Our city, Marosvásárhely

Târgu Mureș

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 Târgu-Mureș (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈtɨrɡu ˈmureʃ]; Hungarian: Marosvásárhely, also known by other alternative names) is the seat of Mureș County in the north-central part of Romania. It is the 16th largest Romanian city, with 134,290 inhabitants as of 2011.

Names and etymology

The current Romanian name of the city, Târgu Mureș, is the equivalent with the Hungarian Marosvásárhely, both meaning "market on the Mureș (Maros) [River]". Târg means "market" in Romanian and vásárhely means "marketplace" in Hungarian. The Hungarian Marosvásárhely is sometimes shortened to Vásárhely in local colloquial Hungarian language.
The first written reference of the city was in the Papal registry in Latin as Novum Forum Siculorum in 1332, and later as Sekulvasarhel (modern Hungarian: Székelyvásárhely), meaning "new market of the Székelys", in 1349.^{[citation needed]} Other Latin names for the town included Agropolis and Areopolis.
In 1616, Gabriel Bethlen gave the name Marosvásárhely to the newly upgraded royal free city. The Romanian name for the city, Oșorhei was a phonetic derivation from Vásárhely while the German name for the town, Neumarkt am Mieresch (also shortened to Neumarkt or Marktstadt; in Transylvanian Saxon, Nai Mark or Nai Muark), can be translated as New Market^.
Other historical Romanian names for the town besides Oșorhei were Mureș-Oșorhei and Tîrgu Mureșului; other historical Hungarian names in addition to Székelyvásárhely included Újszékelyvásár and Újvásár.

The first recorded documentation of the city dates to 1332. It is mentioned in the papal registry under the Latin name Novum Forum Siculorum meaning New Szekler Marketplace, and under the Hungarian name Sekulvasarhel (Székelyvásárhely) meaning Szekler Marketplace in 1349.

The Reformed Fortress Church is the oldest church in the town. According to historical evidence, less than a century had passed after the first appearance of the Franciscan order in Transylvania, Hungarian Kingdom, that the Franciscan friars arrived at Vásárhely. The building of the church took an entire century, from the middle of the 14th century until the middle of the 15th and it consisted of a monastery building, an older chapel, the church and the steeple. The church was finalized between 1400 and 1450. The church may have been originally decorated with frescos, as traces of mural paintings were found inside. The almost complete disappearance of these paintings is due to the fact that the church became the property of Protestant believers in 1557. The religious reform required for churches to have no paintings, statues or religious frescos.

Photos about the city: