^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Cisnădie (Romania, Sibiu)

image by Ivan Sache, 2 September 2006

Source: http://www.cisnadie.ro/index-old.php

Description of the flag

See also:

Description of the Flag

image by Ivan Sache, 2 September 2006

The source given above is the old municipal website of Cisnădie. The updated URL is http://www.cisnadie.ro/. Further research yields interesting historical details on the region, which has an old German / Protestant background.

The municipality of Cisnădie (in German, Heltau; in Transylvanian Saxon, Hielt; in Hungarian, Nagydisnód) is located in Transylvania (in Romanian, Ardeal or Transilvania; in German, Siebenbürgen; in Hungarian, Erdaly), central Romania, 10 km south of Sibiu (in German, Hermannstadt). The area of the municipality is 13,856.7 ha, including the towns of Cisnădie proper (272 ha) and Cisnădioara (41.7 ha). The population of the municipality is 15,615. The first mention of a settlement in today's Cisnădie dates back to 1204, whereas the oldest written mention of Heltau dates back to 1323. In 1385, a student from Cisnădie entered the University of Vienna. The town was granted market right in 1500 following a visit by King of Bohemia and Hungary Vladislav II (1456-1516). From the XVth to the XVIIth century, the town was often sacked by the Turks and the Wallachians. In 1734, 125 Landler settled in Heltau. The Landler were Protestants deported from Salzkammergut (the region around Salzburg, Austria) to Transylvania by Emperor Charles VI (1685-1740); the region of Hermannstadt was the only Protestant area left in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Landler were sent there to resettle the region scoured by the Turks and the black plague. In the XIXth century, Heltau became famous for its textile industry; in 1919, the biggest textile factory in Transylvania was set up in the town by Gromen and Herbert. In 1941, ethnic Germans represented c. 70% of the population of the town. In the 1950s, massive emigration to Germany started, which peaked after the 1989 revolution. The town of Cisnădie (as well as Sibiu and a few other towns and villages in the neighborhood) is ran today by the "Demokratisches Forum der Deutschen in RumÃ¤nien" (DFDR - Democratic Forum of the Germans in Romania), the political party representing the ethnic Germans in Romania, which was founded at the end of 1989.

Sources:
Municipal website (Romanian): http://www.cisnadie.ro/
Wikipedia (German):
    http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisnădie Cisnădie / Heltau
    http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landler_%28Protestanten%29 Landler
    http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demokratisches_Forum_der_Deutschen_in_Rumanien DFDR

The flag of Cisnădie is shown on the old municipal website ( http://www.cisnadie.ro/index-old.php ) as vertical, vertically divided blue-red-blue with the municipal arms in the middle. The arms are made of a shield azure charged with an escutcheon argent bearing a charge I cannot identify (something like a shield with a vertical spear) standing on a wall gules, supported by two lions and surmounted by a crown or. The whole shield is surmounted by a mural crown argent. I imagine that these arms were granted by King Vladislav II when he granted market right to the city, but I have not found evidence of that. The new municipal website shows a photography of the city hall ( http://www.cisnadie.ro/ro/organigrama.htm ), on which the municipal flag can be guessed as used horizontally, like the other flags displayed there (Romania, France, Germany, Hungary, European Union)); the arms are not visible but it can be safely assumed that they are placed vertically in the middle of the red stripe. Photographs taken during the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the city ( http://www.cisnadie.ro/foto3/foto-11.htm and http://www.cisnadie.ro/foto3/foto-12.htm ) show the municipal flag with the blue shade quite lighter than on the Romanian and French flags.