Reener Ländchen
The Reener Ländchen is a historical region in the north of Transylvania , directly adjacent to the so-called Nösnergau , south of Bistritz . It takes its name from the town of Reen (Saxon rain) .
history
The Reener Ländchen is one of the areas in Transylvania that was first populated by German colonists . The settlement began in the 12th century, but it never belonged to the legal area of the royal soil . The economic center of the region was the market town Sächsisch Regen (Sieb.-Sächs. Sächsisch-Reen ), which was located on Hungarian aristocratic soil , but in the Middle Ages had a number of special rights with regard to rafting, wood processing and schnapps distilling.
The Reener Ländchen initially belonged entirely to the Principality of Transylvania, after its dissolution to the Crown Land of Transylvania and from 1867 to the Hungarian half of Austria-Hungary. In 1920 it came with the rest of Transylvania to the Kingdom of Romania. During the Second World War, the Reener Ländchen came back to Hungary together with the Nösnerland through the Second Vienna Arbitration . When the front advanced to Northern Transylvania in 1944 , the entire German population was forced to flee by the German Wehrmacht. Only a fraction of the fled Transylvanian Saxons returned or stayed, so that the villages around Saxon Regen were almost deserted for the first time after their escape. Most of the refugees found shelter in Austria.
The empty farms were then filled with Romanian newcomers from the old Reich . The remaining Transylvanian Saxons emigrated almost completely in the decades after the war and finally from 1989. Today only the town of Sächsisch Regen counts a notable community (2007 approx. 200 people).
geography
The Reener Ländchen corresponds geographically to the depression on the eastern edge of the Transylvanian Heath on the upper reaches of the Mieresch . The plain is surrounded by mountains that are up to 700 m high and covered with oak forests. The plain itself is more like a steppe.
economy
Fruit growing, cattle breeding and forestry have been of particular importance in the Reener Ländchen since ancient times; ordinary agriculture was of secondary importance - all this rather unusual for a region of the Transylvanian Saxons . In Deutsch-Zepling , the cultivation of fruit was so important that most farms did not have a barn.
Historical places in the Reener Ländchen
Web links
- reenerländchen.ro - Citizens' initiative in the Reener Ländchen to preserve the cultural heritage