Varga Katalin

Katalin Varga (Hungarian: Varga Katalin [ˈvɒrɡɒ ˈkɒtɒlin]; August 22, 1802 - aft. 1852) was the leader of the Transylvanian Miners' Movement in the 1840s.

Katalin was born into a family of impoverished nobility on August 22, 1802, in Hălmeag, Transylvania. Her father János Varga and her mother Katalin Rosondai were minor landowners, and they worked their land themselves. The only reference to their state of nobility can be found in one petition dating from 1846. From the age of 10, Katalin was raised by her aunt, along with her younger sister Ilonka and her brother. Other than her native language, Hungarian, she also spoke Romanian and German. Confessionwise, she was a Lutheran. At the age of 20, she married György Kelemen, a wealthy wheeler, whose two children she raised. She also joined him in his business, hemp trading. In the early days, the business made profit; but later they gave credit to customers who did not pay it back. In the meantime, Katalin and György divorced, and he died shortly after.

A certain rope-maker of Braşov owed her the sum of 631 forints. She brought a suit against him to Braşov's borough council, which brought no results, so she also traveled to Vienna to ask for help at the royal court there. On August 1, 1839, the Royal Chancery declared that they could not reach a decision, and sent the case back to Braşov. Here the case lingered without resolution, so in April 1840 she returned to Vienna, where the court demanded that the Brasov borough council settle the matter. Again and again no resolution could be reached, and finally the case was dismissed and sent to archive by the district judge. Katalin Varga put her property losses behind her and attempted to start her life anew. In 1840, during the course of her travels to and from Vienna, she had met with mineworkers from the villages of Abrud-Sat, Bucium, and Cǎrpiniş. These villages were part of the Zlatna Treasury Estate (Hung: zalatnai kincstári uradalom); at the time they were involved in a dispute with their landlord involving his unwillingness to pay them their part of the gold mines' income. The inhabitants of the three villages entrusted Katalin with their case, and from this moment their interests became her own.

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