National College Silvania

Silvania National College
Location
Str. Unirii, nr.1, Zalău, Sălaj County, Romania
Information
Type	Public
Established	1646
Principal	Vasile Bulgărean
Grades	9-12
Number of students	1065 (in 2014)
Website	cnszalau.ro

Silvania National College (Romanian: Colegiul Național Silvania, Hungarian: Silvania Főgimnázium) is a bilingual high school in Zalău, Romania, with both Romanian and Hungarian language classes. In 2002 it had 949 students, of whom 747 participated in Romanian and 202 in Hungarian language education.

The high school was formed by the Calvinist community in Zilah (present-day Zalău) in the first half of the 17th century. Initially, lessons were held in Latin, which was later replaced by Hungarian. In the 1830s, following a disagreement between the school and the church, Miklós Wesselényi took over the burden of the institution and paid the teachers wage and other fees himself. In remebrance of this service to the school, it later took the name of Wesselényi. In 1848, led by their teachers, the students from the upper class joined the Hungarian Revolution, for which after the failure of the revolution the college feared of abolition by the Habsburg authorities.

The main building of the high school was built in 1903 with the support of the Wesselényi family. In 1948, due to the Communist takeover, the school was nationalized and ceased to exist as a faith school. At this time it was renamed from Wesselényi Reformed College to simply Liceum nr. 2 and served as a Hungarian language institution. In 1960 it was unified with the Romanian language high school and since then language education has been given in both languages. Between 1953 and 1965, the high school was called Ady Endre (for a notable former graduate), then Liceul de Matematică-Fizică, Liceul Teoretic and, after 2001, Colegiul Național „Silvania”.

Endre Ady graduated in 1896

Iuliu Maniu graduated in 1890

Lajos Bíró (1856–1931)

Victor Deleu (1876–1939)

Sámuel Gyarmathi (1751–1830)

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