Cornel Sigmirean is a professor with the “Petru Maior” University and he will next talk about the origins of multiculturalism in Targu Mures:

“Targu Mures has developed as a multicultural city from the very beginning. It was first documented in the Vatican archives in 1330 when the city was called Forum Siculorum, being a Szeklers’ city. Later in 1332 its name changed to Novum Forum Siculorum and its ethnic component was attested as early as that moment. In 1616 the prince of Transylvania, Gabor Bethlen, gave the city the name of Targu Mures, which is Marosvasarhelyi in Hungarian. Romanians called it “Osorhei” for a long time and after 1918 the city was called Targu Mures. The city also has a German name: Neumarkt, which is indicative of its multi-ethnicity. Also as a result of historical evolution, Targu Mures has been a city with large communities of Hungarians and Germans. Starting in the 18th century, following the tolerance decree issued by the emperor Joseph 2nd, the number of ethnic communities in Targu Mures rose. Many Romanians and Jews settled there.“

The multicultural landmarks of Targu Mures are related to spoken languages, religious denominations and education. Cornel Sigmirean will next talk about tolerance among religious denominations:

“Targu Mures was a city of tolerance, as in 1571 the Transylvanian Diet issued a religious tolerance decree. After Luther’s and Calvin’s reforms the reformed, evangelical and Unitarian denominations were set up across Europe. And it was only ironic that, after 1571, the year when the tolerance decree was issued, the whole of Europe had to witness a 30-year religious war. Romanians, who were Orthodox, did not enjoy the privilege of tolerance, Orthodoxy was a tolerated religious denomination, and this had as a result the limitation of Romanians’ political rights.”

To get better acquainted with the city of Targu Mures you should visit it on foot so as to feel the pulse of the city.

“Whoever visits Targu Mures will be impressed by its city center where they can admire a Baroque style Roman-Catholic church and a reformed church built in the Gothic style. There you can also find two great cathedrals: a neo-Byzantine Orthodox one and another one in the style of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, which is a Greek-Catholic church. There is also a Unitarian church and three synagogues. More recently, several neo-Protestant houses of worship have been built. They are not just houses of worship, but rather they have a distinct personality and grant the city its identity. Strolling through the streets you may happen upon Gothic buildings, not so many of them, and also upon a lot of Baroque buildings, which render the message of the Counter-reform of the 18th century. There are also neo-Classical buildings, but also buildings in the Secession- Art Nouveau style, which marked the early 20th century. The city center boasts two such buildings, the Prefecture and the County Council, and the Palace of Culture, erected between 1911 and 1913”.

Education and science have brought people closer than tradition sometimes. In Targu Mures, people of different cultures have met in schools and universities. Here is Cornel Sigmirean:

“I think we could also talk about multiculturalism when speaking of the history of education. Here, in the 18th and 19th centuries, two great academic colleges were teaching students: the Catholic high school and the Reformed high school. Hungarians and Romanians studied there irrespective of their faith, and that is where several great personalities of Romanian culture studied: Petru Maior, who actually lived in Tg Mures, since his father was a priest, Gheorghe Sincai, and Alexandru Papiu-Ilarian”.

Curiously enough, as democracy dawned in Romania in the 1990s, Targu Mures is the place where the interethnic conflict between Romanians and Hungarians threw a shadow over its image of a place of tolerance. However, the wounds have healed now, and all inhabitants now share the special urban identity of this place.