Baia Mare

The city's development on the middle course of Săsar River, in the middle of a plateau with a warm Mediterranean-like climate, has facilitated living conditions since the Palaeolithic.

During the Bronze Age the region was inhabited by Thracian tribes. Later, it was included in the Dacian Kingdom formed by the King Burebista when the mining exploration began, as the area is rich in gold and silver.

Baia Mare is first mentioned in written documents released by Charles I of Hungary in 1328 under the name of Rivulus Dominarum (English: Ladies' River). In 1347 the town was identified in documents by Louis I of Hungary as an important medieval town with a prosperous mining industry. Its rules of organisation were characteristic of the "free towns" of that time. In 1411 the town and its surrounding areas, including the mines, were transferred into the property of the Hunyadi family by Sigismund, King of Hungary (later also Holy Roman Emperor), who recognised Janos Hunyadi's contribution to stop the Turkish invasion of Europe.

The town entered into a period of prosperity, during which the St. Stephen Cathedral was built. Today the cathedral tower is one of the best-known of the town's historic landmarks (see Stephen's Tower). The first school, named Schola Rivulina, was opened in Baia Mare in 1547 by the Reformed Church following the Protestant Reformation.

The city centre

In 1703 Pintea Viteazul and his band managed to free the town for a short period of time from the German Imperial rule, under which it belonged the royal treasury. Since then Pintea is considered an important figure in the town's history, representing the idea of freedom. The Budești Church has Pintea's chain mail shirt and a helmet, reportedly worn by him in his battles. The Museum of Baia Mare displays his weapons and their harness.

In 1748 the city's mining industry made a leap forward when the Austrian authorities created the headquarters of "Superior Mining".

In the late nineteenth century, Simon Hollósy, István Réti, János Thorma, Béla Iványi-Grünwald, and Károly Ferenczy were among numerous young Hungarians who left the area to study the arts in Munich, as Hungary lacked an academy of art in those times.[5] Simon Hollósy, the young Hungarian painter, was teaching in his studio new western European techniques.

Stephen's Tower in the city centre

Some of those young painters decided to settle down together in Baia Mare, then called Nagybánya, to work on art. They persuaded Hollósy to join them and founded the Nagybánya Artists Colony, working on naturalism and plein air painting. The artists' colony became known later on for influencing the development of twentieth-century Hungarian and Romanian art.[5] Works by each of these important painters is held by the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest, which in 2009 opened the exhibit, Munich in Hungarian, Hungarian Artists in Munich 1850-1914, 2 Oct 2009 - Jan 2010. In addition, in 1966 the museum held a major exhibition of their work: The Art of Nagybánya. Centennial Exhibition in Celebration of the Artists' Colony in Nagybánya.[6]

The Reformed church

Following World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved, and in 1919, Baia Mare became part of the Kingdom of Romania. It was re-occupied by Hungary between 1940-1944 under the Second Vienna Award between Hungary and Germany, during World War II. Near the end of that period, the city hosted the Baia Mare ghetto. After the war, the city was returned to Romania. Shortly after World War II in postwar development, the town of Baia Mare started to grow both in population and inhabited area. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a new town centre was developed with modern architecture buildings and structures.

In 2000, Baia Mare was the site of what has been considered Europe's worst ecological disaster since Chernobyl, which took place at gold mining company Aurul, a joint-venture of the Australian company Esmeralda Exploration and the Romanian government.[7] The tailing dam at the gold processing plant broke and 100,000 cubic metres (3,531,467 cubic feet) 70 tons of toxic cyanide and heavy metal-laced waste water escaped into the River Tisza and into Hungary, making its way into the Danube and affecting Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Serbia, and Bulgaria.[7] More than 1,400 tons of fish, numerous eagles, storks and otters died.[7] Scientists fear the release may have led to the ultimate extinction of at least five fish species.[8] Despite the accident's happening in Romania, much of the adverse effects were suffered in Hungary. The accident prompted Hungary to ban the use of cyanide in gold processing and it has urged the rest of Europe to do the same.[9]

In 1912, out of the total population of 12,877 people, 9,992 were Hungarians (including Jews), 2,677 Romanians, and 175 Germans.

In 1920, of the 12,780 inhabitants, 5,005 were Romanians, 4,652 Hungarians, 1,792 Jews, 1,232 Germans and 99 of other ethnicities.[11] Many inhabitants declared themselves as Hungarian-speakers during previous censuses, despite not being ethnic Hungarians.

Before the Second World War, Baia Mare had a community of more than 1,000 Jews. In 1944, most of the Jews were deported by the Hungarian occupation authorities to Nazi concentration and extermination camps. Most of the few survivors emigrated from the area. As of 2011, 32 Jews lived in the city. Along with Rădăuți, Gura Humorului and others, Baia Mare had a Jewish shtetl, or settlement. The synagogue dates from 1885.

• Dora Cojocaru - composer and musicologist
• Gheorghe Costin - conductor and composer
• Adrian Sina- singer and composer
• Paula Seling - singer and composer

• Adrian Ghenie
• István Réti

• Csaba Ferenc Asztalos - politician
• Mihai Morar - entertainment journalist
• Lucian Mureșan - Cardinal, Major Archbishop of Făgăraș-Alba Iulia
• László Németh - writer

• Ion Burnar - poet
• Augustin Buzura - Romanian novelist
• Mária Földes - Romanian born Jewish-Hungarian playwright
• Ioan Groșan - Romanian novelist
• Florin Tătaru - Romanian politician
• Igor Ursenco - Romanian fiction writer, poet, and culturologist

Baia Mare has signed town twinning agreements or partnership agreements with the following cities:

• Serino, Italy, since 2003
• Nyíregyháza, Hungary, since 2003 - partnership only
• Hódmezővásárhely, Hungary, since 2001
• Bielsko-Biała, Poland, since 2001[12]
• Hollywood, Florida, USA, since 2001
• Wels, Austria, since 2000
• Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, since 1990[13]
• Szolnok, Hungary, since 1990
• Kitwe, Zambia, since 1972
• Combs-la-Ville, France, since 2009