The symbol of the Sekler nation in silver
Exhibition at the Haáz Rezső Museum in Odorheiu Secuiesc
MúzeumCafé 25.
The three ‘nations’, Sekler, Saxon and Hungarian, represented a constitutional rather than an ethnic concept. “The three nations (natio) are only partly identical with the three ethnic groups. The Hungarian ethnic groups constituted two nations: the Seklers who inherited a separate legal status from the age before the Battle of Mohács and the Hungarians who had an identical legal status to the orders in Hungary. The Transylvanian Saxons had a separate legal status. The orders of the three nations joined in a union to defend themselves against the risen peasants in 1437; from then on the union was one of the foundations of Transylvanian feudalism right up to 1848. … In critical situations the union was reinforced by new laws. In the mid 17th century, violation of the union oath alone was regarded a crime equal with offending the monarch or the security of the state, thus the penalty was death …” (Zsolt Trócsányi: http://adatbank.transindex.ro/inchtm.php?akod=987) Gábor Daniel deposited the Sekler seal with the Transylvanian Museum Association in Kolozsvár (today Cluj, Romania) in 1878. The seal was not included in the inventory. Later when the possessions of the Museum Association were nationalised the seal got to the National History Museum in Cluj. The object which had been thought lost was identified and reported by Pál Gyulai. The seal of the Transylvanian counties was made of silver and is held in the National Archives in Hungary. The original Sekler seal is a silver plate with a diameter of 36 mm. It has no holder and is in a leather box with blue lining. The whereabouts of the Saxon seal is unknown. The impression of the Sekler seal made of high quality silver has a sun face with rays on the right side of an oval shield and a moon face with rays on the left.