Sighișoara

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Sighisoara
Sighisoara
Segesvár
Sighișoara coat of arms
Sighișoara (Romania)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
Basic data
State : RomaniaRomania Romania
Historical region : Transylvania
Circle : Mureș
Coordinates : 46 ° 13 '  N , 24 ° 48'  E Coordinates: 46 ° 13 '14 "  N , 24 ° 47' 30"  E
Time zone : EET ( UTC +2)
Height : 380  m
Area : 113.47  km²
Residents : 28,102 (October 20, 2011)
Population density : 248 inhabitants per km²
Postal code : 545400
Telephone code : (+40) 02 65
License plate : MS
Structure and administration
Community type : Municipality
Structure : 7 districts / cadastral communities: Angofa , Aurel Vlaicu , Hetiur , Rora , Șoromiclea , Venchi , Viilor
Postal address : Str. Muzeului, no.7
loc. Sighișoara, jud. Mureș, RO-545400
Website :
Official trilingual entrance sign with the Romanian, German and Hungarian city names
Old town - hour tower (middle), house with deer antlers (right)
Schulberg with mountain church and Joseph-Haltrich-Lyceum
Street in the old town

Sighișoara [ sigiˈʃoara ] ( German  Schäßburg , Hungarian Segesvár , Latin first Castrum Sex , later Saxoburgum ) is one of the more important cities in the Mureș County in Transylvania , Romania . It is located on the Great Kokel (Romanian Târnava Mare ). Your unique historical center in 1999 became the UNESCO - World Heritage declared.

history

founding

Schäßburg was founded in the second half of the 12th century by German immigrants, Transylvanian Saxons . In 1280 it is mentioned for the first time as Castrum Sex . In 1298 it is mentioned as Schespurch or Schaesbrich and in 1337 with the Hungarian name Seguzwar . In 1435, the Romanian name, borrowed from Hungarian, appears for the first time in writing as Sigisoara .

From around 1523 Protestant writings by Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon came to the city. The Reformation was introduced around 1550 because the estates had given each other a free choice of faith.

The Battle of Segesvár (1849)

With the battle of Segesvár on July 31, 1849, the city went down in the history of the revolutionary conflicts of the 19th century. The Hungarian poet and folk hero Sándor Petőfi was killed in this battle .

More recently

In the inter-war period, Schäßburg temporarily regained administrative importance as the administrative seat of the Jew Târnava Mare (Groß-Kokel district) .
In 2012, the city, together with the Italian municipality of Corciano, was awarded the European Prize for their outstanding efforts towards European integration.

Dracula

The literary figure " Dracula " by Bram Stoker is associated with Schäßburg, Vlad Țepeș (Vlad III. Drăculea, the Impaler ), son of Vlad II. Dracul (the dragon), may have been born there. He is said to have lived in the city between 1431 and 1436. The planning of a “Dracula” amusement park in 2001/03 met with strong criticism from the local population as well as from the Transylvanian Saxons from the region, who now mostly live in Germany.

The Schäßburg writer Dieter Schlesak has published a novel about Dracula and Vlad the Impaler.

Population structure

Ethnic population structure

According to the 2002 census, among the 32,304 inhabitants of Sighișoara are 24,571 Romanians (76.06%), 5934 Hungarians (18.36%), 1135 Roma (3.51%), 623 Germans (1.92%) and 48 Others (0.15%).

religion

The cityscape of Sighișoara is characterized by a large variety of sacred buildings. According to official statistics, 75.72% of the population belonged to the Romanian Orthodox Church in 2002 ; 8.28% were Reformed, 5.98% Roman Catholic, 3.74% Unitarian, 1.07% Pentecostal, 0.89% Evangelical Lutheran, 0.86% Greek Catholic and the like. a.

German heritage

Since its foundation, the city has been predominantly inhabited by Transylvanian Saxons for centuries . Until 1930 they were still the largest ethnic group in terms of numbers. After that, the Romanians gained a majority. Despite steady emigration since the mid-1970s, 5,492 (17.7%) Germans still lived in the city in 1977. After the fall of communism in Romania, a massive wave of emigration began. According to the 1992 statistics, there were 1327 residents of German origin at that time. However, their share continued to decline rapidly and steadily in the 1990s, until it even fell behind that of the Roma at around 1.9%. On March 27, 2002 only 623 German speakers had their place of residence in Sighișoara.

Nevertheless, the city was able to retain its multicultural character. Schäßburg is now officially trilingual again. The place-name signs and tourist information are labeled in Romanian, German and Hungarian. There are kindergartens in which German is spoken, as well as a primary school and a grammar school ( Bergschule Schäßburg ) in which German is used as the language of instruction. The mountain school enables the German-language Abitur, which is also recognized by German universities. There are also several Protestant churches and a lively community life in the city.

politics

The mayor of Sighişoara has been Ioan Dorin Dăneşan since 2000, son of the former communist mayor Ioan Dăneşan, who is charged with the arbitrary demolition of part of the historic old town in Bucharest after the floods of 1975. The current mayor is accused of tolerating numerous illegal construction projects in the UNESCO-protected old town of Sighişoara and of wanting the old town to be removed from the UNESCO World Heritage List (including by the local citizens' initiative “Sighișoara Durabilă” - Sustainable Sighișoara ).

Twin cities

Attractions

Hour tower city ​​side to Kokel
German cemetery on the Schulberg
view on the city
The so-called Draculahaus, alleged birthplace of Vlad III. Drăculea

The "Historic Center", the so-called castle is a UNESCO - World Heritage listed and is a major attraction with its buildings.

  • The hour tower (Piața Muzeului 1) is the symbol of Sighisoara. It was built in the second half of the 14th century as a defensive structure for the main gate of the castle and as a council seat (until the end of 1656). The clock tower got its present appearance at the end of the 17th century when a devastating fire on April 30, 1676, coming from the lower town, also attacked the tower. The hour tower with the weathercock has a total height of about 64 meters. The wall thickness is 2.4 meters on the ground floor, the height of the masonry is 39.5 meters (since 1804) and forms five floors. On the top floor, the tower is surrounded by an open wooden gallery, which also served as a fire watch and as a lookout over the area around the city. The town musicians can be heard here on public holidays. The museum of guilds has been set up in the hour tower since 1898. The tower, originally conceived as a gate tower for the city fortifications, connects the lower and upper towns and, with its winding streets, forms a popular motif for tourists and painters. As a sign of the blood jurisdiction , which the city once had, the upper floor has four turrets on the sides, one on each tower roof corner. This type of construction is known as the Juliusturm . Another special feature is the clockwork built into the fourth floor, it was mechanically coupled with a play of figures that accompanies the change of hour and day and is considered unique in Romania.
  • Of the fourteen towers of the city ​​fortifications , several towers are still preserved, which bear the names of the guilds by which they were once built and defended (including tailor's tower , tin foundry tower ), and an almost complete curtain wall around the upper town.
  • The Josef-Haltrich-Lyzeum , a grammar school for the German minority, is located on the Schulberg below the mountain church. A wooden covered staircase (student staircase ) with over a hundred steps leads up from the old town streets.
  • The Schäßburger Bergkirche has been completely renovated with funds from the Messerschmitt Foundation . Several altars from abandoned Saxon communities from the church district of Schäßburg are exhibited here, as well as a larger collection of old tunnel chests from the 16th century, which originally came from the fortified church in Henndorf . The German cemetery behind with its tombs and beautifully crafted tombstones is also worth seeing (especially the one from Sternheim-Tomb and the inscriptions there). The church has a crypt . This is accessible and, together with the crypt under the Marienkapelle of the Margarethenkirche in Medias, is the only historical crypt in a Protestant church.
  • The house with the deer antlers and the Venetian house should be mentioned as secular buildings. The house with the deer antlers was the residence of the Wenrich and Bacon patrician families for centuries until the Romanian state expropriated it in 1950. In 2000 the city council of Schäßburg illegally sold the house with the deer antlers to the Munich Messerschmitt Foundation, which had already taken care of it in 1996, in order to sell it under the pretext of a cultural , despite the timely request for a refund from the legal heirs To convert the facility into a lucrative hotel. The house with the deer antlers is an elaborately renovated medieval merchant's house on the market square, next to which the monastery church and the Venetian house are located. The latter takes its name from its Gothic pointed arched windows.
  • The monastery church , today's Protestant parish church, was built between 1492 and 1515. Tracery windows are in the choir and in the nave. The baroque altar (1681) and the baroque organ are works by the Schäßburg master Johannes Fest and the Hermannstadt painter Jeremias Stranovius, as are the parapets and the sound cover of the baroque pulpit. In the church there are choir stalls, a bronze baptismal font in the shape of a chalice from 1411, wall paintings, 35 oriental carpets from the 16th and 17th centuries.
  • The old narrow-gauge locomotive (exhibited on the station forecourt).
  • The nature reserve width with its several hundred year old oaks, an old hut willow . The Dracula amusement park was supposed to be built here, but this was prevented.

Events

  • German Culture Days Schäßburg, organized by the Democratic Forum Schäßburg (May / June).
  • The annual Medieval Music Festival (July).
  • The ProEtnica intercultural festival , in which all the ethnic communities of Romania participate (second half of August).
  • The "Academic Music Festival" (Festivalul de muzica academica, August)
  • gradOST: Workshop for sustainable urban planning (autumn 2007, spring 2008)
  • Brass music festival (beginning of September)

traffic

The city lies on the European route 60 , which is also the Romanian national road Drum național 13 , which connects Brașov (Kronstadt) with Târgu Mureș (Neumarkt am Mieresch) . The planned Transylvania motorway (Autostrada Transilvania or " Bechtel -Autobahn") will affect Sighișoara.

With a train station on the Teiuş – Braşov railway line , Sighişoara is also connected to the international rail network. The narrow-gauge line " Wusch " via Agnita (Agnetheln) to Sibiu (Hermannstadt) was shut down in stages by the Romanian State Railways ( CFR ).

Sighișoara can be reached by plane via the international airports in Sibiu and Târgu Mureș.

Personalities

Born

  • Johann Michael Ackner (1782–1862), archaeologist and naturalist
  • Johann Georg Wenrich (1787–1847), Protestant theologian and university professor
  • Carl Ludwig Sigmund von Ilanor (1810–1883), Transylvanian-Austrian dermatologist, world's first professor of syphilis
  • Georg Daniel Teutsch (1817–1893), theologian, bishop and historian
  • Carl Wolff (1849–1929), economist, journalist and politician
  • Marie Stritt (1855–1928), urn grave in Schäßburg, German women's rights activist
  • Friedrich Grünanger (1856–1929), architect
  • Regine Ziegler (born August 30, 1864 - April 17, 1925 in Kronstadt ), writer
  • Karl Ziegler (1866–1945), painter
  • Hans Leicht (1886–1937), lawyer, politician, poet and translator
  • Vilmos Apor (1892–1945), bishop of the Győr diocese and blessed of the Catholic Church
  • Helmut Wolff (1897–1971), dentist, President of the German-Saxon People's Council, member of the “leadership of the ethnic groups” in Romania
  • Karl Hübner (1902–1981), painter, graphic artist
  • Hilde von Stolz (1903–1973), actress
  • Albert Klein (1910–1990), grammar school teacher, pastor in Transylvania, bishop of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Romania ("Saxon Bishop")
  • Paul Günther Klein (1919–1998), physician, microbiologist, immunology and university professor
  • Ursula Bedners (born May 14, 1920; † November 12, 2005 in Schäßburg), poet; lived in Markus's house on the market square in Schäßburg
  • Erna Roth-Oberth (1922–2012), Transylvanian-German lawyer, founder of the Hermann Oberth Space Museum
  • Ștefan Balint (1926–1976), football player
  • Dieter Schlesak (1934-2019), writer and member of the German PEN -Zentrums
  • Richard Winter (1934–1989), Party Secretary of the District Committee in Sibiu, member of the Executive Committee of the Romanian Communist Party (RKP), Deputy Chairman of the Council of Working People of German Nationality, member of the Central Committee Executive Committee
  • Klaus Knall (* 1936), conductor and cantor
  • Adrian Ivanițchi (born September 15, 1947), musician
  • Anca Petrescu (1949–2013), architect and politician
  • Michael Tausch (* 1949), chemist and university professor
  • Attila Dorn (* 1970), musician
  • Radu Voina (* 1950), handball player, coach of the Romanian national team
  • Harald Roth (* 1965), Eastern European historian
  • Gabriel Mureșan (* 1982), football player
  • Ralph Gunesch (* 1983), Bundesliga player in Germany (FC St. Pauli)

Died

  • Johann Baumgarten (* 1765 in Luckau / Niederlausitz, † 1843), botanist
  • Josef Bacon , (* 1857; † 1941), doctor and politician, founder of the local history museum
  • Georgius Krauss (* 1607; † 1679), born in Sibiu, was a notary and historian
  • Sándor Petőfi , (born January 1, 1823 in Kiskőrös, † July 31, 1849 near Schäßburg), Hungarian national poet

Others

  • Hermann Oberth (born June 25, 1894 in Sibiu, † December 28, 1989 in Nuremberg ), physicist and space pioneer. He grew up in Schäßburg and is considered the city's most important son.

See also

Web links

Commons : Sighișoara  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: Sighișoara  - travel guide

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 2011 census in Romania at citypopulation.de
  2. ^ Ulrich Andreas Vienna: Transylvania - pioneering region of religious freedom: Luther, Honterus and the effects of the Reformation . Schiller Verlag, Hermannstadt / Bonn 2017, ISBN 978-3-946954-05-7 , pp. 9-16 .
  3. ↑ www.siebenbürger.de Dracula amusement park
  4. ↑ a b 2002 census from edrc.ro accessed on December 12, 2015
  5. ↑ Árpád E. Varga: Maros megye településeinek etnikai (anyanyelvi / nemzetiségi) adatai 1850-1992. (Online document) (PDF file; 1.2 MB).
  6. ↑ www.recensământ.ro ( Memento of February 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Timetable of the mountain school in Schäßburg
  8. ↑ www.siebenbürger.de Andreas Mausollf
  9. ↑ The Clock Doctor of Sighisoara ( Memento of 18 February 2005 at the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Deutsche Kulturtage Schäßburg , accessed on June 3, 2019
  11. ↑ web presentation of ProEtnica
  12. ↑ Festivalul Fanfarelor 2018 - Sighisoara , accessed on May 19, 2019 (Romanian)
  13. ↑ Sigmund von Ilanor at biographien.ac.at, accessed on May 18, 2017
  14. ↑ Regine Ziegler in Important Memorial Days 2014 in the Siebenbürgische Zeitung
  15. ↑ web presentation Adrian Ivaniţchis
  16. ↑ Georgius Krauss at mek.oszk.hu (Hungarian)