Târgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely)

Introducing Târgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely)

Lively if not jaw-dropping in beauty, Târgu Mureş – with its nearly even Hungarian and Romanian populations, as well as a sizeable Roma population – offers a different slice of Transylvania, past and present. Buildings in its centre sport a more colourful, even flamboyant, Habsburg spirit, with tiled rooftops of government buildings jutting over heroic statues and floral paint-jobs in well-maintained interior spaces. In July 2006 budget airline Wizz Air (www.wizzair.com) began service from Budapest, so more travellers are likely to treat this friendly central Transylvanian town as a hub. It’s well worth poking about for a day.

Named literally for a ‘market’ on the Mureş River, Târgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely in Hun­garian, Neumarkt in German) was first documented as ‘Novum Forum Sicolorum’ in 1322. It developed as a leading garrison town and later as an important cultural and academic centre. In 1658 it was attacked by Turks, who captured 3000 inhabitants and transported them back to Istanbul as slave labour.

During the Ceauşescu regime, Târgu Mureş was a ‘closed city’, with all ethnic groups other than Romanians forbidden to settle here, in an effort to dilute the Hungarian community.

In 1990 Târgu Mureş was the scene of bloody clashes between Hungarian students, demonstrating for a Hungarian language faculty in their university, and Romanians who raided the local Hungarian political party offices. The Romanian mob attempted to gouge out the eyes of playwright András Sütő, who remains blind in one eye. The violence was apparently stirred up by the nationalist political group Vatra, which paid Romanian peasants from outlying villages to travel to Târgu Mureş, and armed them with pitchforks and axes. Officials later scapegoated local Roma in their investigation of the conflict.

Today Hungarian seems to be under­going a renaissance in Târgu Mureş, with many local songs being in Hungarian only or in both languages. Carnival comes on the last weekend in June, when the city hosts its Târgu Mureş Days. Felsziget Festival (www.felsziget.ro) is a big five-day rock/DJ festival at the end of July.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009