Transylvania

Is the most easterly crownland of Austria, and is bounded on the north by Hungary and Galicia, east by Bukovina and Moldavia, south by Wall a chia, and west by the Military Frontier, the Banat, and Hungary. Transylvania is little noticed in history till the Christian era, when part of it was occupied by the warlike Dacians, soon after whom the Sarmatian tribes of the Jazyges and Carpi settled in it. The conquest of the Dacians by Trajan, however, did not include that of the other two peoples, who proved very troublesome to the Roman settlers along the Danube, till they were conquered by Diocletian, and the Carpi carried away to Pannonia and other districts. In the middle of the 4th century, the Goths overran the country, defeating the Sarmatians in a great battle on the Maros, in which the monarch and the chief of his nobility perished; and they in their turn were forced in 375 to retire before the Huns and their confederates. The Gepidæ next took po e ion of Transylvania, till their almost complete extirpation, in 566, by the Lombards and Avars. It was conquered by the Hungarians about 1000, and was governed by woivodes till 1526, when the death of the Hungarian monarch at Mohacs prepared the way for the union of the two countries under the woivode John Zapolya; but the war which thence arose with the Austrians caused their complete severance, and Zapolya’s sway was, in 1535, confined to Transylvania, of which he became sovereign lord, under the protection of the Turks. The Saxons were summoned by the Hungarian monarchs to act as a counterpoise to the increasing power of the nobles; the firm protection and generous treatment accorded to the Saxons by the Hungarian monarchs were rewarded by steadfast loyalty and succor in men and money whenever required. During the rest of the 16th century the country was distracted by the bitter strife between the Catholic party, who were supported by Austria, and the Protestant party, who were allied with the Turks; the latter party, headed succe ively by princes of the houses of Zapolya and Bathory, generally maintaining the superiority. The next chief of the Protestant party was the celebrated Botskay, whose succe es against Austria extorted from the emperor an acknowledgment of the independence of Transylvania in 1606. To him succeeded Bethlem Gabor, the determined foe of Catholicism and Austria, who did important service during the Thirty Years’ War. Between his son and succe or, Stephen, and Ragotski arose a contest for the crown, in which the latter prevailed; but on Ragotski’s death, the civil war was resumed, till the complete rout of the Austrians by the Turks, under Kiupruli, placed the sceptre in the hands of Michael Abaffi, who reigned till his death, in 1690, as a va al of the Porte. The Austrians now again po e ed themselves of Transylvania, despite the heroic resistance of Ragotski; and though Tekeli succeeded for a brief period in rolling back the invaders, the peace of Carlowitz, in 1699, again put them in po e ion; and in 1713 Transylvania was completely incorporated with Hungary. During the insurrection in 1848 the Hungarians and Szeklers (one of the races inhabiting Transylvania) joined the insurgents and forced Transylvania to reunite with Hungary, despite the opposition of the Saxons; and the Wallachs, still little better than a horde of savages, were let loose over the land, to burn, plunder, and murder indiscriminately; the prostration of the country being completed in the following year during the bloody conflict which took place here between Bem and the Ru ian troops. In the same year Transylvania was again separated from its turbulent neighbor and made a crownland, the portions of it which had, in 1835, been annexed to Hungary being restored, as well as the Transylvanian Military Frontier, in 1851.