he fell ill with the camp epidemic and died on August 11, 1456.
In 1456 Ladislaus Hunyadi and Michael Szilágyi held the office of Timisoara Comes. After Johann Hunyadi's death, a violent dispute broke out between the Hunyadi family and Szilágyis, in which Ladislaus Posthumus sided with Czilley. During a visit by the king to Belgrade, Ladislaus Hunyadi learned that the intrigues of Czilley would kill him on this occasion. He killed Szilágyi and then faced the king. Ladislaus Posthumus only pretended to forgive the death of his uncle and visited the Hunyadis in Timisoara on the way to Ofen ( Buda ). Johann Hunyadi's widow, Elisabeth Szilágyi, was waiting for the king at the gate of the fort, where she fell on her knees before him and begged him for mercy for her sons. On October 23, 1456 the king swore in the palace chapel of Timisoara during Holy Mass on the gospel that he had forgiven the Hunyadis and that he would not avenge Szilágyi's death. He then received Holy Communion with Elisabeth and her two sons . Then the king went to Ofen, accompanied by the two Hunyadi sons, whom he had captured there on the advice of his palatine Nikolaus Garai . Ladislaus Hunyadi was sentenced to death on March 16, 1457 without a hearing and beheaded in Ofen on Georgplatz. Matthias Hunyadi was held captive in Ofen, Vienna and finally Prague . These circumstances brought Hungary to the brink of civil war, which was prevented by Ladislaus' Posthumus death on November 23, 1457 in Prague.
Matthias Corvinus
Subsequently, a movement started from Timisoara, the aim of which was to secure Matthias Corvinus the Hungarian crown. The Szent-Miklosy family also joined the Hunyadis party , and so Michael Szilágyi succeeded in getting his nephew Matthias Corvinus proclaimed King of Hungary on January 24, 1458. Only now was he released from his captivity in Prague, and in November 1458 he returned as king to the fortress in which he had spent his childhood. He did not receive the Hungarian crown from Emperor Friedrich until the end of July 1463 .
In 1462 the Pasha Alibeg of Semendria devastated the neighboring areas. Matthias Corvinus still marched in July 1463 with his army stationed in Futog against the Ottomans, who were sacking Syrmia at that time. He freed 17,000 prisoners and chased the invaders through Serbia. Alibeg penetrated to the walls of the Timisoara fortress. The Transylvanian Prince Johann Pongrácz drove the Ottomans with his army from here back to Semendria Smederevo .
Pál Kinizsi ( Romanian Pavel Chinezu ) held the office of Comes from 1478 to 1494, followed by Gregor Labatlan (1459), Georg Orbonas and Stefan, Pousa's son (1460), and Stefan Socoli (1464). In 1476 the Ottomans, under the leadership of Alibeg, advanced again to Temeschburg, where they were defeated again by the army of the Comes Ambrosius Nagy . The settlement that arose north of the Timisoara fortress was called "oppidum" from 1342 to 1475, which means market town. In 1475 Timisoara was first mentioned in a document as "civitas" (town council).
Kinizsi, the son of a Timisoara miller, was referred to by his contemporaries as the Hungarian Hercules . In the battles against the Ottomans he usually fought with two swords and distinguished himself in such a way that he was promoted to commander. Matthias Corvinus soon transferred the office of Severin Ban to him . As the southern border guard of Hungary, he also received the title of captain general .
In 1479 Alibeg invaded Transylvania with 40,000 men. The Transylvanian Prince Stephan Báthory von Ecsed called on Kinizsi for help, and together they managed to kill 30,000 from the Ottoman forces, with the rest of the attackers fleeing in a panic. At the victory celebration that followed, the bloody corpses of the Ottomans were piled on tables on which the Lord's Supper was served. Then there was singing and dancing. When it was Kinizsi's turn, to the amazement of his soldiers, he took the corpse of an Ottoman between his teeth while dancing.
Matthias Corvinus left Kinizsi in all of his offices and also appointed him commander in chief of the Hungarian army, which was to serve outside the Timisoara county. Kinizsi left Timisoara with 30,000 men in November 1482 to cross the Danube at Horom . He drove the Ottomans far back into Serbia. During this campaign Kinizsi also won a victory in front of the Golubach Castle . He returned from this campaign with 25,000 Serbs, who were afraid of the Ottomans, and settled them near Timisoara.
Kinizsi was affected by the armistice that Matthias Corvinus concluded with Bayezid II in 1483 and extended for another three years in 1488. During this time of peace Kinizsi took care of the improvement of the fortifications in the area under his control.
Matthias Corvinus died on April 6, 1490, which ended the Corvins' rule over Timisoara.
Vladislav II.
After the death of Matthias Corvinus, the Hungarian nobles wanted to strengthen their power by choosing a weak king. Finally, Vladislav II , the son of the Polish king Casimir IV Jagiełło , succeeded Corvinus. His first undertaking was to eliminate the "Black Legion", a Bohemian militia founded by Corvinus to combat internal unrest. After their relocation to Szegedin , the Legion caused unrest in Timisoara County with robbery, murder and arson. Comes Paul Kinizsy got the order to integrate them into the army or to destroy them, with Kinizsy opting for the second variant.
In response to this, the Ottomans noticed movement, so Vladislav II decided to re-fortify the Timisoara. The supervision was held by Kinizsys, who also used parts of his own assets for this purpose. In 1492 Vladislav II visited Timisoara to inspect the fortification work and stayed here for over a month. He was received by Kinizsy, who despite his mute (he had lost his voice on the battlefield) swore allegiance to the king. The high nobility had failed to fulfill their military obligations, although the Ottomans threatened to crush Hungary. On January 28, 1494 Kinizsy was appointed Judex Curiae by the king . When the Ottomans invaded the Banat, he led his army across the frozen Danube and stormed two castles in which Ali Pasha kept his treasures. Kinizsy was able to leave with the treasures. The news reached him that conspirators wanted to play Belgrade into the hands of Ali Pasha. When Kinizsy arrived near Belgrade, the Turks were already starting to climb the ramparts. He knocked the Turks back from the walls and drove them out.
Then he hurried to meet the king, who was in Transylvania. Vladislav II arrived with the Transylvanian Prince Bartholomäus Drágffy on September 25, 1494 in Timisoara and stayed here until September 30. On this occasion Kinizsy threw himself at the feet of the king, then he pointed to the Turkish border and full of enthusiasm “the old man took up his sword with youthful strength, as if he were already in the middle of the hot Turkish battle”. With 14,000 men he roamed and plundered Serbia with Drágffy . During the siege of Semendria, a fatal disease struck him. He died on November 24, 1494 in Sankt Clemens . His successor as Temescher Comes, Captain General and Severin Banus was his pupil Josef von Somy .
In 1495 Vladislav II again visited Timisoara, where he was present at several court hearings. In the same year he signed a three-year and then a seven-year armistice with the Turks. Timişoara conducted a significant trade with Transylvania during this peacetime. In 1502 the Comes Josef von Somy from Temesch took part in a campaign against the Turks. On this occasion they tried out new weapons that were made by gypsies in Timisoara County. From 1509 to 1511 the plague raged in the Timisoara area. Somy comes her victim in the first year. His successor Matthias Várday was replaced by Stephan Báthory in 1511 .
In 1513, Vladislav II concluded a new three-year truce with Sultan Selim I. Nevertheless, the Ottomans invaded Hungary again and again. Because of this breach of peace, Cardinal Tamás Bakócz from Gran ( Esztergom ) demanded that the Ottomans be punished. He won Vladislav II for his plans and went to Rome in 1513 to ask for financial help from Pope Leo X. At the beginning of 1514 he arrived in Ofen with a papal bull from the Vatican. With her all estates in Hungary were called to take part in a crusade.
The son of the city of Pelbart from Timișoara published his incunabula in Basel and Haguenau in 1497 .
György Dózsa
The peasants of that time were at the mercy of the nobility. Matthias Corvinus protected the peasant class at the time, but did not secure its rights for the future. So now the farmers were exposed to injustices and abuses that were difficult to bear. The large landowners compensated for the labor shortage resulting from the crusade by performing forced labor on the relatives who were left behind. In this situation the peasants accepted the call to crusade as a call for their liberation. 40,000 crusaders gathered at Pest and 30,000 in other episcopal cities. In Hungary's history they came to be known as Kurucs . Cardinal Bakócz appointed György Dózsa , who had stood out as an equestrian captain near Belgrade for his strength and boldness, as their leader.
Dózsa went with his hordes, robbing and murdering, to Szegedin, two other gangs plundered Pest and / or moved against Bács . Since the rebel groups were immediately defeated, Dózsa quickly moved from Szeged across the Tisza to the Banat. In 1514 the Timisoara fortress was besieged by 70,000 rebels Georg Dózsas. Dózsa pitched his camp southeast of Timisoara near Ulitsch , and occupied the outer areas of the fortress on June 16. From here he crossed the Bega on tied barrels and wanted to attack the fortress from the swamps. To drain the swamps, Dózsa channeled the water from the Bega into the Temesch. When the fortress remained without water, the Comes Stephan Báthory decided to destroy the dam by a failure. Then Dózsa diverted the Bega into the swamps.
The supplies of food in the besieged fortress were running out, so that the townspeople wanted to open the fortress gates. Dózsa also expected an imminent surrender, so he delayed the assault on the fortress. At first he was satisfied with the lighting of the palisades, with the exchange of stone bullets and with the blows of the wall-breaking rams . In this desperate situation, Stephan Báthory called his archenemy, the Transylvanian prince Johann Zápolya, to help. In return, he promised to vote for Zápolya at the next king's election. This reached Timisoara on July 15, 1514, but could not take Dózsa by surprise, instead it came to a heavy battle in which the fought bitterly was fought. The Báthory, coming from the fortress, fell in the back of Dózsa. Despite a lack of war experience, the serfs held out for a while. Eventually, however, the insurgent armies gradually disbanded. Dózsa tried to stop the fleeing people, and at the same time he always intervened at the most explosive points himself. Dózsa got after his last duel with the relative Zápolyas and the later Temescher Comes Peter Petrovits in captivity.
This defeat in Timisoara sealed the end of the peasant uprising. The number of dead in the uprising was between 40,000 and 80,000, of which 400 were nobles. Dózsa was first imprisoned on the first floor of the fort, after three days he was put in the underground dungeon. Around 20.-24. In July 1514, the judgment for Dózsa and several of his companions was carried out with great cruelty at the place of execution outside the fortress.
King Vladislav II died on March 13, 1516.
Ludwig II.
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Ludwig II followed on the Hungarian throne, although at that time he was still a boy.
At the same time Suleyman I ascended the Ottoman throne. He demanded backward tributes from Hungary to agree an armistice. Since Ludwig's response was delayed, the Sultan and Mehmed Hyde invaded the Timisoara area with 40,000 men in the spring of 1521.
Instead of resistance, he met only fear and horror. Mehmed Hyde only got as far as Petscher Castle in Timisoara County, which he could not take and so withdrew. The Ottomans then conquered Belgrade after a 56-day siege in August 1521.
On August 29, 1526, the battle of Mohács took place, in which the now 20-year-old Ludwig II, seven bishops, 500 magnates and 22,000 men were killed.
The then Temescher Comes Peter Perényi also took part in the battle. The Ottomans soon reached Lake Balaton and Győr .
The Transylvanian prince Zápolya, whose intervention in the events was delayed, was also partly to blame for this defeat. Before August 20th he was off Timisoara with 40,000 men. On August 29, the day of the battle, he was still near Szegedin. After the defeat at Mohács he returned to Timisoara and placed himself in the service of the Ottomans.
Johann Zápolya / Ferdinand I.
Johann Zápolya was crowned King of Hungary by his followers with Ottoman support on November 11, 1526 in Karlsburg, today Alba Iulia . In return for Zápolya's support, Perényi was to be elected Prince of Transylvania. Temescher Comes at this time were first Nikolaus Ujlaky, then Peter Perényi 1518, Laurentius Ujlaky 1519, Kaspar Raskay 1520, Nicholas of Macedonia 1523, Johann Drágffy 1525, and then again Nikolaus Ujlaky, a follower of Zápolyas.
In 1527 Ferdinand I of Austria was elected King of Hungary by the Diet in Komárom , today Komárno, Slovakia , and at the same time Zápolya's election was declared null and void. Perényi finally entered the service of Ferdinand I and was then appointed Chancellor. His successor in the office of Temescher Comes was Valentin Török for a short time, after which Zápolya appointed Emmerich Czibak to Temescher Comes in 1527. During his tenure, Zápolya visited Timisoara in November 1533. Czibak died in 1534, his successor was Zápolya's relative Peter Petrovits in 1538. The dispute between Ferdinand I and Zápolya lasted eleven years and ended in 1538 with the Peace of Oradea . Accordingly, each of the two should exercise his royal power in the area that was under him in 1538. Zápolya was now king of Transylvania and the Banat, and Ferdinand I of the rest of Hungary. It was stipulated that these areas would belong to Ferdinand I, who had been Roman-German king since 1531, after Zápolya's death .
In 1540 Johann Zápolya died in Mühlbach, today Sebeş , after he had learned of the birth of his son Johann Sigismund .
His widow Isabella, who was staying at Solymos Castle , disregarded the Great Oradine Treaty and, in consultation with her allies, Cardinal Georg Martinuzzi from Transylvania and Comes Petrovits from Temesch, both guardians of the orphan, left her son at his baptism as King of Hungary crown. Zápolya's death was kept secret for several months, only then was the corpse laid out in the oven in the chapel of the Hunyadi Castle in Timisoara before burial. When Ferdinand I wanted to enforce his law by force of arms, Sultan Suleyman I broke into Hungary under the pretext of wanting to protect the orphans. On September 4, 1541 he issued an ordinance according to which Transylvania and the Banat were given as a sandjak , an Ottoman administrative unit, to Johann Sigismund Zápolya.
Cardinal Martinuzzi, who wavered between Ferdinand I and the Ottomans, soon urged Isabella to fulfill the treaty of 1538, namely to hand over Transylvania and the Banat to Ferdinand I. For this, Johann Sigismund, Isabella and even Petrovits were to receive compensation.
When the Sultan found out about this, he sent his army under Mohammed Sokolli from Hungary into the Banat. He conquered several castles and fortresses, including Csanád , Lipova , Schoimosch , and in October 1551 he began the siege of Timisoara.
The fortress, which now belonged to Ferdinand I, was defended by the last Temescher Comes and fortress commander Stefan Losonczy with 2,020 horsemen and 1,550 infantry. After the arrival of the Ottomans, the residents of the Great Palanka moved into the fortress and set the settlement on fire. Alfonso Perez and 400 Spanish horsemen and Rodriguez Villandrando and 300 foot soldiers hid between the ruins. On October 16, 1551, the Ottomans stormed the Timisoara fortress. The next day the Ottomans shelled the fortress in front of the gate on the north side with cannons. Losonczy resisted the Ottomans' call to surrender despite the strong attacks that began from all sides. When the "island", the Little Palanka, seemed lost, its population was brought into the fortress, and General Aldaña had the houses set on fire after he and his 100 Spaniards had brought weapons and food into the fortress.
Eventually the bridge that connected the island to the fortress was destroyed. During the siege there should have been disputes between Losonczy and the other officers, but also with Ferdinand I, in which the Comes refused to obey other opinions and higher orders.
The situation soon became critical and General Castaldo and his Spanish and German mercenaries were called in to help. On October 24, 1551, the Turks called on the besieged to surrender with leaflets written in Wallachian and fastened on spears. On October 27, 1551, the Ottomans suddenly gave up the siege and retreated to Belgrade to winter.
Modern times
With the defeat at Mohács, Hungary lost its role as a military power and the country was politically divided. The southern part of the country was under Ottoman rule, while the rest of western Hungary, ruled by Ferdinand I, was claimed by Austria. Transylvania and the Banat were considered to be autonomous, but were constantly under the influence of the Turks or, as in 1551, the Austrians. But when the imperial troops under General Giovanni Battista Castaldo invaded Transylvania, the Ottomans reacted with incursions into the Banat.
Timişoara was one of the strongest fortresses before the Ottoman siege. It could only be attacked from the north and the west. The other sides were in the natural protection of the Bega swamps. The Timisoara at that time consisted of three parts: the castle (or fort), the "city" and the "island", the Little Palanka. Outside the fortress walls was the Great Palanka. The water tower, the most important defense structure of the fortress, was located between the fort and the “city”. The path that connected the fort with the “city” via a bridge also led through this. Hunyadi Castle was surrounded by solid walls and moats. With "city" the residential area Temeswars is referred to, since this was raised from the market town to the city since about 1475.
Conquest by the Ottoman Empire
After the Ottomans withdrew from Timisoara in October 1551, disputes with the Timisoara Comes Losonczy flared up again. General Castaldo reported to Ferdinand I on January 8, 1552 that Losonczy wanted to place other castles such as Lugoj , Caransebeş and Lipova under his command in addition to Timisoara . Twelve days later he let Ferdinand I know that Losonczy was a good fortress commander, but not a good military commander on the battlefield. He is too intolerant for this and torments not only the enemy, but also his own army. As a result of these repeated reports Losonczy lost his office.
Benedikt Kosar and Franz Deli were appointed to the new fortress commanders, but after a short period of office they had to resign because of the plundering of the fortress' food stores. General Aldaña was appointed fortress commander in February 1552. This should strengthen the fortress walls for 2,500 guilders. On March 30, Losonczy was again appointed Comes and General Captain of all South Banat castles, but could not take over his offices until the end of May. No sooner did the quarrels begin again in office. Losonczy complained that Aldaña had embezzled the money received and that the fortress now had only 400 riders instead of 750, who had not received their pay for four months.
The disputes took place at the worst possible time, because despite some reinforcements on the walls, much important work remained unfinished, but at short notice it was possible to dig two moats in front of the Little Palanka. The fortress was also helped by the nearby castles. Together with them, Losonczy had between 2,210 and 2,500 soldiers, depending on the source, who were supposed to defend the fortress. June 1552, the Ottomans under Achmed Pasha crossed the Danube, and on June 24th an advance guard of 1,500 horsemen stood in front of the walls of Timisoara. Losonczy left the fortress to bring food and military aid. On his return, however, he could only get to the fortress via detours and under cover of darkness.
June 8th was the day of the arrival of Akhmed Pasha's 16,000 strong main force, whereupon the siege of Timisoara began. Timişoara was surrounded on all sides and the northern and eastern gates, like the northern wall, were shot at with heavy cannons. Despite the strong resistance of the defenders, they had to leave the "island" and set the houses on fire. After the occupation of the "island" by the Ottomans, they also shot at the fortress from here. The walls were badly damaged and Losonczy sought urgent help from General Castaldo.
On July 3rd, the Ottomans managed to get closer to the walls and tried to penetrate the fortress through bullet holes. The defenders fought back the Ottomans after heavy fighting, but on July 6th, the northern fortifications were destroyed in an attempt to storm the wall. General Aldaña, who was with Lippa, was unable to answer another call for help, which greatly discouraged the defenders. In addition, the water level of the Bega sank and the swamps began to dry up. By laying boards, the Ottomans managed to reach the walls from here. On July 12th they captured the northern earth walls and soon afterwards a small island came under their control, which allowed them to get closer to the water tower.
Due to the constant bombardment of the fortress, the Ottomans threatened to run out of gunpowder, and Achmed Pasha was about to give up the siege. However, a gunpowder transport unexpectedly arrived on July 19 and the shelling continued. The besieged waited for help in vain. A reinforcement of 500 men from Arad was stopped by the besiegers before Timişoara.
On July 24th, the Ottomans stormed the fortress for five hours, losing 3,000 men. Even in the ranks of the besieged, more and more victims were complained. After heavy fighting, the best fortified bulwark, the water tower, was captured by the Ottomans. Losonczy now had to withdraw into the fort with his men.
On July 27th, Achmed Pascha asked Losonczy to surrender with his people and granted them free retreat. Losonczy refused, but his people thought it pointless to sacrifice oneself in this lost battle. Finally, the sick and wounded left the Timisoara fortress through the Lippa Gate first, followed by Stefan Losonczy with his Hungarians and Spaniards on July 27 or July 30, 1552 (depending on the source).
The sources disagree about the further course of events. Dr. Iliesiu writes of a major attack on the withdrawing crew after a cannon signal. Kraushaar, Berkeszi and Griselini, however, report a provocation that allowed Achmed Pascha to break his promise made under oath. The Turks are said to have torn Hungarian youths, including Losonczy's protégé Tomory, from the column at first. When Losonczy saw this, he snatched the sword from an Ottoman, which started a terrible battle. The Comes fell wounded into the hands of the Ottomans, who, according to Kraushaar, cut off his head “in retaliation for Lipova”. Ahmed sent the stuffed head to the Sultan as evidence of the fall of Timisoara. With Losonczy, the entire crew of the fortress was killed. General Aldaña was sentenced to death after the fall of Timisoara for refusing to help. In 1556 he was still in jail but was pardoned.
Timisoara and the Banat were ruled by the Ottoman Empire for 164 years. After the fall of Timisoara, the Banat became an Ottoman province. Timişoara became the seat of a vilayet , headed by the Beylerbey Casim Pascha. According to his rank, he wore two horse tails. The vilayet was divided into several sanjaks, such as Timisoara, Csanád, Betschkerek , Pančevo , Orşova , Ciacova , Lipova.
The fortress was in a very poor condition at the time, as the walls were badly damaged by cannon fire. Casim Pascha immediately began repairs, for which he rounded up Wallachians from the neighboring villages for forced labor. The city's churches have been converted into mosques . There were still no cobbled streets in the cityscape, mostly the mud was covered with boards. Most of the houses were made of wood. The houses of prayer, the powder tower, the mill and some administrative buildings were built from bricks in the oriental style. At that time there were seven schools and one high school in Timisoara that taught astronomy, mathematics, medicine, law and philosophy. The tax collectors were also part of the Ottoman administration. The Khazine financial institution , headed by Defterdar , owned 20 percent of the assets in the occupied territories. The remaining 80 percent were allocated to the settled Ottoman population. In return, the men had to serve in the Ottoman army. The taxes were collected in the individual districts from Hasnadar (main collector ), which were then transferred to Timisoara. Every village also had a sardar , a cashier who also served as mayor . The taxes were calculated from a high poll tax on humans and livestock. The highest judge of the province, the Hakimserija , had his seat in Timisoara. Civil and religious cases were brought by the Qadi , administrative complaints by the Mufti . Minor offenses were cruelly punished. Christians had no chance in court, only the Ottomans got right. The fortress commander had the title of Hakim . The apparatus of faith also included the high priest ( Nakib-el-Esraf ), to whom the Chatīb , the Imam and the Muezzin were subordinate.
Most of the Timişoara population such as Hungarians, Wallachians and Serbs had fled from the Turks. Because of the many raids by the new sovereigns in the nearby villages, the villagers soon fled too. The Banat slowly turned into a desolate and depopulated landscape. The Ottomans tolerated the Christian faith, but no churches were allowed, church towers were even forbidden. During the Ottoman rule there were two Orthodox bishops in Timisoara and Caransebeş. At the same time, some Bosnian Franciscans and later Jesuits and some Jews lived in the fortress .
Timişoara remained a trading center during the Turkish era. There were trade relations with the Ottoman Empire, Transylvania, Wallachia, Italy and Northern Germany. Tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, gold, silver and weapon smiths went about their trade in the city. There was also a gunpowder mill. Due to the damaged water tower, the necessary drinking water was taken from the Bega, into which the rubbish was also thrown. Around 1642/1643 Temeschburg was fortified by a captured German architect. Andrea Cornaro from Crete renewed the fortifications and channeled an arm of the Bega through Timisoara.
A detailed description of the Timisoara fortress of those times comes from the year 1660 by the Ottoman Evliya Çelebi , who wrote the following:
“Tamisvar lies in the marshes of the Tamis River, like a turtle in the water. Its four legs are the four large bastions, but the inner castle fort is its head. Their shape is five-angled. There are neither bricks nor stones in it, because it is a fortress made of thick oak trunks clad with woven fences. The skilled builder made this fence out of wild vines, covered it with plaster and lime, so that a white castle was created. The wall is fifty feet thick, in some places even sixty. All around is a deep moat, and in three places there are guard rooms overlooking the moat. Every evening nine music bands play and all the guards call each other from time to time throughout the night: 'Allah akbar!'. The fortress has no shooting hatches and no defense turrets, but it does have many cannon slots. In all there are 200 fine cannons. The number and quantity of the war implements as well as the food and food stored in the fortress is known only to the exalted God. On the ramparts, the fortress can be bypassed in an hour. "
Based on the same source, Timisoara had five gates at the time, two of which in the south and east had the same name, Azab . In addition there were the gates of the rooster (after the weathercock on it) in the north, the water and the bank. Verses from the Koran were placed above the gates . The fortress commander and the Islamic clergy lived in the fort. The pasha owned the largest and tallest building in the fortress. The city consisted of up to 1,200 houses, with another 1,500 in the suburbs. The city consisted of four residential districts, the suburbs of ten. These each had a mosque, with the Great Mosque in the city center. There was a bazaar on the south side of Piața Libertății . Of the four baths of that time, one was on the north side of this square, and two more at the gates of the water and the shore. There were also three hostels and numerous shops.
Resistance to the Ottoman Empire
In 1594 the Transylvanian prince Sigismund Báthory tried to persuade the Serbs and Wallachians living in the Banat to revolt against the Ottomans. Theodor von Dazien first brought the southern Banat under his control, then the rebels moved to the Betschkerek castle and defeated the Ottomans there. The outgoing Pasha of Timisoara was also repeatedly beaten back and lost 25,000 men in the process. However, the rebels lacked a unified leadership, so they soon got into trouble and asked Báthory for help. This dispatched his military leader Moses Székelyi, who, however, remained standing at the borders of the Banat for unknown reasons. The rebels were put to flight by the Pasha with 30,000 men. At the beginning of 1595, Báthory entered into an alliance with Emperor Rudolf II against the Ottomans and sent Georg Borbély with a considerable army to the Banat, which initially conquered some southern Banat castles. Casim Pascha, who was advancing from Timisoara with his troops, was repulsed by the Transylvanian army. As a result of this victory, several of the Ottoman-occupied castles in the northern Banat surrendered. The Timisoara fortress was besieged, but the Ottomans successfully resisted.
In 1596 the Ottomans tried to recapture the castles they had lost in the previous year. After the reconquest of Lipova, Báthory attacked Timisoara. On June 11, 1596, the fortress was enclosed on all sides. After bombarding the walls with cannons, Báthory attacked the fortress, but was repulsed. This setback was due to the overwhelming power of the Ottomans; 10,000 warriors on the Ottoman side faced only about half on Báthory's side, of whom around 3,000 perished in the siege. Other sources assume stronger military formations. After another 40 days of the siege of Timisoara, Báthory gave up the fortress due to lack of food and materials needed for the siege.
In the following year, Báthory sent his army under the orders of his Chancellor Stefan Josika to try again to conquer the Temesburg. The fortress was besieged from October 17th to November 17th, 1597, but this time again without success. Although Josika was able to advance into the suburbs of Timisoara, he had to give up his efforts because of the continuous autumn rain. From then on, the Ottomans remained the undisputed rulers of the capital of the Banat for a century, which only served as a base for the numerous Ottoman campaigns that were waged in northern and western Hungary and in Transylvania.
Sultan Mehmed IV set himself the goal of completely subjugating Christian Europe in 1683, whereby Vienna should be occupied first, see also Great Turkish War . The 200,000 strong Ottoman army, however, was during the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna on September 12, 1683 by Leopold I with the help of the Polish King Johann III. Sobieski beaten.
On September 2, 1686, after the siege of Ofen , Ofen (Buda) was stormed and recaptured by the Holy League against the Ottomans. This alliance consisted of Pope Innocent XI. , King Sobieski of Poland, Emperor Leopold I, and the Republic of Venice. This was followed by the liberation of Pécs (Fünfkirchen) and Szeged. In the Second Battle of Mohács in 1687, the Austrians won an overwhelming victory over the Ottomans. Under the command of Maximilian II Emanuel , Elector of Bavaria, the siege of Belgrade began on August 12, 1688. On September 6, 1688, the city was captured with enormous losses on both sides. However, the Ottomans were able to recapture the Belgrade fortress in 1690 .
With Sultan Mustafa II , an army of 50,000 men penetrated Hungary on June 20, 1695. This faced troops of equal strength under the leadership of Elector Friedrich August I of Saxony . He came to Peterwardein in August with the order of the Vienna Court War Council to conquer Timisoara. The marshes at Beodra ( Novo Miloševo ) and Kikinda prevented an advance into Timisoara, which led Friedrich August to Lipova .
In the following year, the elector tried to approach Timisoara again and began to besiege Timişoara on August 1, 1696 after crossing the marshes of the Aranka river. Here he learned that the Sultan was on his way to help the besieged. He went against the approaching Ottomans and met them at Cenei for a three-day battle that ended in a draw. The losses of the electoral troops amounted to 1146 men, the Ottomans had twice as many deaths. The Timisoara Pasha was also killed in these battles. Both sides were so weakened that another fight was suspended. Friedrich August von Sachsen was held responsible for this setback, so the Court War Council decided to put Prince Eugene of Savoy at his side as an advisor. Shortly afterwards, the Elector was elected King of Poland and the 35-year-old Prince Eugene became Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Troops. The Kuk Hussar Regiment "von Tersztyánszky" No. 8 showed itself in 1696 in battles around Timisoara on this theater of war, which in 1698 further enterprises followed.
Before the battle of Zenta , Sultan Mustafa II had given up the plan to storm Szeged , as he intended to cross the Tisza near Zenta and retreat to Temesvár to winter camp. When Prinz Eugen realized the enemy’s intention, he immediately decided to attack, which surprised the Ottomans on September 11, 1697 while crossing the river and inflicted a devastating defeat on them. The high and Deutschmeister infantry regiment was also used here for the first time . The battle lasted from two hours before sunset to 10 p.m. During this time 20,000 Ottomans fell on the battlefield and 10,000 drowned in the Tisza. On the Austrian side, there were only 300 dead and 1,200 wounded. Mustafa II saw this terrible defeat from the left bank of the Tisza without being able to intervene. Frightened, he fled to Timisoara, leaving behind magnificent spoils of war. On January 26, 1699, after long negotiations, the Peace of Karlowitz was concluded.
In the following time the Ottomans re-fortified Timisoara fortress walls. The Timisoara Pasha demanded the help of Sultan Ahmed III on November 14, 1705 . who had 50 construction workers moved from Belgrade to Timisoara. The Wallachian voivode Constantin Brâncoveanu dispatched 50 wagons with wood, each pulled by four oxen. In 1706 the Ottomans built a barracks with 41 rooms, the cost of which amounted to 2,537 piastres .
On August 5, 1716, Prince Eugene of Savoy won a victory over the Ottomans in the Battle of Peterwardein . He soon recognized the need to conquer Timisoara to liberate southern Hungary from the Ottomans. He sent Field Marshal Count Johann Pálffy , the Palatine of Hungary , with several regiments of infantry and cavalry against Timisoara to cut off the fortress from outside help or supplies.
Eugene of Savoy arrived on August 26, 1716 with the main army in front of the fortress walls. He decided to attack Timisoara from the north side (from the Great Palanka), since the south side was surrounded by swamps. First the Pasha's pleasure house (on today's Torontaler Landstrasse) was taken, after which preparations for the siege were made. On September 6th, two batteries with 18 guns bombarded the city. The Ottoman governor of Timisoara, Mustafa Pascha, defended the city with 18,000 men and 156 guns. On September 9th, he ventured out, but was soon beaten back.
Eugene of Savoy ordered that drummers and trumpeters gather in front of the walls to play loud, cheerful pieces of music. Many curious Ottomans climbed the walls to watch the goings on, and when the Austrians opened fire so many were killed. On September 22nd, 1716, Count Max von Starhemberg was sent to meet a 20,000-strong Ottoman cavalry army, which was approaching Timisoara. About 4,000 to 5,000 trained Janissaries sat on the horses of the Turks as second riders, and other horses were loaded with gunpowder and provisions. Count von Starhemberg was able to prevent their breakthrough three times and finally succeeded in inflicting losses of 4,000 men on these units and ultimately driving them out completely.
The storming of the Great Palanka was supposed to begin on September 30, 1716 under Prince Karl Alexander von Württemberg , but this was only possible on October 1, after the imperial army was exposed to heavy autumn rain all night ready to fight. After fierce fighting, the Ottomans withdrew to the fortress. Attempts by the besieged to retake the Great Palanka were unsuccessful, but they succeeded in starting fires in the suburbs, burning 1,200 houses down. The fire could not be extinguished for eight to ten days.
The fortress commander's son was badly wounded during the fighting. Prince Eugene sent him a surgeon, for which the Ottoman sends him his youngest son as a hostage and six horses as a present. The Austrians suffered over 400 dead and 1,327 injured after these battles.
In the next few days, Prince Eugene made preparations to storm the fortress. On October 11th, the fortress was fired from all directions with all available cannons. The Ottomans hardly responded to this attack at first, but the defensive fire intensified after the repair of the damaged cannons, especially after nightfall. Because of the constant autumn rain, the trenches were filled with water, and Prince Eugene was already considering breaking off the siege of Timisoara. The further siege seemed hopeless after the Austrians had already suffered 2407 dead and 4190 wounded.
Completely unexpectedly and surprisingly, Prince Alexander von Württemberg reported on October 13th that the Turks had hoisted the white flag on one of the defensive towers .
On October 16, the Ottomans withdrew from Timişoara after losing 6000 men with 12,000 militant men. When the fortress was handed over, Prince Eugene presented the Pasha with a gold watch and received an Arab horse from him. At the same time, the Austrians came into possession of 120 cannons, which were marked with the Austrian coat of arms and which had been lost to the Ottomans as spoils of war in 1552. On October 18, 1716, Prince Eugene of Savoy moved into the Temeschburg fortress to celebrate his 43rd birthday as the victor. The gate through which he entered the fortress was later called "Prinz-Eugen-Tor". After 48 days of siege and 164 years of occupation, the Ottoman rule over Timisoara ended. Before Prince Eugene left Timisoara, he appointed Count Franz Paul von Wallis as the fortress commander, and the general of the cavalry, Count Claudius Florimund Mercy , as the governor.
The Peace of Passarowitz ended the Venetian-Austrian Turkish War . He was on July 21, 1718 in Passarowitz ( Požarevac ) between Charles VI. and the Republic of Venice on the one hand and Sultan Ahmed III. on the other hand completed. The Ottoman Empire ceded the Banat and Little Wallachia as well as northern Serbia with Belgrade and a border strip in northern Bosnia to Austria.
Temescher Banat and foundation of the suburbs
Timisoara as the capital of the Temescher Banat , which as the crown and chamber domain of the Habsburg Monarchy was given a special position under its own military administration, in which all power was exercised by the emperor and his appointed authorities and officials. It was administered as an inalienable crown property and special property of the ruler, in which no spiritual or secular private authority was tolerated.
In the immediate vicinity of the city, new districts, the later suburbs, developed. So in 1718 the Alte Mayerhöfe were founded south of the Glacis , today's III. District of Elisabetin . In 1744 the Neue Mayerhöfe , today's II. District of Iosefin, followed southeast of the fortress .
In 1720 Peter Solderer becomes mayor of Timisoara. In the same year the Fabrik district emerged and in 1744 Josefstadt was founded. The Fabrică de bere , the oldest brewery in Romania , had been in operation in the factory town since 1718 . A German school was set up in the same year. With the laying of the foundation stone on April 25, 1723, work began on the Timisoara fortress, which redesigned the medieval fortress in the Vauban style , which was modern at the time, until 1765.
After the Habsburgs had conquered what was then Temeswar , German colonists were given the right to settle within the fortress, where they claimed their own town hall. On December 24th, 1731, the then mayor Peter Solderer laid the foundation stone on the foundation walls of a Turkish bath that was destroyed in the Turkish War at the former parade ground (now Romanian Piața Libertății ). The Old Town Hall (then the New Town Hall or German Town Hall ) was built by the Italian architect Pietro del Bronzo by 1734 .
The construction of the Bega Canal from 1728 was considered an outstanding achievement of its time and was under the leadership of the governor Claudius Florimund Mercy. Before the canalisation, the Bega offered rich food in a wild, unregulated course to the extensive marshland in the west. The drainage of the swamps seemed to Mercy a necessity for strategic, economic and not least sanitary reasons. The canal was laid in 1727–1733 under the technical direction of military experts. The resulting drying up of the marshes created new, fertile farmland, the Banat Heath.
In 1730 Adalbert von Falkenstein was appointed bishop of Csanád and took his seat in Timisoara.
Franz Anton Leopold Ponz Freiherr von Engelshofen succeeded Mercy, who fell near Parma in 1734, as governor of the Temescher Banat in 1733 . Mercy's successor was Johann Andreas Graf von Hamilton (1734-1738) in 1734. Franz Anton Leopold Ponz Freiherr von Engelshofen was one of the most important commanding generals of the Temescher Banat in the period 1740–1757.
A direct consequence of the war was the outbreak of the plague in the entire Banat in 1738, which was brought in by an infantry battalion. Timişoara alone mourned around 2,000 victims among around 5,000 inhabitants. A famine accompanied the collapse of the infrastructure.
The postal route Vienna – Ofen – Timisoara – Hermannstadt was opened in 1745. The distance from Vienna to Timisoara was 37 post offices . The post ran once every four weeks.
The Serbian Orthodox Cathedral on Cathedral Square was built in 1744–1748. The Catholic Cathedral in Timișoara was built in 1736–1774, followed by the construction of the Old Prefecture between 1754 and 1774 , today's Baroque palace on Cathedral Square, today Piața Unirii . In 1771 the first printing house in Timisoara, the Matei Heimerl printing house, opened .
In 1751 Maria Theresa introduced civil administration in the Temescher Banat. The Temescher Banat was dissolved in 1778 and incorporated into the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary in 1779. The area was divided into three counties:
- Krassó-Szörény county
- Temes county
- Torontál county
- The southern part of the Banat became part of the military border until 1871 .
From 1774 the city was supplied with drinking water through a pipe from the Fabrik district. On December 21, 1781, Timisoara was appointed a Municipium (free royal city) with the diploma of Joseph II . He renewed this diploma in 1790 by law.
Map of Timisoara by Matthäus Seutter , after 1718
Temescher Banat - Political Situation 1739
Temescher Banat - Political Situation 1751–1778
Map of Krassó-Szörény county around 1890
Map of Temes County around 1890
Map of Toronto Valley County around 1890
Map showing the western section of the military border in the 19th century
Swabian trains
The population density in the Banat was one of the lowest in Europe at that time. After the Ottoman population had left the country, only around 20,000 people remained, most of them Serbs , who were primarily obliged to secure the military border.
The Schwaben trains organized carried arrival and settlement of the result of the Turkish wars almost deserted areas Hungary, Backa, and Banat by the Austrian Emperor of the 18th Century, with predominantly German-born subjects from the west and beyond the western borders of the Holy Roman Empire. Emperor Leopold I and his successors Josef I , Karl VI. , Maria Theresa and Joseph II endeavored to create a productive and protected Christian living space out of the sparsely populated and deserted landscapes of Pannonia . Settlement continued until 1848 under the emperors Leopold II and Franz II . German was at times the official language in the Banat.
Under Emperor Joseph II, who ruled from 1780 to 1790, the third and last great, the Josephine Swabian Procession, took place in 1781–1787. At that time around 45,000 new settlers came to the Banat country. Josef II traveled to the Banat twice in 1767/68 and 1773. A flourishing district of Josefstadt, located outside the Timisoara fortress, was named in his honor.
Due to the Russo-Austrian Turkish War (1787–1792) , the settlement had to be stopped again because the Banat was again a theater of war. Again in 1788/1789 the Turks advanced to the gates of Timisoara and plundered 130 villages.
During the Swabian Mountains between 1744 and 1768 there was an additional form of settlement, the Temeswarer Wasserschub : twice a year tramps, dissolute women, poachers, smugglers and rebellious farmers were removed from their homeland and settled in the Banat for moral purification. The water surge had a bad reputation and made it difficult to recruit colonists.
From 1762 to 1763 the city was again ravaged by the plague. On April 18, 1771 the first newspaper of today's Romania and the first German newspaper in Eastern Europe, the Timişoara News , appeared in Timisoara . In 1781 a public auction of the advertised camera goods took place simultaneously in Vienna and Timisoara . Goods with an estimate of over 30,000 guilders were offered in Vienna, the others in Timisoara.
In the course of the Fifth Coalition War , in 1809, the contents of the imperial treasury were moved from Vienna to Timisoara so that it could not fall into the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte . The treasure was accompanied by units of the Vienna City Police, founded in 1808, which took up position in front of the castle gates during this time.
In 1810 the faithful of the Tyrolean freedom fighter Andreas Hofer came under the leadership of Josef Speckbacher and Thalgutter with their families as refugees in the Banat and I settled in Timisoara and in the Banat Uplands.
In 1815 the later mayor of Timisoara (1819) Josef Klapka opened the first lending library in Hungary. In 1819, the first vaccination against smallpox in Central Europe was carried out in Timisoara . János Bolyai wrote on November 3, 1823 from Timisoara to his father in Târgu Mureș about his discovery, non-Euclidean geometry . The first periodical publication in German appeared between 1830 and 1841, the Temeschwarer Wochenblatt .
1796 was here first performance of The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart instead. In 1846 the composer and pianist Franz Liszt gave three concerts in Timișoara, and in 1847 the “Waltz King” Johann Strauss (son) made a guest appearance .
Revolution of 1848
1848 was a year of bourgeois revolutionary upheavals across Europe against the restoration powers ruling at the time and their political and social structures. Fanned by the French February Revolution , the revolutionary mood spread to the states of the German Confederation , the Habsburg Empire , Italy and even Brazil .
The news of the revolution in Paris and Vienna finally triggered the revolution in Hungary on March 15, starting from Pest . Some educated citizens and intellectuals called for the lifting of censorship, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. In addition, the abolition of noble privileges, the abolition of serfdom and land distribution to the peasants were demanded. The existing assembly of estates based in Bratislava was to be converted into a modern parliamentary representation. An independent government should be set up in Hungary. Ferdinand I was to remain king. These reform approaches were confirmed by Ferdinand as March Laws of April 11, 1848.
The people of Timişoara learned the news of the events of March 15, 1848 in Pest on March 18. On this day the mayor Johann Nepomuk Preyer held a general assembly in front of the town hall. The assembly pledged its loyalty to the imperial throne.
On October 10, 1848, General Rucavina declared a state of emergency over the Timisoara area. The Hungarian revolutionaries approached the city with an army of 6,000 soldiers and 300 cannons. On April 26, 1849, the leader of the revolutionaries Józef Bem reached the towns of Urseni , Giroc , Freidorf and attacked the outposts of the city, albeit without any tangible results. The state of emergency lasted 107 days; it was the longest of all the sieges of the city. During this time, the city's population suffered from food shortages and high prices. In the battle of Sanktandreas (today Sânandrei ) the Hungarian army was defeated.
In 1849 the Voivodeship of Serbia and Temeser Banat was established with the capital Timisoara, and Count Johann Baptist Coronini-Cronberg became governor . The voivodeship was dissolved again in 1860 and the political order from before 1848/1850 was restored. Until the end of the First World War in 1918, the Banat belonged again to Austria-Hungary. The Dicasterial Palace was built immediately after 1849 and served as the administrative seat of the Voivodeship of Serbia and the Temesian Banat.
Industrial revolution
Mayor of the city was Johann Preyer between 1844 and 1858 . Another mayor of that time was Karl Küttel with two terms, 1859–1861 and 1867–1872. Just like Karl Telbisz , who was in office from 1885 to 1914.
Cityscape
Timişoara continued to develop, and the castle with the fortifications lost its importance, so that its walls and castle gates were torn down. In the period from 1892 to 1910, the outer districts merged with the area of the castle. The last to be incorporated in 1910 was the previously independent town of Mehala as the fifth district and from then on - analogous to the Budapest district of the same name - called Ferencváros or Franzstadt for a few years . The Mehala - as it is officially called again since 1920 - is older than the other three suburbs, it already existed at the time of the Ottoman rule.
The first city plan was drawn up by 1895 with the participation of the master builder and professor of architecture Nikolaus von Ybl (also Knight von Eibl ) and the chief engineer Timisoara Aladár Kovács Sebestyén (1893-1895). With this plan, the Cetate became the city center, which was connected to the Josefstadt and factory town in 1989 by 40-meter-wide first-class traffic arteries such as today's Bulevard Tinereții and Bulevard Revoluției din . The dense, straight-angled street network in the city center was to be surrounded by a ring road based on the Viennese model . The first measurements with modern mathematical methods were made in the years 1901–1903 for the inner city and for the Josefstadt, in 1911 finally also for the Mehala.
In 1913, the city's technical service developed a new city map based on the principles of Ybls. At that time the city of Timisoara had 69,000 inhabitants and it was planned to expand the city area to 1,800 hectares. This plan also paid special attention to the road network between the city center and the districts of Josefstadt, Fabrikstadt and Mehala, and was less oriented towards the functions of the suburbs. The land was parceled out and sold; the parceling exists - with the exception of the districts in which apartment blocks were built - to this day.
Timisoara 1849, with the beginning of industrialization, the suburbs develop
Timisoara around 1890/1891, the fortress foreland was still undeveloped at the time
After 1900: the structure of the planned urban expansion is clearly recognizable, the Bega completely channeled
In the 1910s, systematic development between the city center and the suburbs progressed
Innovations
In the second half of the 19th century, modern technology found its way into Timisoara and revolutionized the life of the city:
- In 1852/53, Telegraphy was introduced in Timișoara as the first Romanian city with a line to and from Vienna . The telegraph office was opened on April 24, 1854.
- In 1854 a cigarette factory was founded in Josefstadt.
- On November 1st, 1857 the Austrian Gas Lighting Corporation introduced the public lighting system with the help of town gas , Timişoara was the first publicly lit city in Romania. The associated gas works was located in Josefstadt, on today's Strada Gelu.
- In 1857 the city was connected from Szeged to the railway network of the Hungarian state railway Magyar Államvasutak , and in 1858 this line was extended past the fortress to Stamora Moravița. From June 5, 1883, Timisoara was also a stopover on the route of the Orient Express .
- In 1867 the transport company Temesvári Közúti Vaspálya ( German Timisoara Road Railway ) was founded. From 1869 it operated one of the world's first horse-drawn trams between the factory and Josefstadt .
- In July 1869, regular inland shipping on the Bega was started.
- In 1870 the first metal bridge was built over the Bega, the Bem-híd (now Podul Eroilor ) , which was completed the following year . During this period 71 bridges were built in Timisoara alone, today there are 13. See also: Bridges in Timișoara
- In 1881 Timisoara was connected to the telephone network.
- From November 12, 1884, Timisoara was one of the first cities in Europe to have electric street lighting after Paris , Nuremberg , Berlin and Steyr .
- In 1895 the asphalting of the streets began.
- On January 11, 1897, the first theatrical screening took place in Timisoara .
- From 1897 to 1899 a new and larger train station was built, the Gara de Nord , which replaced the building from 1857.
- In 1899 the electric tram was introduced (see also: Tram Timișoara ).
- Ferry service across the Bega was also started at two points in 1899, and further crossing options followed later.
- From 1867 to 1910 numerous factories were built in the city, including the hat factory and the state tobacco factory on the banks of the Bega , at that time the largest employer in Temesvár.
- In 1905 the city opened the Abator Comunal abattoir south of the Fabrik district, built by László Székely .
- In 1908, the canalization of the Bega in the factory town was completed, so that the river was now expanded throughout the city.
- On May 3, 1910, the Timișoara ( Romanian Uzina Hidroelectrică ) hydropower plant on the Bega, also called Turbinele , was put into operation in the factory town .
- The Postpalais was occupied in 1912/1913 .
- 1912-1914 the water pipes and the sewer system were modernized.
The horse-drawn tram, introduced in 1869, here on Piaţa Sfântul Gheorghe
The Bem-híd , opened in 1871, was the first steel bridge over the Bega, and shipping has already started
To commemorate the introduction of electric street lighting in 1884
The second station building of the Gara de Nord, completed in 1899
Bega shipping in 1906
Culture
The first performance of Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata took place on February 9, 1855 in Timisoara . The founder and First Prince of Romania Alexandru Ioan Cuza visited Timișoara in 1866 on his way into exile in Heidelberg . During his stay he stayed at the Trompetistul inn. On September 15, 1879 Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim performed in Timisoara. On June 25, 1899, the students of the Piarist High School played soccer for the first time in Romania under the direction of the sports teacher Carol Müller . In 1903 they met here for the Great Hungarian National Singers Festival . On February 16, 1906, Béla Bartók gave his first concert in the city. Timişoara was also known in the world of floriculture in the Balkans and in large parts of Europe.
First World War
On July 26th 1914 the general mobilization for the First World War was announced by notices in Temeswars. In the first two years of the war, the Timisoara press viewed a rapprochement with Romania rather skeptically. There was broad popular support for Romania to enter the war on the side of Austria-Hungary .
When the Kingdom of Romania turned against the Central Powers in 1916 , the local press began a hate campaign against the political leadership. On September 7, 1916, a state of emergency was declared in Timisoara and the Banat region. Most schools were closed during the war to make way for hospitals .
In October 1918, the fall of Austria-Hungary brought great unrest and protests in the streets of Timisoara. The demonstrators destroyed the statue of General Anton Scudier , the monument to the Austrian Count Johann Baptist Coronini-Cronberg . The following day the victory monument in front of the town hall was destroyed. Timişoara was spared from fighting during the war.
Interwar period
After the First World War, Timisoara and the Banat were the target of clashes between the Kingdom of Serbia and Romania, to which the Allies had contractually guaranteed the entire Banat.
The Banat Republic was proclaimed in Timisoara on November 1st, 1918. It was seen as an attempt to save the multi-ethnic Banat from being divided between Hungary, Serbia and Romania after the collapse of Austria-Hungary. The short history of the republic ended on November 15, 1918 with the peaceful occupation of the city by Serbian troops, who briefly took over the administration. On December 2, 1918, French troops moved into Timisoara to avoid conflict between the parties. These colonial troops came from Morocco and Algeria and were under the command of General Gambetta. Gambetta's troops were relieved on December 5 by General Farret's 15,000-strong division.
As a result, the Banat was divided between Romania, Serbia and Hungary on June 21, 1919, and Timișoara was annexed to Romania on July 29, 1919. The Serbian troops withdrew to their territory, whereupon on August 3, 1919, at 8:00 a.m., Romanian troops led by Lieutenant Colonel Virgil Economu entered Timișoara, which received a crowd led by Prefect Aurel Cosma at the customs point of the city. The Great Banat General Assembly held on August 10, 1919 in Timișoara with 40,000 participants voted for union with the Kingdom of Romania .
On December 1, 1919, the city also issued its own emergency money after the Austrian crown had been temporarily stamped. The Romanian leu has been a currency in the Banat since the currency reform of November 1920 .
The division of the Banat was sealed on June 4, 1920 in the Treaty of Trianon , which the city finally awarded to Romania . However, Timișoara lost part of its surrounding area and the state and infrastructural ties to the Central European region . This change, together with the economic crisis, led to economic stagnation , from which Timișoara was only able to recover in the late 1920s and late 1930s. Furthermore, the new balance of power had practical consequences for road traffic in the affected areas, which was converted from left-hand traffic to right -hand traffic , which is common in Romania.
The city's first architect , László Székely , shaped large parts of the cityscape with his buildings together with architects such as Lipót Baumhorn and Anton Merbl.
George Enescu gave his first concert in the city in 1921. From 1921 to 1927 Chinezul Timișoara won the Romanian football championship six times in a row. With the establishment of Ripensia Timișoara in 1928, the first professional football club in Romania was created, which won the championship five times from 1932 to 1938. In 1923 the Timișoara Polytechnic University was inaugurated, and in 1930 the Catholic Diocese of Timișoara was founded. In 1926, the city of Rome gave Timisoara as a gift a statue of Romulus and Remus suckling Capitoline Wolf , which is now on display on Piața Victoriei .
The city was one of the most developed cities in Romania at that time.
Second World War
Romania's entry into the Second World War in Operation Barbarossa on the side of the Axis powers on June 22, 1941 meant supply deficits for the population of the entire country, including Timișoara. The situation was aggravated by waves of refugees from Bessarabia , Bukovina and Moldova .
The German Air Force maintained a military airfield in Timișoara in 1941 .
On August 17, 1942, the Romanian "leader" Marshal Ion Antonescu gave his consent to the deportations of Jews from Arad , Timișoara and Turda . 2833 people were then deported from Timișoara until 1943.
The Anglo-American air raids on oil fields and various Romanian industrial centers in the summer of 1944 brought the Royal Air Force to Timișoara on June 16 and the United States Air Force on July 3. The station and railway facilities built by Gustave Eiffel were hit.
After the royal coup d'état and the accompanying change of sides in Romania on August 23, 1944, the German troops, which had only smaller garrisons and supply units in the area around Timișoara, received free withdrawal from the local Romanian commanders until the evening of August 25, mostly in connection with the Admission to carry all of their military and technical equipment. The Romanian civilian population - not only members of the German nationality - granted aid and shelter to dispersed German soldiers, often after the Soviet invasion, at risk of their own security.
The leadership of the German ethnic group was unprepared for the coup on 23 August. The local officials of the ethnic group called for calm and advised against fleeing; There was talk of an impending German relief and the German population was put off to an early counterattack while the German garrisons were moving away. The German troops stationed in Timișoara, which withdrew in the course of August 25, took a smaller number of German people, who often decided to flee completely unprepared and without luggage, on their vehicles. The 4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division under SS Brigade Leader Fritz Schmedes, which then attacked from the Serbian Banat , already encountered Soviet troops on both sides of Timișoara and was no longer able to take the city.
Romania declared war on Hungary on September 7th. On September 12, a German-Hungarian counter-offensive took place in the direction of Arad and Timișoara, which was repulsed with the help of the Romanian Divizia 9 Cavalerie Romana and the Regimentul 13 Calarasi . On that day, the Red Army also moved into Timișoaras.
The German combat group Behrens consciously worked towards a systematic evacuation of the German population. Immediately after the penetration of the German troops, an evacuation was called in the Swabian communities east of Timișoara, so that the first column of cars with refugees of German ethnicity marched on September 15, 16 and 17. Some communities to Timişoara fled completely from horse-drawn carriages and tractors made treks through the Serbian Banat about Kikinda and Rudolfsgnad to Hungary. It is believed that the number of Banat Swabians evacuated from the area around Timișoara was higher than the 12,500 people named by the Main Office of Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle at the time. On 30./31. October 1944 German air forces bombed the city.
In 1943, the Municipal Technical Service under Silvestru Rafiroiu and Otto Bodoscher began work on a new urban development plan. This is considered to have been lost in the archives. This year Timisoara had 115,839 inhabitants and an area of 3200 ha, 312 kilometers of roads, 52 percent of which were paved, 46 percent with water pipes and 31 percent with canalization. In addition, on November 15, 1942, Timișoara opened as the second Romanian city after Cernăuți (now Ukraine) a modern trolleybus operation, locally also called firobuz (see Timișoara trolleybus ).
post war period
Communist rule
Political and economic situation
From January 15, 1945, around 35,000 Germans from the Timișoara region were deported to the Soviet Union for forced labor, many of whom did not return in 1949. Their agricultural property was expropriated in March 1945, three years later also those industrial and handicraft businesses that were spared the first wave of confiscation after Romania's change of front.
The Romanian People's Republic was proclaimed on December 30, 1947 and formalized with a constitution on April 13, 1948. After communist rule had established itself in 1948, the entire industry and large parts of the services were nationalized. The handicraft and service sectors were merged into cooperatives in the following decade , which completely changed the economic ownership structure in Timișoara.
In the summer of 1951, a new wave of massive internments hit the Banat: 40,000 people of different ethnic origins from the Romanian-Yugoslav border area, including a quarter of Germans, were forcibly relocated to the Bărăgan steppe, east of Bucharest, by 1956 , most of them again after a few years could return to their homeland. Church dignitaries and intellectuals were particularly exposed to persecution. Not only Romanian Germans were deported: in June 1951, 12,791 families from a border zone between Romania and Yugoslavia were forcibly resettled to the Bărăgan steppe because of the rift between Stalin and Tito. Of 40,320 people, 9,410 were Germans, the other 30,000 were Romanians, Serbs, Bulgarians and Hungarians. During the time of communist rule , most of the people of Jewish descent emigrated, most of them to Israel .
After the Hungarian uprising in late October 1956, Romanian, Hungarian, German and other students also took to the streets in the student uprising in Timișoara . Among the students at the time was Ioan Holender , who later became director of the Vienna State Opera. Initially, their concern was the poor cafeteria food and the overcrowded dormitories, but at the spontaneous gathering of around 3,000 students, the distressed situation of the farmers, the exploitation of Romanian raw materials by the Soviet Union and similar problems were addressed. After many students were arrested at the demonstration, there was no support from the workforce.
Ioan Popet was the mayor of Timisoara around 1962.
From the 1960s on, the structure of the industry changed. The consumer and light industry was increasingly neglected, while the ideologically favored heavy and producer goods industry was developed and built; for example, from 1960 in the heavy machinery combination UMT, which had specialized in mining equipment and lifting equipment. In 1961 the first Romanian alphanumeric computer called Mecipt 1 was completed in Timișoara.
From 1970 onwards, large parts of the Banat Swabians left the country. The emigration of Romanian Germans was promoted by the communist regime Nicolae Ceaușescu to acquire foreign currency until 1989, whereby the older generation often remained in Romania.
Timișoara experienced in the 1980s, along with the rest of Romania, a dramatic depletion of economic and social areas. In the city with one of the first electric street lights in Europe, 100 years after its introduction, no lamps were lit any more at night.
Cityscape
In 1947 T. Evolceanu and G. Stork from the Municipal Technical Service drew up a new urban development plan. This was revised by M. Silianu and G. Stork under the title Draft of the Systematisation Master Plan 1951. The plan contained guidelines for the development of residential areas and for traffic, nature and the extent of industrial and housing development, which, however, was underestimated. In 1955, M. Silianu started planning again with a preliminary systematic treatise . The population here was estimated to have increased from 140,000 to 180,000 in 1955, and to 200,000 in 1975, depending on economic developments. In 1959, the systematization draft of the city of Timisoara began on the basis of the recommendations of the State Committee for Building, Architecture and Planning (CSCAS). In that year the city had 148,600 inhabitants and an area of 4100 ha. In this plan, too, there were no clear assessments of the future functional development of the city, so a population of 250,000 was assumed for 1980, which other experts considered exaggerated . In 1980 Timisoara officially had 287,543 inhabitants, and in 1990 - 354,345 inhabitants. The systematisation draft was completed with L. Voştinaru as project manager in 1964, and resumed in 1978 by project manager N. Ionescu.
In the course of the systematisation program in the 1970s and 1980s, industry developed within commercial districts, and numerous apartment blocks were built in the residential sector, with districts with single-family households falling victim to this development. Numerous new satellite towns and high-rise settlements based on the model of Soviet microrajons were built on the outskirts of the city .
This required a greater building density, the drastic saving of floor space with repeated reductions in the building area, which was in contradiction to industrial development and the massive population growth. Among other things, this led to the dismantling of projects that had already started, such as the Platforma Industrială IMAIA ( Freidorf industrial platform ). In 1989 the building area was 4558.00 ha compared to the inner city area from January 1, 1990 - 4974.32 ha.
Culture
In April 1947 the opera house was inaugurated with Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida . In 1955 a radio show from Timișoara was broadcast for the first time. In 1986 the Botanical Park and the Zoo in Timisoara were opened.
Romanian Revolution 1989
The Romanian revolution against the communist dictatorship Nicolae Ceaușescus had its origin in Timișoara. There had already been two riots here in November 1989, but these were immediately put down. The television programs of Hungary and Yugoslavia could be received in the city and were also understood by the Hungarian and Serbian population. The Germans were informed about the revolutions in Eastern Europe through family connections . Petru Moț held the office of mayor in Timișoara at that time.
The trigger was the resistance of the reformed Hungarian community in Elisabethstadt. In his sermons he hardly disguised criticism of the conditions in Romania. In 1989 an average of 600 people attended his devotions. On December 14, 1989, a guard was kept against the forced transfer of Pastor László Tőkés .
Numerous demonstrations and riots took place on December 15, 1989. There was a massacre on Opera Square the next day when the army and the Securitate shot at around 10,000 demonstrators, including innocent children who died as the first victims of the revolution. On December 16, the city was sealed off from the outside. The next few days were marked by street fighting and operations by the military and the Securitate. On December 18, General Stănculescu declared a state of emergency in Timișoara. On December 20, Timișoara was declared the first free city in Romania, and a 13-person committee of the insurgents called Frontul Democratic Român ( German Romanian Democratic Front ) formulated their demands:
- Resignation of Ceaușescu
- Resignation of the government
- Freedom of expression and truthful reporting of the events in Timisoara
- Respect for human rights
- Freedom of worship
- Opening the borders
- Release of all detainees since December 16
- Clarifying where the dead are
- Day of mourning for the dead.
On December 21, 1989, the revolutionary events in Timisoara spread to Bucharest and spread throughout the country. They ultimately led to Ceaușescu being the only head of state to be violently overthrown as part of the revolutions in 1989. He and his wife Elena were shot dead in a show trial . The exact number of victims has not yet been clarified and leaves many questions unanswered. A total of 153 dead in Timisoara is assumed.
The proclamation of Timişoara , in which the rebels from Timișoara set out their political goals on March 11, 1990, is to be regarded as the first document for the establishment of a democratic Romania.
Post communist era
The Timișoara proclamation , in which the rebels from Timișoara set out their political goals on March 11, 1990, is to be regarded as the first document establishing a democratic Romania.
After the fall of the communist regime and the opening of the borders, a second large wave of German emigration took place in and around Timișoara. In 1977 28,429 Germans were counted in Timișoara, in 2002 there were only 7,157.
The number of legal abortions rose sharply in the short term and even reached a rate of 300 abortions per 100 births (1990).
Under the population policy of Ceaușescu, the birth rate had doubled at times, but without a growing social network. As a result, a number of parents gave their children, for whom they could no longer pay, to orphanages or "just threw them out". There have been a few cases where desperate parents killed their children. The overcrowded orphanages could not cope with the flow of orphaned children, so that several groups of up to 100 children between the ages of six and 17 had to live in the Timișoara sewer during winter. Inhaling sniff substances was widespread here. A newspaper article in 1994 called the rat children ( German rats children ).
In 1997 the number of children was given as up to 200. A survey found that over 80 percent of the children were boys, 50 percent between 10 and 14 years old, and over 40 percent were not native to Timișoara. 65 percent of children living on the streets during the day returned to families at night. The problem arose before 1990, but was covered up by government agencies at that time. In June 1998 the number of street children in Romania was given as almost 6,000.
After overcoming the lethargy of the 1980s and a relatively short transformation depression , the economic and social sectors recovered rapidly. An increasing upward trend has been noticeable and visible in the cityscape since 1996, as the city has proven to be attractive for international direct investment, especially from German-speaking and Italian regions.
In the local elections on June 1, 2008, Gheorghe Ciuhandu of the Partidul Național Țărănesc Creştin Democrat was able to assert himself a fourth time as mayor.
Timișoara is decisively shaped by the existing historical building fabric , which particularly characterizes the districts of Cetate , Iosefin and Fabric . Today over 14,500 buildings form an ensemble with an unmistakable identity. Due to decades of renovation and modernization backlog, most of the buildings are in great need of renovation. Preserving them and the associated safeguarding of the architectural heritage in order to improve living and housing conditions is a central challenge for the city administration. After Romania's admission to the European Union , funding will flow into the city and thus enable various projects and noticeable improvements. The restoration of the existing substance of the Maria-Theresia-Bastion and the re-navigation of the Bega were major projects in 2010.
See also
- List of Mayors of Timisoara
- List of sons and daughters of the city of Timisoara
- List of honorary citizens of the city of Timisoara
- History of the Timisoara Fortress
literature
- Petru Ilieșu: Timisoara. The story of a European city . Planetarium, Timișoara 2005, ISBN 973-97327-4-7 .
- Ioan Munteanu, Rodica Munteanu: Timișoara. Monograph . Mirton, Timișoara 2002, ISBN 973-585-650-6 .
- Johann Nepomuk Preyer : Monograph of the royal free city of Timisoara (1853) . Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprints, USA 2010, ISBN 1-160-19770-9 .
Web links
- BanaterHeide.de , The Banat and its residents: Contribution to regional studies and family research
- Banater-Aktualitaet.de , Anton Zollner: The history of Temeswars
Individual evidence
- ↑ citypopulation.de , Romania, as of January 2009
- ↑ a b c d banater-aktualitaet.de ( Memento of the original from September 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Anton Zollner: From the prehistory of the Temeschburg fortress
- ↑ John Neubauer and Marcel Cornis-Pope: History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: junctures And Disjunctures in the 19th And 20th Centuries (Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages) . John Benjamin Publishing Co, 2006, ISBN 90-272-3453-1 , pp. 512 (English).
- ↑ a b ziareromania.it ( Memento of August 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Timișoara, in English
- ↑ a b c d e PrimariaTM.ro , History of the City of Timișoara
- ↑ Dr. Iliesiu
- ↑ a b c d banater-aktualitaet.de ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Anton Zollner: The Temeschburg fortress under the Árpáden
- ↑ Dr. István Berkeszi: Small monograph of the royal city of Temesvár , 1900
- ↑ Karlsruhe.de ( Memento of the original from September 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , "Little Vienna" on the Bega - Timisoara
- ↑ Dr. Iliesiu (after JN Preyer)
- ↑ a b c banater-aktualitaet.de ( Memento of the original from March 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Anton Zollner: Temeschburg - the capital of Hungary
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Timetable of Timișoara history
- ↑ banater-aktualitaet.de , Anton Zollner: The Temeschburg fortress until the end of the Anjou dynasty
- ↑ a b banater-aktualitaet.de ( Memento of the original from January 30th, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Anton Zollner: The Temeschburg Fortress under the House of Luxemburg
- ↑ a b c d e f birda.de , time table for the history of the Danube Swabians
- ↑ banater-aktualitaet.de ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Anton Zollner: The Temeschburg fortress under the Corvins
- ↑ banater-aktualitaet.de , Anton Zollner: Timisoara before the peasant uprising
- ↑ banater-aktualitaet.de ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Anton Zollner: Georgius Siculus (Székelyi) in Temeschburg
- ↑ banater-aktualitaet.de , Anton Zollner: Temeschburg in the shadow of Mohatsch
- ↑ banater-aktualitaet.de , Anton Zollner: The siege and the fall of Temeschburg
- ↑ banater-aktualitaet.de ( Memento of the original from January 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Anton Zollner: Temeschburg during the Turkish rule.
- ↑ banater-aktualitaet.de , Anton Zollner: Temeschburg in the fight against the Türkenjoch
- ↑ Mehala.de , Georg Grega: History Mehalas
- ↑ banater-aktualitaet.de , Anton Zollner: Temeschburg in the liberation struggle
- ↑ banater-aktualitaet.de , Anton Zollner: The surrender of the Turks
- ↑ zum.de , The Banat, 1718–1778, in English
- ^ Temeswar.info , Timisoara First
- ↑ Rumaenien-erleben.de ( Memento from March 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Timișoara (Temeswar)
- ↑ a b Birda.de , The Swabian Trains
- ↑ BanaterHeide.de ( Memento of the original from April 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Banat and its inhabitants, contribution to regional studies and family research
- ↑ Milan Tutorov, Banatska rapsodija - istorika Zrenjanina i Banata, Novi Sad, 2001.
- ↑ a b banaterra.eu ( Memento of the original from May 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Some Banat Priorities
- ↑ Thomas Casagrande: The Volksdeutsche SS division "Prinz Eugen". The Banat Swabians and the National Socialist war crimes. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-593-37234-7 , p. 117
- ↑ Pausenradio.ro ( Memento of the original from September 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , History of the Nikolaus-Lenau-Lyceum
- ↑ Mehala.de , Hans Weresch : Foray through the history of Mehala
- ↑ Ybl, Nikolaus . In: East German Biography (Kulturportal West-Ost)
- ↑ Banater-Aktualitaet.de ( Memento of the original from December 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Anton Zollner: The Postpalais
- ↑ a b c d PrimariaTM.ro (PDF; 222 kB), word from the mayor of Timisoara
- ↑ cei.ro ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Cons Electrificarea Instal: About Timișoara
- ↑ edition-musik-suedost.de , Franz Metz : Welcome to Timisoara - The great Hungarian national singer festival 1903 in Timisoara
- ↑ a b c genealogy.ro , Banat's Historical Chronology of the last Millennium
- ↑ Hans-Heinrich Rieser: The Romanian Banat: a multicultural region in upheaval: geographic transformation research using the example of the recent development of the cultural landscape in south-western Romania . Volume 10 of the series of publications by the Institute for Danube Swabian History and Regional Studies, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, ISBN 978-3-7995-2510-7 , p. 86.
- ↑ a b c d eeo.uni-klu.ac.at ( Memento from April 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), University of Klagenfurt , Encyclopedia of the European East, Hans-Heinrich Rieser: Timișoara
- ↑ Timișoara, City Map and Sights, Ed. Tourism Information Center of the City of Timișoara, published June 2009
- ↑ rumaenien-info.at ( Memento from April 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Timișoara - Das Kleine Wien
- ↑ a b PrimariaTM.ro , Historical background , in English
- ↑ Serbianna.com , Carl Savich: Belgrade 41: Hitler's attack , in English
- ↑ HolocaustResearchProject.org, Nazioccupation, Romanianjews, The destruction of the Jews of Romania , in English
- ^ RomanianJewish.org , Incursion in the life and history of the Jew community in Timișoara , in English
- ↑ IC Butnaru: The silent Holocaust: Romania and Its Jews . Greenwood Press, 1992, ISBN 0-313-27985-3 , pp. 140 (English).
- ↑ a b z-gv.de ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Center against Expulsions , The fate of the Germans in Romania.
- ↑ worldwar-2.net , WW2 timeline - Eastern Europe, in English
- ↑ temeswar.diplo.de , Consulate of the Federal Republic of Germany, press review August 1 - 5, 2011, Renașterea bănățeană
- ↑ Banater-Schwaben.de , Josef Wolf: Die Banater Schwaben - historical overview and current situation
- ↑ Timpolis.ro , Timpolis: Sinagogile, marturia de multiculturalitate a timisorenilor , August 20, 2008, in Romanian
- ↑ hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de , Institute for German Culture and History of Southeast Europe at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in collaboration with the history faculty of the Babes Bolyai University in Cluj, Ioana Florea: Temeswarer Unruhen im Herbst 1956 , in : Mariana Hausleitner : From thaw to frost. German and other minorities in Southeastern Europe 1953–1963 , November 2007
- ^ Wien.gv.at , Vienna 1962 - Big mayors' meeting in the Vienna City Hall on May 28, 1962
- ↑ MuzeulBanatului.ro ( Memento of the original from June 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Mecipt-1 Mașină Electronică de Calcul a Institutului Politehnic din Timișoara Finalizat în 1961 , in Romanian
- ↑ Siebenbuerger.de of September 12, 2007 , ransom and bribery for departure, accessed August 2009
- ↑ Hans-Heinrich Rieser: The Romanian Banat: a multicultural region in upheaval: Geographical transformation research using the example of recent cultural landscape development in south-western Romania , Volume 10 of the series of publications by the Institute for Danube Swabian History and Regional Studies, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, ISBN 978-3-7995 -2510-7 , p. 133.
- ↑ Thomas Kunze : Nicolae Ceaușescu. A biography . Greenwood Press, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86153-211-5 , pp. 375 .
- ↑ derstandard.at , Der Standard , video documentation: Balkan Express: Romania , 2007
- ^ Ceausescu.org , Proclamation of Timisoara
- ↑ ADZ.ro ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , General German newspaper for Romania , Beatrice Predan-Hallabrin: Total chaos during Basescu's visit to Timisoara , March 15, 2005
- ^ The Alan Guttmacher Institute : Readings on Induced Abortion: A World Review 2000 . New York 2001, p. 93 .
- ↑ independent.co.uk , The Independent , Lucy Banwell: The rat children of Romania - winter bites and the street urchins head for the sewers , January 9, 1994
- ↑ packsofloveoutreach.org ( memento of the original from August 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Christian website with pictures of street children in Timișoara, 2007
- ↑ rss.archives.ceu.hu ( Memento of the original of July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 3.5 MB), Valentina Teclici: The Resocialization of the street children , 1999
- ↑ Spiegel.de , Der Spiegel : This is our Ceauschwitz , issue 1, January 1, 1990
- ^ Spiegel.de , Der Spiegel , Walter Mayr: We go under , Issue 52, December 23, 1991
- ↑ Temeswar.Diplo.de , German Consulate in Timişoara, integrated concept of measures for the careful renovation and economic revitalization of the old quarters of Timișoara, period 2007–2012
