History of Cluj-Napoca

In the 17th century, Cluj suffered from great calamities, suffering from epidemics of the plague and devastating fires. The end of this century brought the end of Turkish sovereignty, but found the city bereft of much of its wealth, municipal freedom, cultural centrality, political significance and even population. It gradually regained its important position within Transylvania as the headquarters of the Gubernium and the Diets between 1719 and 1732, and again from 1790 until the revolution of 1848, when the Gubernium moved to Hermannstadt (now Sibiu). In 1791, a group of Romanian intellectuals drew up a petition, known as Supplex Libellus Valachorum, which was sent to the Emperor in Vienna. The petition demanded the equality of the Romanian nation in Transylvania in respect to the other nations (Saxon and Hungarian) governed by the Unio Trium Nationum, but it was rejected by the Cluj Diet.

19th century

Beginning in 1830, the city became the centre of the Hungarian national movement within the principality. This erupted with the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. At one point, the Austrians were gaining control of Transylvania, trapping the Hungarians between two flanks. But, the Hungarian army, headed by the Polish general Józef Bem, launched an offensive in Transylvania, recapturing Klausenburg by Christmas 1848. After the 1848 revolution, an absolutist regime was established, followed by a liberal regime that came to power in 1860. In this latter period, the government granted equal rights to the ethnic Romanians, but only briefly. In 1865, the Diet in Cluj abolished the laws