History of Maramureș
Traces of Mesolithic settlements, approximately 7000 years old, have been found near the villages of Camianitsa and Dibrova (Apșa de Jos) in Northern Maramureș and are considered among the oldest in Eastern Europe.
Apart from silver coins, over a thousand metal tools have been found there, such as scissors for cutting sheep wool scythes or swords and the remains of jewel workshops.
The salt mine at Ocna Slatina, the metallurgical center at Zatiseanski (Djacovo, Vovchanske), as well as the largest pottery district in Eastern Europe (on the river Mits) were all located in the region.
In the 880s, disciples of Cyril and Methodius, expelled from Great Moravia, settled in the region immediately to the west of Maramureș and founded monasteries in inaccessible and beautiful mountain places.
In the southeastern corner of modern Poland, where "lex vallachorum" was in force as late as the 16th century, or eastern Moravia, where their autonomy was devastated by Wallenstein during the Thirty Years' War.
In March 1241, the Tatar-Mongols under the Khan Batu overwhelmed the mountain defenses and entered through the Verecke Pass (separating the county of Bereg from Galicia) to plunder Transylvania and the Kingdom of Hungary.
In the middle of the 14th century, the nobility of Maramaros, while still jealously guarding their rights at home, were an important catalyst in uniting the lands to the east of the Carpathian Mountains and forming the Moldavian Principality.
One of the major participants in these events was the count of Maramaros Bogdan of Cuhea, who succeeded in 1342 and again in 1349, in totally eliminating the royal authority from Maramureș, only to find his efforts thwarted by the superior diplomatic ability of King Louis of Hungary over the lesser local (Romanian) nobility.
In 1391, the orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople Antonius IV transformed this monastery into a Partiarchal Stavropighia with jurisdiction over eight counties: Maramureș, Ugocsa, Bereg, Ung, Árva, Ciceu, Sălaj and Bihorian Almaș.
Most of the Pannonian plains were subsequently occupied by Turks and the western and northern Kingdom of Hungary passed to the Austrian Habsburgs, while Transylvania, including Maramureș, became an autonomous principality within the Ottoman Empire from 1541.
[11] Also in 1551, the first ever strike in the Kingdom of Hungary took place, when the miners of Ocna Slatina left their workplace and created a makeshift tent camp at Baia Mare, demanding improvement of their working conditions and annulment of the death penalty.
During the reigns of the Zapolai princes in 1526–1571 over different parts of the disintegrating Kingdom of Hungary, the Protestant nobility of Transylvania and the Catholic Austria often clashed, with the latter slowly gaining the upper hand.
In 1689–1706, the Catholic Bishop of Munkach was a Greek, Iosif Camillis, who managed to take over some Orthodox parishes in northern Transylvania and obtained authority among others over some parts of Maramureș, especially over the largely Ruthenian villages of the region.
Romanian-Orthodox sources claim that the attempt to convert the Maramureș Romanians to Catholicism "were met with dignified and solemn protests against being united against their will and against introduction of innovations contradicting their old law and beliefs.
In response to the July 2, 1698 confirmation of the 1697 privileges by Cardinal Kollonich of Esztergom, Atanasie Anghel summoned a new synod, which passed a "Manifest of Union" on October 7, 1698, signed by 38 high representatives of the Romanian clergy of Transylvania.
The Calvin intendant was replaced by a Jesuit theologist, Gabriel Hevenessi, whose aggressiveness and absence of diplomacy, according to contemporaries, were surpassed only by his zeal to censure the books printed at Alba Iulia.
Schooled by the Jesuits in Cluj, trained in theology in Trnava and later a Basilian monk, he was appointed in 1729 by Emperor Charles VI Bishop of Alba Iulia and Fagaraș.
As a member of the Diet, Micu began to press the Habsburg monarchy to fulfill the agreement that conversion to Greek Catholicism would bring with it privileges such as were accorded Roman Catholics and an end to serfdom.
A visit by the Catholic Bishop Manuil Olsavszky of Muncach, travelling as official envoy of Empress Maria Theresa throughout Transylvania, revealed that the union was in name only and that the locals did not want to receive uniate priests, but demanded that Klein be brought back.
Partially modelled on revolutionary France Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the Supplex Libellus Valachorum Transsilvaniae (Petition of the Vlachs of Transylvania) documents were drafted by clerics of the Romanians Greek Catholic Church.
Buștina, Veliky Bicichiv, Vâșcova, Teceu, Hust, Rahau, Ocna Slatina, Taras, Yasinia, Dolha, Borșa and Sighet were the regional towns that emerged during that period.
On December 15, 1918, in Mediaș, the Council of the Transylvanian Saxons and Danubian Swabians (ethnic Germans that had moved to Transylvania in the 12th-13th, respectively in the 18th centuries) decided to support the Romanians, mainly because of their adversity to the prospect of having to live in a Hungarian national state, which was due to the Magyarization policy practiced in the Transleithanian part of Austria-Hungary after 1870 up to World War I.
An ambiguous period ensued from March to May 1919 as a "Diet" government for Carpathian Ruthenia formed with strong ties to Hungary's Béla Kun (communist) regime.
On July 2, 1919, the Prime Minister of Romania, Ion C. Brătianu, withdrew from the Versailles Conference because the Entente powers wanted to stick to the letter of the 1916 treaty with respect to Maramureș, i.e. to divide the county.
The Saint-Germain agreement of September 10, 1919 between Entente and Czechoslovakia provided for the incorporation of the majority of Carpathian Ruthenia into Slovakia as an autonomous unit of the Slovak portion of the Czechoslovak state.
The agricultural reform envisioned by Vaida-Voevod deeply upset and threatened the wealthiest land owners and businessmen from pre-1918 Romania, who set aside their infighting to concentrate on the threat posed by Vaida.
Another faction that played a key role in the deposition of Vaida was Bratianu, who feared possible inquiries about the misuse of funds by his government before Romania entered World War I in 1916.
In 1920, there were 60 newspapers edited in the Subcarpathian Rus, the region that apart from northern Maramureș also contained Ung, Bereg and Ugocsa: 22 in Hungarian, ten in Russian, nine in Rusyn, five in Hebrew, four in Czech, four in Ukrainian and six mixed.
Prior and during World War II, Hungary, led by Miklós Horthy, allied itself with Nazi Germany in the hope of re-obtaining some of the territories it had lost under the Treaty of Trianon.
The Subcarpathian-Ruthenian land allocated to Hungary as part of the Vienna Protocol (November 2, 1938) Award included the region's largest cities: Uzhhorod, Mukachevo, Berehovo and Chop.
