Kovács Piroska: Orbán Balázs kapui (Székelyudvarhely, 2012)
If the visitor from the West approaches the mother-town of the Seklers on the route of Szováta - Parajd - Korond, and this is the most common route, there is aways a stop for paying one’s respect at the tomb of Orbán Balázs at Szejke. It is simply impossible not to stop after seeing so many wonders of nature at the geological borderline situated by the foot of the Hargita mountain, seeing the bustle of the market-streets in Korond, seeing the birthplace and tomb of the greatest Sekler writer at Farkaslaka, the visitor cannot simply go on without noticing the national place of pilgrimage, the grave of the “ greatest Sekler”. As during his life, he couldn’t find rest in death either, he was reburied three times, twice into crypts and once into the ground, he stayed in an unmarked grave for a decade, and the present grave in also the second one, still struggeling with the forces of nature. The first memorial was designed by Haáz Rezső, the professor who founded the museum, the epitaph of the gravestone was written by Tompa László. The second one was made by a sculptor bearing the same surname: Orbán Áron. In front of his grave there stands a gate as if guarding it, and this gate was put in front of his house at Szejke in 1888. This gate is the first in line, followed by the gates from Udvarhelyszék. They all have their stories. Their original owners were tanners of farmers or patients of the tuberculosis sanatorium. The president of the local council had one of them carved by the people of Telekfalva, and it was because of him, that the line of gates appeared. Due to passionate people, the number of gates had grown, also because of Sütő András‘s announcement and it became very popular. The gates belong to the museum now (some of them have always been in the possession of the museum) along with the area of almost one acre, where the collecting of these sacred popular memories has begun and we plan to put a belltower here too. Kovács Piroska gives a detailed description of the gates and the history of them with scientific precision in order to inform the huge number of visitors. The mineral treasure of the Szejke, its mineral water fountains, and the bathes, the ground which grows rare plants made this place a protected territory and this fact foreshadows a new appreciation of the place in the future. In commemoration of Orbán Balázs the Seklerland mineral water and bathmuseum will be opened near the fountain called Sarolta, which will be the first of this kind in the Carpatean basin. 46
