Alba Iulia (; or Carlsburg, formerly Weißenburg ; ; Encyclopædia Britannica |"Alba-Iulia") is a city that serves as the seat of Alba County in the west-central part of Romania. Located on the river Mureș in the historical region of Transylvania, it has a population of 64,227 ().
During ancient times, the site was the location of the Roman camp Apulum. Since the High Middle Ages, the city has been the seat of Transylvania's Roman Catholic diocese. Between 1526 and 1570 it was the capital of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom from which the Principality of Transylvania emerged by the Treaty of Speyer in 1570 and it was the capital of the Principality of Transylvania until 1711. At one point it also was a centre of the Eastern Orthodox Metropolitan of Transylvania with suffragan to Vad diocese.Maksym Mayorov. Metropolitan of Kiev and other Eastern Orthodox Churches before 1686 (Київська митрополія та інші православні церкви перед 1686 роком ). Likbez. 16 December 2018The Metropolitan Cathedral of Cluj . Transylvania and Beyond. On 1 December 1918, the Union of Transylvania with Romania was declared in Alba Iulia, and Romania's King Ferdinand I and, in 1922 Queen Marie were crowned in the Alba Iulia Orthodox Cathedral.
Alba Iulia is historically important for Romanians, Hungarians, and Transylvanian Saxons. In December 1918, Alba Iulia was officially declared Capital of the Great Union of Romania.
The city administers four villages: Bărăbanț (Borbánd), Micești (Ompolykisfalud), Oarda (Alsóváradja), and Pâclișa (Poklos).
Names During the Roman period the settlement was called Apulum (from the Dacian Apoulon, mentioned by Ptolemy). When the settlement with its Roman ruins became the seat of a dukedom in the 10th century, the population may have been Slavic.Makkai 2001, p. 365 From the 9th to the 11th centuries, the settlement bore the Slavic name Bălgrad (meaning "white castle" or "white town").Adrian Room, Placenames of the World: Origins And Meanings of the Names for 6,600 Countries, Cities, Territories, Natural Features and Historic Sites, McFarland, 2006, p. 23 The old Romanian name of the town was Bălgrad, which originated from Slavic.The earliest name attested are Castrum Albense and Alba Transilvana, in 1206, and Alba Jula in 1291. The Hungarian name Gyulafehérvár is a translation of the earlier Slavic form, meaning "white castle of the Gyula"Iván Boldizsár, NHQ; the New Hungarian Quarterly, Volume 29; Volumes 109-110, Lapkiadó Publishing House, 1988, p. 73 meaning "white city of Julius". Alba is the Romanian feminine form of the word for white, and Iulia ("Julius") refers to Gyula II, a mid-10th-century Hungarian warlord who was baptized in Constantinople.Patrick Leigh Fermor, Between the woods and the water: on foot to Constantipole from the Hook of Holland : the middle Danube to the Iron Gates, Viking, 1986, p. 138, , Citations: "The Dacian Apulon became the Latin Apulum, and the place was full of traces of the old Roman colony. But both of these words were silenced when the hushed and muffling spread of the Slavs stifled the old names of Eastern Europe forever. They renamed it Bălgrad - the white town (one of many) - perhaps because of its pale walls and this white motif caught on. The Saxons called it Weissenburg and later Karlsburg, in honour of Emperor Charles VI, who built the great eighteenth-century fortress here. The Hungarians had already adopted the notion of whiteness, but another crept in too: the word 'Julius', after a mid-tenth-century (Hungarian?) prince who had visited Constantinople and been baptised there. In Hungarian, Gyulafehérvár, means "white city of Gyula". The Rumanians stuck to Bălgrad, then adopted the medieval Latin name of Alba Iulia."
Under the influence of the Hungarian form, Gyulafehérvár, the town's Latin name eventually became Alba Julia or Alba Yulia.Medieval and Early Modern for Central and Eastern Europe Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Press, p. 196 Its modern Romanian name, Alba Iulia, is the adoption of this that started to spread in Romanian in ordinary speech in the 18th century.László Bányai, Közös sors--testvéri hagyományok: történelmi vázlat, Politikai Könyvkiadó, 1973, p. 41, Citations: "A középkori latin okiratok Alba Iulia-ja csak a XVIII. századtól terjed el a román köznyelvben" Translation: " the term 'Alba Iulia', used in medieval Latin charters, started to spread in the Romanian vulgar tongue only in the 18th century" The modern name has been officially used since the town became part of Romania.Magyar történeti tanulmányok, Volumes 19-21, Acta Universitatis Debreceniensis de Ludovico Kossuth nominatae: Series historica, KLTE, 1986, p. 85 Citations: "Itt említjük meg, hogy Gyulafehérvárat akkoriban románul Belgrad-nak hívták, csak Romániához történt csatolása után lett belôle Alba Iulia." Translation: "We mention it here that Gyulafehérvár was called Belgrad in Romanian and it turned to Alba Iulia after it became part of Romania."
The 16th-century German name was Weyssenburg. The Saxons later renamed the town to Karlsburg (Carlsburg)Berichte und Forschungen. Jahrbuch des Bundesinstituts für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im Östlichen Europa 11/2003, p.137 in honour of Charles VI (1685–1740).The Transylvanian Saxons: historical highlights, Alliance of Transylvanian Saxons, 1982, p. 55, In Yiddish and Hebrew, Karlsburg was prevalent. In Ladino, Carlosburg was used. Alba Carolina was also a Neo-Latin form of its name.
Among Ruthenians, the city was known as Bilhorod ("white city").
The city's Latin name in the 10th century was Civitas Alba in Ereel.Ferenc Léstyán, MEGSZENTELT KÖVEK A KÖZÉPKORI ERDÉLYI PÜSPÖKSÉG TEMPLOMAI, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Alba Iulia, 2000, The first part of the name Alba denotes the ruins of the Roman fort Apulum, the pre-feudal white citadel.Romania in brief, Meridiane Pub. House, 1966, p. 74 Later in the Middle Ages, different names were used: Frank episcopus Belleggradienesis in 1071, Albae Civitatis in 1134, Belegrada in 1153, Albensis Ultrasilvanus in 1177, eccl. Micahelis in 1199, Albe Transilvane in 1200, Albe Transsilvane in 1201, castrum Albens in 1206, canonicis Albensibus in 1213, Albensis eccl. Transsylvane in 1219, B. Michaelis arch. Transsilv. in 1231, Alba... Civitas in 1242, Alba sedes eptus in 1245, Alba Jula in 1291, Feyrvar in 1572, Feyérvár in 1574, Weissenburg in 1576, Belugrad in 1579, Gyula Feyervár in 1619, Gyula Fehérvár in 1690, and Karlsburg in 1715.
History
Ancient times
The modern city is located near the site of the important Dacian political, economic and social centre of Apulon, which was mentioned by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy and believed by some archaeologists to be the Dacian fortifications on top of Piatra Craivii. After Dacia became a province of the Roman Empire, the capital of Dacia Apulensis was established here, and the city was known as Apulum. Apulum was the largest urban centre in Roman Dacia and was the seat of the XIII Gemina Legion. Apulum is the largest castrum located in Romania, occupying ().
Middle Ages
Analysis of the necropoles of the city prior to the 11th century show that they were used by a population different from the conquering Hungarians. Archaeological evidence shows Bulgarian presence in the 9th century.
The Gesta Hungarorum mentions a Hungarian regent named Jula or Geulathe maternal grandfather of Stephen I of Hungary and lord [regent] of Transylvaniawho built the capital of his dukedom there during the 10th century. Geula was baptized in the Byzantine Empire and built around 950 in Alba Iulia the first church of Transylvania. The ruins of a church were discovered in 2011. According to Ioan Aurel Pop and other historians, here lived Hierotheos the first bishop of Transylvania,Ioan Aurel Pop, Jan Nicolae, Ovidiu Panaite, Sfântul Ierotei, episcop de Alba Iulia (sec. X). Edit. Reîntregirea, 2010, 335 pI. Strajan, Adevărul istoric a învins la Alba Iulia, Despre prima organizare creştină din Transylvania – sec. X, "DACOROMANIA" nr.55/2011 who accompanied Geula back to Hungary after Geula had been baptized in Constantinople around 950.
After Stephen I adopted Catholicism, and the establishment of the Catholic Transylvanian bishopric, recent archaeological discoveries suggest that the first cathedral was built in the 11th century or possibly before. The present Catholic cathedral was built in the 12th or 13th century. In 1442, John Hunyadi, Voivode of Transylvania, used the citadel to prepare for a major battle against the Ottoman Turks. The cathedral was enlarged during his reign and he was entombed there after his death.
Ottoman and Habsburg period In 1542 — after the partition of the Kingdom of Hungary — Alba Iulia became the capital of Transylvania and some of its neighboring territories to the west (later known as Partium), the autonomous Principality of Transylvania, and remained so until 1690. The Treaty of Weissenburg was signed in the town in 1551. During the reign of Prince Gábor Bethlen, the city reached a high point in its cultural history with the establishment of an academy. The former Ottoman Turkish equivalent was Erdel Belgradı or Belgrad-ı Erdel ("Belgrade of Transylvania" in English) where Erdel (Erdély) was added to prevent confusion with Belgrade and Arnavut Belgradı ("Albanian Belgrade" in Turkish, early name of Berat during Ottoman rule).
On 29 November 1599, Michael the Brave, Voivode of Wallachia, entered Alba Iulia following his victory in the Battle of Șelimbăr and became Voivode of Transylvania. In 1600 he gained control of Moldavia, uniting the principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania under his rule, which lasted for a year and a half until he was murdered in 1601, by General Giorgio Basta's agents.
Alba Iulia became part of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1690. The fortress Alba Carolina, designed by architect Giovanni Morando Visconti, was built between 1716 and 1735, at the behest of Emperor Charles VI of Habsburg. The leaders of the Transylvanian peasant rebellion were executed in Alba Iulia in January 1785. Important milestones in the city's development include the creation of the Batthyaneum Library in 1780 and the arrival of the railway in the 19th century.
20th and 21st centuries At the end of World War I, representatives of the Romanian population of Transylvania, the National Assembly of Romanians of Transylvania and Hungary, gathered in Alba Iulia on 1 December 1918 during the so-called Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia to proclaim the Union of Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania. The representatives of the Transylvanian Saxons decided to join this declaration on 8 January 1919.
In 1922, Ferdinand I of Romania was symbolically crowned King of Romania in Alba Iulia. In October 2012, at the 90th anniversary of King Ferdinand's coronation, his great-granddaughter Princess Margarita of Romania visited Alba Iulia to commemorate the event.
Jewish history
The Jewish community, which was the first in Transylvania, was established in the 14th century. A community was officially founded by permission of Prince Gabriel Bethlen in 1623. The 18th century saw an influx of Ashkenazim from Hungary and Wallachia, as well as Sephardim. From 1754 to 1868, the town rabbi was the chief rabbi of Transylvania. A synagogue was built in 1840, with a Sephardic one following in 1874. Most local Jews in the 19th century worked in viticulture and bought land for growing vines; in the 20th century, they were mainly artisans. By 1930, the 1558 Jews of Alba Iulia represented nearly 13% of the town's population.