Zipser Germans
The Zipser
Germans (Romanian: Tipteri, Hungarian:
Cipszer) are a German-speaking ethnic group
in northern Romania in the region of
Maramures.
The name Zipser is applied to immigrants who
originally came from Zips (then in the
Kingdom of Hungary, now Spis in
Slovakia). Today in Romania they still make
up the main part of later immigrants from
Upper German dialect-speaking
areas. Traditionally, most of them have been
employed in foresty.
The Zipsers and other German-speaking groups
in Romania are currently represented by the
Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (DFDR).
Spis, Slovakia
is bordered to the west by the High Tatras
and the Belanske Tatras, to the south by the
Low Tatras and the Slovenské Rudohorie
(Slovak Ore Mountains), and to the north by
Spisska Magura. Spis county came into being
in the middle of the 12th century a the time
of King Gejza and of the German colonisation
which influenced Spis's entire history.
During 1920
the Zipsers formed their main political
party (The Zipser-Deutsch Partei), which
worked closely with the Magyar political
parties.
The Zipsers
were German speakers who lived in 30 odd
small towns in and close to Spišs County
(today’s north-eastern Slovakia and
south-east Poland), including the towns of
Levoča, Kežmarok, Poprad, and Spišská Nová
Ves. In this border region of the old
Hungarian Kingdom, ethnic and estate lines
were often indistinguishable.
German
Towns in Slovakia and Upper Hungary: A
Genealogical Gazetteer.
Excerpt from
the article adapted from a chapter in his
book
By Duncan B.
Gardiner, Ph.D., Certified Genealogist
By the
beginning of the 1800s, many towns which
were founded by Germans or previously had a
majority of Germans became predominantly
Magyar and Slovak. Towns with a majority
German population, previously distributed
generally over most of Slovakia, gradually
shrank to three distinct areas (called
Sprachinseln 'language islands' in German):
The Pressburg area in the southwest,
Hauerland in Central Slovakia, and the Zips
in Eastern Slovakia in the High Tatra
Mountains and to the South.
The Zips (Slovak Spis, Hungarian: Szepes) is
the best-known German settlement area in
Slovakia. The first German settlers arrived
in the 12th century. Known as the Zipser
Saxons, these early immigrants were
apparently from the Lower Rhine region,
Flanders, Saxony, and Silesia.
In the early period, the Zips was a single
continuous region stretching from the
northern border with Poland to the
present-day Slovak-Hungarian border. Over
time, the Zips divided into two regions, the
Upper and Lower Zips (German Oberzips,
Unterzips).
The Upper Zips towns, in the valley of the
Popper (Sl. Poprad) River, stretch from
Deutschendorf (Sl. Poprad) and Leutschau (Sl.
Levoca) in the South to the Polish border
along the Tatra Mountains. The most
prominent towns were Deutschendorf, Kaesmark,
and Leutschau. Very early, the Upper Zips
towns formed the Zipser Bund 'Zips League'
(Slovak: Spolocenstvo Spisskych Sasov), a
federation of towns whose members were
governed by the Zipser Willkuer, a civil and
commercial legal system modelled after that
of Magdeburg.
Most of the Upper Zips towns had charters
from the Hungarian king and were not subject
to a local seigneur; they elected their own
governing officials. The economy of the
Upper Zips towns was varied: traditional
crafts (masonry, blacksmithing, leather
working, etc.), textiles, mining, farming,
commerce.
In 1412 the Emperor Sigismund, to finance
his war with Venice, mortgaged 14 of the
original 24 Zipser towns to the King of
Poland, to whom their income belonged until
1772.
The original Zipser Bund towns were Bela,
Deutschendorf (Poprad), Dirn (Odorin),
Donnersmarkt (Spissky Stvrtok), Duerelsdorf
(Tvarozna), Eisdorf (Zakovce), Eulenbach (Bystrany),
Felka (Velka), Georgenberg (Spisska Sobota),
Großlomnitz / Grosslomnitz (Velka Lomnica),
Hunsdorf (Huncovce), Kabsdorf (Hrabusice),
Kaesmark (Kezmarok), Kirchdrauf (Spisské
Podhradie), Kunzendorf (Vlkovce), Leibitz (L'ubica),
Leutschau (Levoca), Menhardsdorf (Vrbov),
Muehlenbach (Mlynica), Neudorf (Spisska Nova
Ves), Palmsdorf (Harichovce), Rießdorf /
Riessdorf (Ruskinovce), Schwabsdorf (Svabovce),
Sperndorf (Iliasovce).
The list of towns changed from time to time
between 1248 to 1673. In 1674 the fraternity
was disbanded, a victim of the Reformation
and Counter-Reformation.
The 1930 census indicates that there were
25,162 Czechoslovak citizens of German
nationality in the Upper Zips towns. The
Lower Zips towns stretch from Neudorf (Spisska
Nova Ves) in the North to Metzenseifen (Medzev)
in the south, along the valleys of the
Hernad and Goellnitz Rivers. The major Lower
Zips towns were founded as mining
communities; iron mines replaced the early
gold and silver mines as the more precious
metals gave out.
In contrast to the Upper Zips towns where
the German population was partly replaced by
Slovaks, the Lower Zips towns had a bigger
influx of Hungarians after the Turkish
occupation of Lower Hungary in the 1500s.
The Lower Zips had a flourishing iron forge
industry until the 1860s and exported
hand-forged farming implements all over the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and abroad.
The Industrial Revolution caused a decline
in the Lower Zips metalworking industry.
Many of the miners and blacksmiths emigrated
to larger industrial centers in
Austria-Hungary, elsewhere in Europe, and
the United States.
According to the 1930 census, there were
13,141 Germans in the Lower Zips. The major
Lower Zips towns were Goellnitz (Gelnica),
Dobschau (Dobsina), Einsiedel (Mnisek nad
Hnilcom), Metzenseifen (actually two towns,
Obermetzenseifen and Untermetzenseifen, Sl.
Vysny Medzev, Nizny Medzev), Schwedler (Svedlar),
Schmoellnitz (Smolnik), Stoß / Stoss (Stos),
Wagendruessel (Nalepkovo).
© Copyright
1997 Duncan B. Gardiner
Maramures and Zipser
