Streets to Be Named after Hungarian Personalities in a Romanian Town

Baia Mare

Streets will be named after Hungarian personalities in Baia Mare (Nagybánya, Romania), in places of significance for the Hungarian community, said Zsolt Pintér, president of the Maramureș (Máramaros) County branch of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ).

At their last meeting on October 8, the local government representatives of Maramureș County adopted the draft resolution initiated by the RMDSZ. They approved the naming of two small streets in the town, which is a Hungarian scattered settlement with just over 10 percent of Hungarians, after the writer Mór Jókai and the actor Márton Lendvay, at locations of importance to the Hungarian community, Zsolt Pintér said.

He explained that the street below Jókai Hill above the town park will be named after Mór Jókai.

The hill has been known as Jókai Hill by the Hungarian community of the town since the writer’s visit to Baia Mare in 1876. A small street will be named after the actor, singer and director Márton Lendvay in his hometown, next to the theater.

In addition to the two prominent Hungarian personalities, a street will be named after the Romanian-born mine owner and politician Elek Pokol (Alexiu Pokol) and the German-born expressionist painter Walter Friedrich, as the town is known for its gold mining and art colony history.

At the meeting, the municipal council also decided to confer the title of honorary citizen on Béla Balogh, local historian and retired archivist of Baia Mare, on a proposal by the RMDSZ.

Pintér told MTI that “the Hungarian community of Baia Mare has a long-standing wish to name streets after Hungarian personalities in the town. The RMDSZ faction has set the goal of adopting at least two Hungarian street names in the local government cycle ending in October, which was finally achieved after lengthy political negotiations.”

He pointed out that “few Hungarian street names were adopted in Baia Mare after the regime change (1989). For instance, only Károly Ferenczy and Simon Hollósy, the founders of the Nagybánya Artists’ Colony, have a street named after them.”

The RMDSZ also plans to name streets after the other founders, Béla Iványi Grünwald, István Réti, and János Thorma. A similar tribute would be paid to the work of the writer László Németh, who was born in the town.

In the last census in Romania, in Nagybánya, with a population of 108,000, 8,713 people declared themselves to be of Hungarian nationality. In 2016, trilingual local name signs – Romanian, Hungarian, and German – were placed at the entrances to the town, although the proportion of the Hungarian community did not reach the 20% threshold set by the Romanian administrative law.

Via MTI, Featured image: Wikipedia