Székelys

Székelys

Flag of Székely Land (as used by the Szekler National Council)
Total population
(est. 500,000 – 700,000) (532 of them declared themselves as Székelys at the 2011 Romanian census))
Regions with significant populations
Romania (mostly in the counties of Harghita, Covasna and parts of Mureş), southern Hungary and the rest of the world
Languages
Hungarian
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic, with Hungarian Reformed and Unitarian minorities
Related ethnic groups
Hungarians, other Ugric peoples

(est. 500,000 – 700,000)

The Székelys (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈseːkɛj]), sometimes also referred to as Szeklers (Hungarian: székelyek, Romanian: Secui, German: Szekler, Latin: Siculi), are a subgroup of the Hungarian people living mostly in the Székely Land in Romania. A significant population descending from the Székelys of Bukovina lives in Tolna and Baranya counties in Hungary and in certain districts of Vojvodina, Serbia. In 1952 the former province of Mureş, Romania, (with the highest concentration of Székely population) was legally designated as the Hungarian Autonomous Region. It was superseded in 1960 by the Mureş-Hungarian Autonomous Region, itself divided in 1968 into three non-autonomous counties, Harghita, Covasna and Mureş.

In the Middle Ages, the Székelys, along with the Transylvanian Saxons, played a key role in the defense of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Ottomans in their posture as guards of the eastern border. With the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, Transylvania (including the Székely Land) became part of Romania, and the Székely population was a target of Romanianization efforts. In post-Cold War Romania, where the Székelys form roughly a half of the ethnic Hungarian population, members of the group have been among the most vocal of Hungarians seeking an autonomous Hungarian region in Transylvania. They were estimated to number about 860,000 in the 1970s and are officially recognized as a distinct minority group by the Romanian government.