A little history

The Romanian uprising in Transylvania, erupted with the help of Habsburg in the summer of 1848, together with the Croatian Ban attack by Josip Jelasics and the Serbian uprising that engulfed the South in flames and blood, posed a huge threat to modern, bourgeois Hungary, established in April 1848.

In this unsettling situation, a ray of hope flashed up again: the 16-18 October 1848. In the Szekler National Assembly of Clay Village, which took place between the 19th century, the Szekler people took up arms to protect the motherland. This was a historic decision to protect the Batthyány government, as it prevented the unification of the Austrian, Romanian and southern Serbian teams from Transylvania.

The meeting in Clay Village was convened a month after the second Romanian National Assembly in Balázsfalva, which took an oath of allegiance to the Emperor Habsburg and called the Romanians to arms.

Almost 60,000 people from the five chairs came to the ancient counseling place of the Szeklers, almost all strata were represented, from the former Szekler serfs to the horsemen.

The enthusiastic crowd, as one man, declared that the Szekler people were “with the arms of the brotherhood” ready to attach to themselves nations of all races and religions, and if freedom were to be endangered by all, it would protect them to the blood of the last drop.

From the decision, the Szekler youths aged 19-25 could be taken into general military service, and they could also form an integral part of the newly formed Szekler army. Four divisions were formed on the spot, which immediately fought the defense of the motherland and Szeklerland.

The assembly in Clay Village marked the beginning of the Szekler uprising and the accession of the Szekler people to the War of Independence in 1848-49.

According to the chairmen of the Trinity, the date of the beginning of the National Assembly is still a memorable historical moment, which justifies the unity of the Hungarian nation and the unquestionable national unity.

The first written record of the Szekler deliberations, which also functioned as a court of appeal, dates from 1357, and they were held in Odorheiu Secuiesc or another settlement in Odorheiu Secuiesc.

Decided by Parliament

On 12 December 2018, the resolution issued by the Hungarian Parliament
He declared it a day of Hungarian-Szekler togetherness.

According to the decree, the Parliament will find and encourage the organization of commemorations, Hungarian and Szeklers with 11 centuries of emphasis, numerous programs, domestic and international conference organization, educational materials and audiovisual products based on an authentic presentation of events and their consequences.

It also helps organize various school commemorations as well as study trips, the inauguration of monuments and the announcement of tenders related to the event.

After the decision, the leaders of Szeklerland stated in their statement that the Parliament had stated that although the borders were separated, the national affairs of the Szeklers and the Hungarians were common.

The Day of Togetherness was first celebrated in 2019, when the memorial house of the 1848 National Assembly was inaugurated in Agyagfalva.

Who are the Szeklers?

The Szeklers are a Hungarian-speaking ethnic group in Transylvania, in the Szeklerland. Their origin is still unclear, they consider themselves Hungarian, the consciousness of the Hun-Szekler kinship lives in their world of tradition. The etymology of the word itself is also uncertain, in addition to Hungarian, it could have been derived from Germanic, Slavic and Turkish languages, as well as from various other folk and tribal names with numerous meanings.

It first occurs in written sources in the 12th century, first in Transylvania in 1250 IV. King Bela’s charter mentions the Szeklers. In the Middle Ages, the definition was the theory of Hun kinship formulated by the 13th-century chronicler Simon Kézai, and again a real scientific study of the issue began only later, in the 19th century.

According to one of the two most accepted views, the Szeklers were originally Hungarians, who settled in the eastern half of the country to protect the borders, and traced cultural differences back to isolation. The other position sees the Szeklers as a military slave of Bulgarian-Turkish origin who joined the Hungarians before the conquest, which later merged mainly Hungarians, but also Slavs and Romanians.

It is probable that the ancestors of the Szeklers joined the Hungarians as a Hungarian-speaking or Turkish-origin ethnic group close to the Hungarian conquest.

The Transylvanian ethnic group has set up autonomous administrative organizations, so-called chairs,

it also has collective prerogatives at first, but has gradually lost them since the 16th century.

The Szeklers first entered the ranks of serfs and then, in the time of Maria Theresa, into the border guard. After the disaster in Madéfalva in 1764 (when the imperial soldiers massacred hundreds of protesters in Transylvania), an important number emigrated to Moldavia and Bukovina. Most of the Szeklers in Bukovina were repatriated at the end of the 19th century and in 1940, but some of them migrated further and settled in Tolna, southern Hungary.

After the compromise, the seat organization of the Szeklers was replaced by counties. Together with Transylvania, Szeklerland has been part of Romania since the 1920 Treaty of Trianon.

In 1952, the Hungarian Autonomous Province was established from the historical Szekler counties, then from 1960 the Mureş-Hungarian Autonomous Province, which was liquidated in 1968. Most Szeklers live in Harghita, Covasna and Mures counties, in the first two they make up the majority of the population.

The cover photo illustration (Source: Facebook).