Transylvania
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a former grandduchy and crown-land of the Austro- Hungarian monarchy; joined to Rumania in December, 1918; surrounded by Hungary, the Bukovina, Moldavia, and Wallachia; area, 22,312 square miles; pop. ( 1919) 2,678,867. Transylvania is so called from its position beyond the wooded Carpathians; its interior is a table-land intersected by spurs from the Carpathian ranges, rising in the S. (in Negoi) to 8,060 feet, in the N. to 7,000, in the W. to 5,840, and in the E. to 5,700, while its average elevation is about 1,500 feet above the sea, its lowest point being where the river Maros enters Hungary (566 feet). The chief rivers, all belonging to the Danube system, are the Aluta, falling into the Danube, Samos, and Maros (tributaries of the Theiss), and the Bistritz, an affluent of the Sereth. Of the whole area, 23 per cent. is arable, 25 per cent. meadowland, and 38 per cent. forest. The best wine is produced in the valleys of the Samos, Kotel, and Maros. The mining industries of Transylvania include the production of iron ores and pig iron. Other mineral products are gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, coal, and salt. Tanning and the manufacture of Tanning linens, woolens, and glass are also important. Originally a part of Dacia, Transylvania was conquered by King Stephan I. in 1004, and united to Hungary. About this period the country was invaded by Germans, probably from the Rhine districts, who named it Siebenbürgen, after the seven fortified towns built by them. Ever since, this little Saxon colony has retained, unchanged, its peculiar laws and language; here we find cities with names like Kronstadt, Hermanstadt, Klausenburg, Elizabethstadt, and Mühlenbach, in a district surrounded by places with Slavonic, Magyar and Wallachian names. From 1526 to 1699 Transylvania was an independent kingdom under the Zapolya princes. Completely subdued by Leopold I. in 1687, and united to Hungary in 1713, it became a grand-duchy in 1765. In 1848 it was the theater of a bloody struggle between Bem and the Russians, and was it for a time united to Hungary. In 1849 become an independent crown-land of Austria, and in 1867 an integral part of the kingdom of Hungary.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's wrote in 1921 that Transylvania had been "joined to Rumania in December, 1918"; the Treaty of Trianon confirmed that transfer in June 1920, and it has been part of Romania since, apart from 1940-1944, when the Second Vienna Award handed the northern half back to Hungary until the postwar treaties reversed it in 1947. The German towns Collier's listed under their old names are now Cluj-Napoca, Brașov, Sibiu, Sighișoara and Sebeș, and the "little Saxon colony" that had kept its laws and language "unchanged" since the Middle Ages has all but vanished: wartime and Soviet-era deportations, then mass emigration to Germany after 1989, reduced it from hundreds of thousands to a few tens of thousands. Hungarians remain the largest minority, well over a million, and the Szekler counties are still a live political question in Bucharest. Mining, which Collier's praised for gold and salt, is largely gone; the Roman gold workings at Roșia Montană became a long environmental battle and were listed by UNESCO in 2021 instead of being mined.
Written for this edition, 2026.