When it comes to history, I can say with no shame or hesitation that it was the least preferred topic that I enjoyed learning during my school years. It's not because I don't care about how Romania was formed or what it's been through, but because the subjects taught in schools back then were too general, with little information shared about the actual most important events in Romania's history.
On the opposite pole, though, as growing up, I realised that I actually enjoy learning about the historical moments of Romania, but through travelling and running into places that represent genuine parts of these events, that surely play a major role when being able to observe all the remains of these and link them with the information you can read either online or on informative panels.
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That's how, not too long ago, my bf and I ended up exploring one of the various cemeteries erected to commemorate the local fallen fighters who lost their lives during either World War I or World War II. It's not much, but it's the least each of the regions of Romania can do to have their bravery never forgotten, especially during the current times when the future seems not so clear anymore.
Along with dozens of cemet crosses where very few of them had names written within, because most of them had either no name written at all, or the "Unknown Hero" text that I've seen in a lot of cemeteries of this kind before, there were also two firing cannons on both sides of the monument, which added even more emotion to the overall scenery.
But what was the detail that caught my attention the most was the monument from the center of the alley, which would be translated into English as:
Eternal glory to the heroes who sacrificed themselves in the struggle for the liberation of the homeland from under the fascist yoke.
This is, without any further doubts, a very thrilling sentence one can read whether it's Romanian or not, because we all know what fascism means. But since I don't plan to debate politics through my travel post, I'd like to say that everything you've seen so far in this post is not what we actually wanted to reach, but rather a bonus to our destination, because the cemetery was placed pretty much across the monument we wanted to visit, and we thought about having a quick stop at it as well.
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What we wanted to visit instead was the monument raised to commemorate the battle that took place on 18th September 1600 in Mirăslău.
Sadly, the lack of informative panels at both the monument and the cemetery caused a bit of confusion, also making them barely be spotted if you drive fast and don't pay attention to your GPS. But in both cases I was happy to see them placed on the sides of a quite popular road.
The meaning behind this monument was to mark the turning point when the first union of the Romanian Principalities achieved by Mihai Viteazul (Michael the Brave) was shattered, where the defeat against the Habsburg troops led by General Giorgio Basta took place, also marking the loss of Transylvania and the ruler’s decline.
For those of you who don't know, Romania was mainly composed from three main sections of the country we have these days, which were Țara Românească, Moldova and Transylvania. The whole process took a long time to happen, and it came with sacrifices in many ways, including the loss of lives for those who fought to make this happen, but also including the battle that took place in this area and which, I believe, is amongst the most important ones.
Reaching both the monument and the cemetery you've seen at the beginning of this post can happen by simply typing Monumentul Bătăliei de la Miraslău, DN1, Mihai Viteazu on your GPS, or by driving on the A1 highway for most of the part, then head on the European roads E68/E81 for a short amount of time before you cross Aiud and then arrive in Mirăslău.
Gabriela Travels is a Curator for Worldmappin and Hive Gaming communities, but also the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences.
At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe.
Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (350+ articles written on this field), but also approaching other topics as well, like game and book reviews, lets plays, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 850+ blog posts.
Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, owning a YouTube channel for each of the two.
[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 46.35718 lat 23.71302 long One of the most important battle locations in forming Romania d3scr))
