Cincu

Cincu (German: Großschenk; Hungarian: Nagysink) is a commune in Brașov County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Cincu and Toarcla (Tarteln; Kisprázsmár). Each of these has a fortified church.

Cincu
Commune
Coat of arms
Location within the county
Cincu Location in Romania
Coordinates: 45°55′N 24°48′E
Country	Romania
County	Brașov
Area	117.19 km^2 (45.25 sq mi)
Population  (2011)[1]	1,587
• Density	14/km^2 (35/sq mi)
Time zone	EET/EEST (UTC+2/+3)
Vehicle reg.	BV

History

Cincu Fortified Church

Cincu is first mentioned in a document of 1329 as Schenck, a word connected to Schenke, meaning "tavern" in German. The village was founded in the mid-12th century by some 30 families of German settlers from the Rhineland. There were 64 families in 1488, 70 in 1532 and 344 in 1729. Some 215 individuals were settled there by the Habsburgs in 1753. In 1850, there were 2635 inhabitants. In 1930, there were 2449, of whom 1112 were Transylvanian Saxons. In 1956, the population stood at 2232.[2]

The Saxons' territory was divided into "seats"; among the oldest was the Schenk Seat, with its capital at Cincu. It included 22 localities, among them the current town of Agnita. Cincu has had its own coat of arms since 1448 and was declared a market town in 1474. In 1600, its citadel was burned by the troops of Michael the Brave. Historically, the local economy was dominated by agriculture and by craft production organized into guilds for joiners, furriers, harness makers, locksmiths, carpenters, tailors, blacksmiths, cobblers, coopers, wheelwrights and bricklayers.[2]

The town hall was established in 1804. A significant number of inhabitants began to emigrate to the United States in the 1890s, and the Saxons started to leave en masse in the 1950s. In 1989, 386 Saxons were left; this fell to 136 in 1992, 109 in 1994 and 70 in 2000.[2]

Toarcla is mentioned in Johannes Honter's cosmography text. It appears on the oldest map of Transylvania, from 1532. The Saxon population left Toarcla as well, so that there were some 20 individuals from the community left by the early 2000s.[2]

The painter Fritz Schullerus moved to a house in Cincu in 1895, dying there three years later.[3]

See also

• Villages with fortified churches in Transylvania

References

1. "Populaţia stabilă pe judeţe, municipii, oraşe şi localităti componenete la RPL_2011" (in Romanian). National Institute of Statistics. Retrieved 4 February 2014.
2. (in Romanian) Comuna Cincu at the Braşov County Prefecture site
3. (in German) Schullerus Fritz in Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950, vol. 11, p. 333