Mehadia

Mehadia Mehadia Mehadia
Basic data
State :	Romania
Historical region :	Banat
Circle :	Caraș-Severin
Coordinates :	44 ° 54 '  N , 22 ° 22'  E Coordinates: 44 ° 54 '3 "  N , 22 ° 22' 1"  E
Time zone :	EET ( UTC +2)
Residents :	4,072 (October 31, 2011)
Postal code :	327270
Telephone code :	(+40) 02 55
License plate :	CS
Structure and administration (as of 2016)
Community type :	local community
Structure :	Mehadia, Globurău, Plugova, Valea Bolvașnița.
Mayor :	Iancu Panduru ( PNL )
Postal address :	Str. Principală loc., Jud. Caraș-Severin, RO- 327270
Website :	www.primariamehadia.ro

Location of Mehadia in the Caraș-Severin district

Mehadia 1835

Mehadia 1842

Mehadia 1918

Mehadia ( Hungarian Mehádia , German  Mehadia ) is a municipality in the Caraș-Severin district , in the Banat , Romania . The villages Globurău , Plugova and Valea Bolvașnița belong to the municipality of Mehadia .

Geographical location

Mehadia is located in the Cerna Valley, in the Banat Mountains , in southwest Romania, on the European route E70 , 24 km from Orșova and 10 km from Băile Herculane . Mehadia is located in the Domogled-Valea Cernei National Park .

Neighboring places

Iablanița	Cornea	Valea Bolvaşnița
Almăj Mountains		Domogled-Valea Cernei National Park
Almăj Mountains	Topleț	Baile Herculane

history

Plan of the Roman fortress Ad Mediam from 1726 according to Marsigli

During the Roman period "Ad-Mediam" was known for its Hercules baths ( Thermae Herculis ). The Roman fortress Kastell Mehadia ( Praetorium ) stood here from the 2nd to the 4th century. After the fall of the Roman Empire , the place was deserted. The Roman road ran near the village. More recent archaeological excavations support the Roman times in the region. Many inscriptions are dedicated to the Roman emperor Hadrian .

Already in the late Middle Ages, Mehadia took a place of military and political importance due to its geographical location. The medieval fortress was expanded into a fortified border town in the 18th century as part of the Banat military border. In connection with the Carolinian colonization, Mehadia received settlements from German colonists. Between 1740 and 1742 mainly immigrants came from Styria , Tyrol and Transylvania .

On June 4, 1920, the Banat was divided into three parts as a result of the Treaty of Trianon . The largest, eastern part, to which Mehadia also belonged, fell to the Kingdom of Romania .

As a result of the Waffen-SS Agreement of May 12, 1943 between the Antonescu government and Hitler's Germany , all men of German origin who were conscripted into the German army. The Germans from Romania had to pay for this after Romania switched sides on August 23, 1944. Before the end of the war, in January 1945, all ethnic German women between the ages of 18 and 30 and men between the ages of 16 and 45 were deported to the Soviet Union for reconstruction work .

The Land Reform Act of March 23, 1945 , which provided for the expropriation of German farmers in Romania, deprived the rural population of their livelihoods. The expropriated land was distributed to smallholders, farm workers and colonists from other parts of the country. The collectivization of agriculture was initiated in the early 1950s .

The nationalization law of June 11, 1948 , which provided for the nationalization of all industrial and commercial enterprises, banks and insurance companies, resulted in the expropriation of all commercial enterprises.

Mehadia Castle

Mehadia was a royal castle in the Severin Banat . It was in the 13th century when King Béla IV fortified it, and it was destroyed in the 18th century. In 1323 King Charles Robert of Anjou appointed a "castellanus de Myhald" here. Initially, the Hungarian kings (Charles Robert and Louis the Great ) moved from here to fight the voivods of Wallachia ( Basarab I and Vlaicu Vodă ). In 1402 a "Comes von Mihald" is said to have been mentioned for the first time. Mehadia was one of the seven (at times even eight) "Wallachian districts" of the Severin Banat.

The castle consisted of an older hexagonal tower, probably built in the 13th century, and a round tower built later (probably in the time of Johann Hunyadi ). These towers were connected with two parallel walls that formed a 6 meter wide corridor. One of these walls was 3 meters thick and the other was about 65 meters long. The ruins of the north-western walls of the first tower, which were 6.5 meters long, can still be seen today on the hill called Grad (= castle). The base of the defense structure consisted of limestone blocks, and river and rock stones were used to build the 2 meter thick tower walls. In addition to the ground floor, the tower also had three floors, which reached a total height of 15 to 20 meters.

As the Turkish threat increased constantly, Pippo Spano di Ozora strengthened the castle. Then it was taken over in 1429 with the castles along the Danube from the Teutonic Knight Order under the command of Nikolaus von Redwitz . The next year, on February 24, 1430, von Redwitz noted that Mihald Castle with its "three slossers" needed more money than even the Severin Castle. Here, instead of the two towers mentioned, “three castles” were mentioned for the first time. Little is known about the origin of the third defense structure. The first detailed plan of this building was made in 1697 by the Austrian officer Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli .

After the Teutonic Order withdrew, the castle was fortified by Johann Hunyadi and Pál Kinizsi . Both King Sigismund Báthory and King Matthias Corvinus used Mihald as a base in the wars against the Turks. Because of its special importance, King Ludwig concluded an agreement with Sultan Suleyman I in 1519 , in which the Turks undertook to stay away from Mihalder Castle. Even after the defeat of Mohács (1526), ​​the heir to the throne, Ferdinand, insisted that Mihald remain in royal possession. However, the castle passed into the possession of the Transylvanian prince and friend of the Turks, Johann Zápolya . In 1554 Peter Petrovics, the ban of the Lugoj , Caransebeş and Mihald castles , carried out fortification work on the walls of the latter and renewed the hexagonal tower, the ruins of which are still there today. Nevertheless, the castle is said to have fallen into Turkish hands after all, when the Wallachian voivode Michael the Brave fought against the Turks under its walls in 1595 .

The former fortress was expanded into a fortified border town in the 18th century as part of the Banat military border. The fortifications of Mehadia were built into the rock. The complex had an irregular floor plan, which was protected on three sides by ravelins with built-in contregarden . The ravelins were connected to one another by protected curtains . In 1717 it was visited by Prince Eugene of Savoy , who then ordered its fortification. On this occasion two forts were built: the first, called “Sankt Andreas” and the second on the place that is now called “Schanze”. At the location of the "St. Andreas “-Fort ahead is the Mehadiaer Gymnasium. Among the ruins of the second fort is the partially preserved tower.

The battles for Mehadia in the 3rd Turkish-Austrian War (1737–1739) are described by Karl Kraushaar . After the Turks took Old Orschowa on April 24, 1738, they turned to Mehadia and besieged the castle. The Imperialists reacted very slowly to this. It was not until June that they managed to raise the necessary troops near Timisoara. They set out on June 22nd and arrived in Caransebes four days later. Meanwhile Mehadia was conquered by the Turks. On July 4, 1738, the Austrians under Grand Duke Franz von Lothringen unexpectedly joined the Turkish army. Fighting, they reached Mehadia on July 9, 1738, where the Turks capitulated and then withdrew. Against all odds, they reappeared in front of Mehadia on July 15th and stormed the castle four times without being able to take it. After the Grand Duke fell ill, a turning point occurred and the Turks were once again in the superior force. After the Peace of Belgrade (1739) the Mehadia Castle, which was in the hands of the Turks, was to be destroyed, but this was delayed until 1752. It was completely destroyed in the 4th Turkish-Austrian War between 1788 and 1791 . The Ottoman Grand Vizier Koca Yusuf Pascha defeated the Austrians under Franz Moritz von Lacy there in August 1788 , but a year later he was defeated by the Austrians under Clerfait in almost the same place .

Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic population was looked after by Minorite Fathers until the establishment of an independent parish in 1740 as a branch of the Orșova fortress . The right of patronage was exercised by the court war council from the beginning. According to the visitation protocol of Bishop Josef Lonovics of Krivina , the church was built in 1745. A source in the Vienna Hofkammerarchiv contradicts this, according to which the church was only rebuilt in 1753 and 1754. In the same archive there is a plan showing the ground plan and elevation of the Catholic Church of Mehadia. The plan dates from 1756 and was drawn up by master mason Johann Michael Dobler. According to the inscriptions on the plan, the crack was ratified by Wolfgang Holz in Timisoara in August 1756.

The floor plan of the church of Mehadia corresponds to a hall church with a retracted choir with a trapezoidal apse . The length of the church is 20 meters, the width of the nave 9 meters, the width of the choir 7 meters. The choir is illuminated by two windows in the side walls, and that of the nave by three windows each. The church was provided with a flat ceiling, only the choir was vaulted. The facade was completed with a triangular gable, which was broken through by a window with an oval curve. This window was framed with a panel decorated with tendrils of flowers. The roof ridge tower was designed with a French dome with a lantern. Because the church was badly damaged during the last Turkish war at the end of the 18th century, it was rebuilt until 1795 at the expense of the Hungarian Court Chamber. The west facade in the first place underwent a significant change in that it was equipped with a retracted facade tower with a square floor plan. The vertical division of the façade and tower floors is made by pilasters with capitals based on Doric style . The concave curved gable top was broken through with a round window. A round arched window rises above the rectangular portal , which is framed with inserted pilasters. Similar arched windows are located on the tower floor.

tourism

The community is located in the Domogled-Valea Cernei National Park, near Hekulesbad. There are numerous places of interest in the area, of which the ruins of the Roman castrum, the churches (ancient monuments), the water mills and the handicraft workshops can be mentioned. In the area around Mehadia there are extensive water areas (50 hectares) where you can fish (especially trout). At the same time, you can hunt in the approximately 80,000 hectares of forest belonging to the Mehadia and Herculane forest districts. Big game: roe deer, wild boar, wolves, bears and deer can be hunted here with a special permit.

Demographics

census		Ethnicity
year	Residents	Romanians	Hungary	German	Other
1880	2097	1843	25th	214	15th
1890	2480	2158	42	245	35
1910	2504	2071	132	205	96
1930	2162	1933	37	124	68
1941	2346	2168	16	127	35
1977	1968	1940	5	19th	4th
1992	2834	2678	22nd	20th	114
2002	2345	2321	10	12	2

Web links

Commons : Mehadia, Caraș-Severin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• banaterra.eu , Roman Catholic Church
• dickemauern.de , castle ruins
• ghidulprimariilor.ro , Mehadia

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mayoral elections 2016 in Romania ( MS Excel ; 256 kB)
2. ↑ Ruinele cetății medievale Mehadia ( Memento from May 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Swantje Volkmann: The architecture of the 18th century in the Temescher Banat
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Anton Zollner: The Mehadia Castle. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on September 23, 2015 ; accessed on January 16, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Primăria Mehadia
6. ↑ kia.hu , E. Varga: Statistics of the population by ethnicity in the Caraş-Severin district according to censuses from 1880–2002