Ilieni

Ilieni (Hungarian: Illyefalva [ˈijjɛfɒlvɒ]; German: Ilgendorf) is a commune located in Covasna County, south-eastern Transylvania, Romania, 7 km south of the county seat Sfântu Gheorghe. The commune is composed of three villages:

  • Dobolii de Jos / Aldoboly
  • Ilieni / Illyefalva
  • Sâncraiu / Sepsiszentkirály
Ilieni

Illyefalva
Walls of the fortified church
Location in Covasna County
Ilieni
Location in Romania
Coordinates: 45°47′32″N 25°46′16″E
Country Romania
CountyCovasna
Government
  MayorImre Fodor (Ind.)
Population
 (2011)[1]
2,036
Time zoneEET/EEST (UTC+2/+3)
Vehicle reg.CV
Websiteilieni.ro

Demographics

The commune has an absolute Székely Hungarian majority. According to the 2011 census it has a population of 2,028 of which 87.03% or 1,765 are Hungarian.

History

There is archaeological evidence of the area having been populated since the Bronze Age. The place was first time mentioned in a church tax inventory as "Villa Helye" in 1332. In the Middle Ages, having the rights of a market town, the settlement was more important than today. The abundance of arable lands in the area (within the historical Háromszék region), and trade relations with nearby Saxon settlements, including Braşov, contributed to the sound economic basis of the community.

Also resulting from its geographical location, the Székely settlement, during its history, was often subject to foreign military campaigns. The most tragical of these attacks was in 1658, when the fortified church of the village was successfully conquered by allied Turkish and Moldavian forces, who killed all the defending fighters and threw their bodies into the well of the stronghold. Surviving villagers were taken to custody.

Since the fall of communism in 1989, the local community has been successful in developing viable economic activities, mostly based on agriculture and food industry, but a conference centre, a youth hostel and guest houses in the area also contribute to the revival of the settlement.

Fortified church

The time when the church was built is not recorded. It was rebuilt in the 15th century in Gothic style, later Renaissance and Baroque renovations were made. Following a series of Tatar, Saxon and Turkish attacks the church was gradually fortified during the 15th-17th centuries. Smaller-scale earthquakes in the region also made regular renovations necessary. One of the strongest quakes recorded in 1802 seriously damaged the building and its painted wooden ceiling. The church building was renovated in the 1990s.

gollark: Now, part of that is probably that you can't really trust whoever is asking to use those resources properly, and that's fair. But there are now things for comparing the effectiveness of different charities and whatnot.
gollark: But if you ask "hey, random person, would you be willing to give up some amount of money/resources/etc to stop people dying of malaria", people will just mostly say no.
gollark: If you *ask* someone "hey, random person, would you like people in Africa to not die of malaria", they will obviously say yes. Abstractly speaking, people don't want people elsewhere to die of malaria.
gollark: Capitalism is why we have a massively effective (okay, mostly, some things are bad and need fixing, like intellectual property) economic engine here which can produce tons of stuff people want. But people *do not care* about diverting that to help faraway people they can't see.
gollark: Helping people elsewhere does mean somewhat fewer resources available here, and broadly speaking people do not actually want to make that tradeoff.

References

  1. "Populaţia stabilă pe judeţe, municipii, oraşe şi localităti componenete la RPL_2011" (in Romanian). National Institute of Statistics. Retrieved 4 February 2014.
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