Transylvania: FFW Newsletter

Flair For Writing Newsletter
Topic: Transylvania Editor: Megan Princess Megan Snow Rose
Assistant Editor: Angel Angel

Hello everyone! It doesn't seem possible that summer is almost over. Where did it go? Angel and I hope you are doing well. I recently saw a live elephant at a Festival in my town. She was beautiful. Angel makes lovely images for a web site where she sells them. It has been awhile since we have done a newsletter and we decided to write about Transylvania. That nice scary place where vampires and werewolves live. They live in Forks, Washington, too! All you Twilight Fans know this. Ha! Ha! This newsletter is about some of the history of Transylvania. I have always been curious about this area. I first heard about Transylvania when I watched The Munsters. I thought it was a place in Pennsylvania or something. I was only eight years old. I thought Transylvania must be a cool place. I hope to visit there someday.

Angel thought it would be nice to write this newsletter, too. She made some scary interesting Sigs but don't be scared. Vampires won't hurt us. Is everyone ready? Let's go to Transylvania.

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania, bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended to the west to the Apunsei Mountains. This also includes Crisana, Maramures and Romanian part of Banat. {This seems like a lot of territory!}

Transylvania is associated with vampires. You knew this was coming! This is due to Brams Stoker famous novel Dracula and Dracula's home was in Transylvania so the story goes. This region is known for it's beauty of the Carpathian landscape and it's rich history. {Angel will share a shorty segment about our friend Dracula later.}

In Romanian, the region is known as Ardeal or Transylvania. According to Medieval Latin document in 1075, Translyvania means:beyond the forest". It also refers to the other side of the woods. Mediasch was the first city settled in Transylvania.

Transylvania was once the nucleus of the Kingdom of Dacia {82BC-106AD}. The Roman Empire conquered the territory. Several tribes overrun the territory: Carpi, Visgoths, Huns, Gepids, Avars, Slavs and Bulgarians. The first Vlachs appeared in the area in thr 13th century. All these different tribes battled for Transylvania at one time or another. With all these battles and Dracula, it is safe to say this is how Transylvania became famous.

The Magyars conquered much of Central Europe at the end of the 9th century. The Kingdom of Hungary took control over Transylvania in 1003. King Stephen 1 defeated Prince Gyula. Transylvania became part of the Kingdom Of Janos Szapolyai which transferred into Transylvania ruled primarily by Calvanist Hungarian speaking people. Transylvania became under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire.

After the Batle of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs acquired the territory. It became part of the Habsburg Territory. In 1699, the Turks legally conceded their loss of Transylvania and was absorbed into Transleithania or the newly established Austro-Hungarian Empire.

After World War 1, Transylvania united with Romania. Seems like everyone wanted to own Transylvania. The territory belonged to the Celts at one time as well.Dacia took it away from the Celts in a battle in the second century. Thr Kingdom of Dacia was in existence as early as second century BC when Rubobostes, a Dacian king from present day Transylvania took control of the Carpathian basin by defeating the Celts who were in power at the time.

There were several fortified cities in Transylvania at this time. The Roman Emoeror Trajan took over Dacia in after numerous battles. {The Dacian Wars were commemorated on Trajan's Column in Rome} and took control of the salt mines and gold mines in Transylvania. Some of the cities were divide up . The Romans built new mines, roads and forts. Colonists from Roman areas were bought in to settle the land. Christianity was also introduced into the land. THe Romans abandoned Translyvania in 271 due to pressure from the Visigoths.

The territory fell under the control of the Visigoths and Carpians until they were taken over by the Huns and the Gepids acquired the territory after that. Daco-Romans are the ancestors of the Romanians.

In the sixteenth century, Musulims and Catholics were fighting for control of Transylvania. The Turks and Austrians battled for control for two centuries. This influenced Brams Stoker to write Dracula which was published in 1897.

Lutheranism and Calvanism flourished in the region. Unitarianism and Catholicism were the for religions in 1568.

Bathory, a Hungarian noble family and Michael the Brave and later Calvanist magnate Stephen Bocska ruled Transylvania for the next three centuries. Not all at the same time. The golden age and independence of Transylvania ended with the reign of George II Rakoczl.

Are you with us so far? This does get confusing. Following defeat in World War 1, Austria-Hungary began to disintegrate. Ethnic Romania majority elected representatives proclaimed Union with the Kingdom of Romania on December 1, 1918. This territory bounced back to the Hungarians and Romanians.

In August 1940, in the midst of World War II, Hungary regained about 40% of Transylvania by the Vienna Award with the aid of Germany and Italy. The territory was returned to Romania in 1945. This was confirmed in the Paris Peace Treaties. After the fall of communism, all of the German speaking population left Transylvania and most of them went back to Germany.

We couldn't cover everything but this gives us a brief history of Transylvania. Angel and I love watching movies about vampires and werewolves that take place in Transylvania. If you would like to read more about Transylvania: Go to a search engine and type Transylvania and go to Wikipedia. This is where I got this info.

A lot of gypsies were in Transylvania years ago. I have read that they were Romanian for the most part. I have always liked gypsies.

Angel would like to add this:

Welcome to my humble home. Nice to see you again. Glad you accepted my invitation. Dinner will be served in a short while but let me take you on a quick tour of my humble castle.

Let me tell you a little bit about Transylvania. Here are some traits of vampires. Please enjoy your stay.

Vampires typically cast no shadow and have no reflection. This mythical power is largely confinde to European vampire myths and may be tied to folklore regarding the vampire's lack of a soul. In modern fiction, this may extend to the idea that vampires can not be photographed.

Some tales maintain that vampires must return to their native soil before sunrise to take their rest safely. Others place native soil in their coffins especially if they have relocated. Still other vampire stories such as Le Fanu's Carmilla maintain that vampires must return to their coffins but sleep in several inches of blood as opposed to soil.

Old folklore from Eastern Europe suggests that many vampires suffered from a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder being fascinated with counting Millet or poppy seeds were placed on the ground at the grave site of a presumed vampire, in order to keep the vampire occupied all night counting Chinese myths about vampires also state that if a vampire comes across a sack of rice, he or she will have to count all of the grains. Aside from the Muppet character of Count von Count on television's Sesame Street and a fifth season of the X-Files titled Bad Blood, this characteristic seems to have largely disappeared from popular culture.

Hi everybody: I got this great information from this site: http://www.dracula

On that note, the Halloween Newsletter will be about Dracula. We hope you will read our Dracula Newsletter then. Enjoy the rest of summer. We hope that you have enjoyed this newsletter about Transylvania and the visit from Dracula. If you have any news you want to share about Dracula, send us an e-mail and we will use it in the next newsletter. Love: Megan and Angel


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