Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 25. (1996)
II. Istorie
210 lOAN RANCA The occupied territory, considered as a royal domain, was attributed, in the course of a long process, to the Hungarian laic and ecclesiastic feudal lords, while the native Romanian middle class country people in the area were slowly being turned into hereditary serfs, being thus subdued to a more and more unbearable exploitation which was to bring about the peasant's rebellions of 1437, 1514, 1704-1711, 1784 and 1848-1849. The priority in the Transylvanian space of genesis, but, most of all, their numerical preponderance as compared to all the other inhabitants (Hungarians, Saxons, Szecklers) was an insuperable problem for the authorities whose political concern consisted in remaking Great Hungary within the borders of St.Stephen, after the abolition of serfdom, in 1854. Due to the fact that this project had no chance to be carried out, a most subtle strategy was worked out by a sustained policy of colonisation with Hungarian native in the areas largely inhabited by Romanian, like for instance, the Transylvanian Plain. The author's intention is to analyse this phenomenon at the end of the XIXth century and the beginning of the XX , from the point of view of the measures taken by the authorities in 6 villages located on the initial line of Hungarian penetration in Transylvania: Cluj-Särma§u-Ludu§TTrgu-Mure§.
