Horea uprising in Transylvania 1784

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The Horea uprising (also: uprising of Horea, Cloşca and Crişan ) was an uprising by serf , mostly Romanian peasants in Transylvania at the end of 1784. In its time - a few years before the outbreak of the French Revolution - it caused a sensation throughout Europe.

background

Joseph II

At the time of the uprising, Transylvania had been part of the Habsburg monarchy for almost 100 years . This tried to create a uniformly administered state from Vienna . In Transylvania, however, the traditionally privileged three estates (Hungarian nobility, Szekler and Transylvanian Saxons ) were initially able to retain their privileges, while the Romanians (at that time mostly called Wallachians ) - who at that time already made up the absolute majority of the population in Transylvania - any political through the estate system Participation and mostly opportunities for economic development were denied. Most of the Romanians worked as serfs for the Hungarian nobility, others as "tolerated" in the areas of the Transylvanian Saxons ( Königsboden ) and the Szeklers.

The Habsburg Emperor Joseph II , who had taken office as King of Hungary and Grand Duke of Transylvania in 1780 , tried to modernize his state politically and economically quickly (" Josephinism "). In the first years of his reign, Joseph declared the Transylvanian “nations” - that is, the three privileged estates - and their self-government dissolved. The tolerance patent of 1781 allowed the Romanian Orthodox believers to practice their religion.

In 1783 Joseph made himself an idea of ​​the situation in Transylvania on a trip through Transylvania. He received numerous petitions, especially from Romanians. They asked for the right to be allowed to settle on Sachsen- and Szeklerboden, and above all for a reduction in the burden of compulsory labor and taxes on the Hungarian landlords on county soil . Joseph II promised the Romanian peasants an early improvement in their situation. However, there were initially no specific commitments.

Increasing unrest

Horea
Cloșca

In this situation, disputes broke out on a state estate in Zalatna in 1783, as a result of which a Romanian farmer named Vasile Ursu Nicola (called Horea , Horia , Hora or also Horra ) had to flee to the Apuseni Mountains . Horea was a former serf peasant who had managed to buy himself out. He was a carpenter; the construction of several wooden churches in Transylvania, including that of Cizer , is attributed to him. Horea is said to have repeatedly attended audiences in Vienna with Emperor Joseph II since 1779 and presented the concerns of the Romanian serfs there. According to some contemporary reports, Horea was again in Vienna with Joseph after his escape and then returned to the Apuseni Mountains.

In the summer of 1784 Joseph II arranged for a military conscription . Horea and his colleague Cloşca let the information spread among the serf peasants that everyone who registers for military service will be released from serfdom and have their own land. This was not unbelievable because a few years earlier a reform of the military border in Transylvania had dealt with the Romanians living there in a similar way. Numerous Romanian farmers therefore left their landlords without their permission and went to the conscription offices in Hátszeg and Alba Iulia (German Karlsburg , Hungarian Gyulafehérvár ). The irritated, disorganized Transylvanian administration was unable to get rid of the rumor quickly. Eventually, however, the farmers were disappointed and had to go back to their landlords' estates.

In this situation, announced on October 28, 1784 Cloşca (real name Ion Oargă ) in Brad an alleged order of the emperor to arm the Romanians. The audience was due to meet at Mesteacăn Church on October 31st to receive further instructions. Around 400–500 Romanians gathered there on the specified date. Cloşca stated that Horea had an order from the emperor to move to Alba Iulia, to be armed there and to murder Hungarians, as they do not want to release the peasants from serfdom.

Spread of the uprising

The first collision occurred on November 1st in Curechiu . There two county officials and some soldiers met the farmers and arrested the leaders, including Horea. However, the prisoners were freed from the crowd of peasants, some officers were killed and several soldiers were ill-treated. From now on the uprising spread rapidly over the counties of Zaránd , Hunyad and Unterweissenburg within a few days . Thus, the survey took place exclusively in the regions in which nobles exercised the manorial rule; the areas of the Transylvanian Saxons and the Szekler were not affected. A total of around 15,000 farmers are believed to have participated in the violent clashes.

On November 4th, the Brănişca Castle was burned down and numerous manors were destroyed and looted. In Crișcior , the farmers killed 13 members of the local aristocratic family and all other Hungarians they could get hold of. The nobles of the affected region fled to Herrmannstadt and the castles of Deva and Hunedoara . Some of them escaped death by agreeing to redistribute their land among the peasants and convert to the Greek Orthodox faith.

The military operations of the Habsburg army to suppress the uprising officially began on November 3rd; On November 5th, troops from the Banat and Hungary were drawn in. However, the military initially behaved very passively, which may have strengthened the rebels in their belief that they were acting on behalf of, or at least with, Joseph II. On November 11th, Horea, who had meanwhile besieged Deva Castle, gave the noblemen who had fled there an ultimatum to distribute the land among the peasants.

The reluctance of the army led the Hungarian nobles to take action against the insurgents with the help of mercenary troops. There were numerous atrocities on both sides, both through rioting by the insurgents and through punitive measures by the Hungarian landlords. The Romanian doctor and humanist Ioan Piuariu-Molnar started negotiations with the insurgents on behalf of the emperor.

Crackdown

Crișan
Execution of Horea and Cloșca

On November 17, Joseph II allowed the Transylvanian governor Samuel von Brukenthal to take legal action against the peasants. He also offered a bounty of 300 ducats for the capture of Horea. Three days later, however, Joseph withdrew the martial law order in the hope not to aggravate the situation any further. During this time the Habsburg military units began to take active action against the rebels, so that state order was restored within a short time.

On December 27, 1784 Horea and Cloşca were arrested as a result of treason and taken to Alba Iulia. The third main leader of the peasants - Crişan (real name Gheorghe Crişan or Marcu Giurgiu ) - was arrested on January 30, 1785.

The rioters were punished according to the precise instructions of Joseph II: more than 660 of them came to court. More than 300 peasants who could make credible that they did not join the uprising voluntarily and who were not accused of serious crimes were released. About 180 participants in the uprising who had voluntarily looted were corporally punished and then released. 120 people were convicted of a serious crime; 37 of them received the death penalty and the remaining prison terms. Except for Horea, Cloşca and Crişan, all those sentenced to death were pardoned by Joseph II. Crişan succeeded in committing suicide in prison pending the gruesome execution of the death penalty. Horea and Cloşca were wheeled and quartered on February 28, 1785 in Alba Iulia in front of a crowd of 2500 Romanian farmers from 400 villages . Her body parts were displayed in public in various places as a deterrent.

The uprising claimed up to a thousand lives, especially on the part of the peasants, but 150 nobles were also killed. 62 villages and 132 manors are said to have been destroyed.

aftermath

After the uprising was put down, Joseph II set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the causes of the uprising. The commission concluded that the events were mainly due to the harshness with which the (mostly Hungarian) landlords treated their serfs. The failure of local authorities to apply and enforce existing regulations and laws was also criticized. On the part of the Romanian peasants, a lack of “moral and religious education” was identified. The Commission recommended the rapid adoption and enforcement of a Urbars in which the relationship between landlords and serfs should be regulated. In addition, a system was suggested according to which state-supported Romanian schools should be established and an Orthodox seminary should be approved. Joseph immediately began implementing these recommendations. Serfdom was lifted on August 22, 1785 and the Romanian peasants were allowed to move freely. However, in the absence of funding, less progress has been made in the development of the school system and in the formation of priests.

The previously privileged estates in Transylvania could not accept the curtailment of their previous rights and repeatedly intervened with Joseph II, which in 1787 finally cost Samuel von Brukenthal his office. Ultimately, however, Joseph had to give in to some extent: On January 28, 1790 - a few weeks before his death - he issued the edict of restitution: almost all reforms of his reign were revoked; however, the abolition of serfdom and the tolerance patent remained untouched. As a result, the Romanians' legal situation improved permanently. However, they were still excluded from political participation; Also, as mostly landless farmers, they remained economically dependent on the privileged classes.

The uprising put a strain on relations between the central government in Vienna on the one hand and the Hungarians within the Habsburg Monarchy (especially in Transylvania) on the other. The Hungarians felt that Joseph II promoted the uprising and fought it only hesitantly in military terms, in order to weaken the Hungarian nobility in the long term and thus achieve better conditions for his reforms.

rating

Historians have been discussing the extent to which the Horea uprising should be understood as an expression of Romanian national consciousness since the 19th century. Most researchers are of the opinion that the survey had a distinct Romanian national aspect. Hungarian and Transylvanian-Saxon servants were occasionally involved in the uprising; but essentially it was a dispute between Romanian serfs and Hungarian landlords. On the other hand, the Romanian intellectual elite, who were the bearers of the emerging Romanian national consciousness, stayed away from the uprising. Samuil Micu-Klein , a representative of the Transylvanian School , condemned him sharply.

Especially during the rule of the Romanian Communist Party, the peasants were seen as fighters for the unification of Transylvania with the Danube principalities. In addition, the national communist Romanian historiography, with the ideological construct of protochronism , which was not only typical of Romanian historiography since the Ceaușescu era, claimed that the uprising was even a forerunner of the French Revolution . According to all older sources and more recent research, these interpretations are hardly tenable and at that time would have been far removed from any reality.

Commemoration and artistic processing

In Romania, the leaders of the uprising are considered national heroes. Your is thought of in different ways in the country. Numerous villages are named Horea (or Horia), Cloșca and Crișan. Among other things, the birthplaces of Horea ( Arada ) and Crișan ( Vaca ) were renamed. There are monuments in several cities - including Cluj-Napoca and Turda - and museums on the subject in several villages in the Apuseni Mountains. In 1935 the opera "Horia" by the Romanian composer Nicolae Bretan was premiered in Cluj , but it was not well received. In 1984 Mircea Mureșan produced the film "Horea" about the event.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Horst G. Klein, Katja Göring: Romanian country studies . Gunter Narr Verlag, 1995. ISBN 978-3-8233-4149-9 . P. 36
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Wilhelm Bruckner: The reforms of Emperor Josef II in Transylvania . Inaugural dissertation from the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Jena. Jena, 1867
  3. ↑ a b c Gábor Barta et al .: Brief history of Transylvania . Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Budapest 1989.
  4. ↑ a b c d Edgar Hösch et al .: Lexicon on the history of Southeast Europe . Southeast Institute Munich. UTB-Verlag, 2004. ISBN 978-3-8252-8270-7
  5. ^ Johann Mailath: Compact history of the Austrian imperial state up to the most recent times . Edition 3. Verlag Mayer & Co. Vienna 1858. S. 195
  6. ^ Mathias Bernath: Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe, Volume 3 . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 1979. ISBN 978-3-486-48991-0 . P. 233
  7. ↑ Aemilian Janitsch: History of the emergence and growth of the German-Austrian monarchy. Volume 6 . Verlag Rehm, 1807. p. 272
  8. ↑ Ștefan Pascu: Izvoarele răscoalei lui Horea. Series B: Izvoare narative . Institutul de Istorie și Arheologie Cluj-Napoca. Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1983. p. 378
  9. ^ A b Keith Hitchins: The Romanians, 1774–1866 . Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 9780198205913
  10. ↑ http://www.rri.ro/de_de/der_leibeigene_aufstand_in_siebenburgen_1784-2526979
  11. ^ Carl von Rotteck, Karl Theodor Welcker: Das Staats-Lexikon: Encyclopedia of all political sciences for all classes . Edition 3. Verlag FA Brockhaus, 1865. P. 355
  12. ^ Paul Hunfalvy : The Romanians and their claims . Karl Prochaska Publishing House. Vienna / Teschen 1883. p. 190
  13. ↑ John Paget: Hungary and Transylvania: Political, statistical, economic . Verlag Weber, Leipzig 1842
  14. ↑ Daniel Ursprung: Legitimation of rule between tradition and innovation: Representation and staging of rule in Romanian history in the premodern and near Ceaușescu . Study Transylvanicum. Verlag Daniel Ursprung, 2007. ISBN 978-3-929848-49-6 . P. 255