Location

Székelykeresztúr lies at the eastern end of the Transylvanian plateau between the towns of Székelyudvarhely and Segesvár, in the valleys of the Nagyküküllõ, Gagy and Fehér-Nyikó rivers, 390-395 meters above sea level.

Its area covers 4462 hectares, its widest borderline from the northwest to the southeast is 15 kms long, but at Hosszúaszó it narrows down to 2 kms. The town borders on 10 villages. "It is surrounded by hills: the Jézuskiáltó (535m) and Hosszúaszó (527m) in the north; the Görgénytetõ (611m) in the northwest; the Várhegy (616m), the Omlás, the Falbükk (south of Fiatfalva) and the Felhágó in the south. It is a typical hilly country at the end of the Transylvanian plateau." (Dr. Vofkori L. 1999, page 508)

Far from the main roads, it is cut across by the Héjasfalva-Székelyudvarhely railroad and county road 137.

Most likely the town was named after the Holy Cross (Santa Croce), Szent Kereszt in Hungarian. Which during the Middle Ages was often personified and called Domine Croce - Kereszt Ur. The patron of the catholic church being the Holy Cross also proves this assumption.

The forename Székely first appears in a document dating from 1548 and refers to its inhabitants, distinguishing the town from the dozens of towns bearing the same name in Hungary at that time. Because of the occupation of its inhabitants it was also called Szitáskeresztúr (szita = sieve) in modern times.

Székelykeresztúr was formed in 1839 by the merging of Keresztúr town, Keresztúr village and Timafalva. Fiatfalva was annexed to these three in 1926, but it is still not adjacent to them.

We do not know exactly when the town came into being. Székely Attila, a retired teacher of history, dwelling on the results of archeological excavations pointed out that the first finds date back as far as the age of Szent István and the finds from 1200 are significantly larger in number and range from the garden of the high school to the catholic church. It is likely that itwas then that the Székely element of the Hungarian population came into this region. They changed the order of the settlement, but their culture and language was Hungarian. They were the builders of the church, the greatest church in the whole region at that time.

Written record: the first record dates from 1332-37, the town being mentioned on a papal tithe-sheet as Szentkereszt (Santa Cruce), an independent diocese In 1333 a minister called Jakab paid 23 (24) banales to the tithe-collectors. (Jacobus sacerdos de Sancta Cruce solvit XXIII banales) The same minister paid 8 old denarii in 1334. (Jacobus sacerdos de Sancta Cruce solvit VIII banales antiquos). This amount of money - the largest sum paid in this region - indicates the considerable size of the settlement at that time.

A document dating from 1459 refers to Keresztúr as market town ("in Opido Kereszthwr") and so does another one from 1503 ("Ex oppido nostro Kereszthwr"). (Benkõ, p.151) Most likely the town received its status and title in the time of King Zsigmond. It's a fact that the king went through it during his Moldavian campaign in 1395, even stopped for two days (January 3 and 4) and issued several documents.

Besides archeological finds its status as market town is best proved by its market. The first record dates from 1590 when it was held on the day of the discovery of the Holy Cross, May 3. In the 18th century the town had two state fairs besides the fair held on the day of the exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14.On November 7, 1844 they obtained the right to hold two more state fairs - on Mátyás day (February 24) and Eszter day (June 7) - and a weekly market on every Saturday. According to Orbán Balázs its cattle and poultry fairs were popular and famous all over Transylvania.Székelykeresztúr remained a market town till 1886.

Keresztúr had been the county town of Keresztúr county - Sedes Kereszzthur -mentioned first in 1447. As such, it was an important economic and administrative center, where public assemblies were held every two years. In 1602 38 villages belonged to Keresztúr. In 1654 it became affiliated to Udvarhely county, then gradually losing its prerogatives, between 1920-40 it was only regarded as one of the major villages in the region. It wasn't until Hargita county was formed in 1968 that Keresztúr became a town again.

Székelykeresztúr received the first charter in 1559 from Queen Isabella who exempted the townspeople from all taxes except the one paid to Turkey.

Later on these privileges were reinforced by Báthory István, Báthory Zsigmond (1589) and Brandenburgi Katalin (1629).

A new charter was given in 1632 by governing prince Rákóczy György I, freeing the town from the obligation of paying taxes on condition that they should contribute 100 Forints to the Treasury.

The last charter was issued by Ferenc Ferdinánd in 1844 to "Szitáskeresztúr".

Before their merging in 1839 the population of the three settlements was recorded separately:

The largest number of data being preserved about Keresztúrváros indicates that it was the most significant of the three. After the union the number of the inhabitants changed as follows:

It's easy to see from this chart that the population of the town has been increasing. The growth is most conspicuous between 1970-92, as a result of industrialization. People living too far to commute moved into the town.

As far as nationality is concerned: in 1910 there were 3766 Hungarians, 71 Germans, 25 Romanians and 24 of other nationalities whereas in 1992 the town was inhabited by 10059 Hungarians, 262 Romanians, 264 Gypsies, 7 Germans and 4 others.

In 1910 the population belonged to three denominations: 1965 reformed, 925 unitarians, 833 Roman catholics while in 1992 there were 5054 reformed, 3617 unitarian, 2585 Roman catholic, 261 orthodox churchmembers and a few baptists, evangelists, Greek catholics, Jehovah's witnesses and adventists as well. There are four churches in the town: reformed, unitarian, Roman catholic and orthodox.

Regarding the economy of Keresztúr in the Middle Ages, Benkõ Elek pointed out that besides corn production vegetables were also grown, but we have some information about 17th century vineyards where the people would go out with carts driven by six oxen.

The relief of the region made it possible for the people to be employed in all branches of agriculture. Besides farming they also raised cattle and their cattle fairs highly contributed to the economic prestige of the town.

Craftsmanship was also significant as proved by the finds related to the processing of leather and metal. A pottery has also been unearthed. In the Middle Ages potters used to produce pots and tiles used for making stoves, the ones made by Fazakas Lukács were considered quite unique.

In the 17th century they took to making sieves, first from hair then from voile.

The first factory was built in 1901, it was the first to process flax in Transylvania. Major industrialization started in 1970 when besides the existing dairy plant, bakery, furniture factory and Craftsmen's Cooperative new establishments were opened like the foundry, the spinning mill, the shoe factory, the chicken and the pig farms.

Several buildings are on the list of monuments of Hargita county. One of them is the Catholic Church yet the Gyarfas mansion built in the 18th century is also worth mentioning. This is where our national poet, Petõfi Sándor spent the last night of his life and wrote his last poem under the old pear tree before setting out to the battle of Fehéragyháza. His statue stands in the center of the town with that of Nicolae Bãlcesu on its left.

We are also proud of the Molnár István Museum founded in 1946. With its 40,000 items it's one of the largest ethnographic museums in Transylvania.

Not far from the city lies the spa called Sóskút with its medicinal springs where people suffering from chronic rheumatism and arthritis can find cure.

The present

Székelykeresztúr as market town was first mentioned in 1459. Centuries passed and it has remained a small town ever since.

The changes in 1989 brought both hope and disappointment. Many of the factories did not survive the economic turmoil, they were shut down or downsized. The rising unemployment (1749 unemployed in 1992, 727 in 1997) led to massive immigration.

The church has great responsibility in these challenging times. Instead of letting our people be reduced to beggary we must urge them to stay at home and assume the fight: "turning stone into bread if the Székelys of today want to survive".