Attila István Szekeres: The Changes of the Civic Coats of Arms on the Territory of Szeklerland after the Union of Transylvania and Romania (original) (raw)

2018, ACTA TERRAE FOGARASIENSIS

After the World War I, the Kingdom of Romania extended to include Transylvania, part of Banat, the Criş region, the southern part of the historical Maramureş, Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia, intended to indicate the change in its symbols as well. After the change of power the references to Hungary were removed from the coats of arms, what is more, the coat of arms of Turda County was entirely Romanianised, however, more to the East, Szekler symbols were still preserved. The coat of arms of Trei Scaune County was preserved in its entirety, it was only edited in accordance with the template of the age. The coat of arms of Udvarhely Seat, then County mostly survived into the coat of arms of Odorhei County, the sun and the moon pair in any case, only in reverse order. The coat of arms of Csík, Gyergyó and Kászon Seats, then Csík County was partly transposed into the coat of arms of Ciuc County, but the sun – albeit not with coating Or but Gules –, and the moon crescent remained. In the case of Mureş County, the apple tree as well as two straight lines instead of the three wavy lines – the rivers Mureş, Târnava Mică and Niraj –, survived from the 1753 coat of arms of the former Maros Seat into the 1878 coat of arms of Maros-Torda County. After the change of power Târgu Mureş preserved its old coat of arms, slightly altered and augmented, but the heraldic charge of the old Szekler coat of arms survived. Odorheiu Secuiesc preserved its old coat of arms also in the interwar period, with a slight modification. At the change of power the coat of arms of Sfântu Gheorghe conferred in 1897 was roughly modified, however, the pair of the sun and moon crescent in field Azure survived. To sum up the changes in the coats of arms of territorial-administrative units, it can be stated that the old Szekler coat of arms survived from the symbol of the former Háromszék Seat into the coat of arms of Trei Scaune County and it also survived in the coats of arms of Târgu Mureş and Odorheiu Secuiesc. The sun-moon pair forming the new Szekler coat of arms survived in the coat of arms of Sfântu Gheorghe and it also figured in the coat of arms of the former Ciuc County. Although indirectly, the sun-moon pair symbolizing the Szeklers, as part of the coat of arms of Transylvania, was included in the coat of arms of Romania sanctioned by law in 1921, and also in the coat of arms of the country adopted in 1992 and augmented in 2016.