Apafi Castle

A princely castle with dozens of servants, hunting parties, balls and people from the high society of the time. This is what the heyday of the Apafi castle in Dumbrăveni looked like, which is today in the center of the town in Sibiu County, halfway between Sighișoara and Mediaș. A place where emperors, chancellors and poets stayed, important documents were signed and pages of great history were written, events whose echoes resound to this day.

The castle really shone during the life of Prince Mihai Apafi I, who renovated and modernized it. The chronicles of that period help us to imagine a fairy-tale place, with dozens of elegantly decorated rooms and ballrooms, an orchard and flower garden, watched over by a clock tower. The entire complex was at that time a polygonal fortification with four towers, surrounded by walls and defense ditches with water diverted from the Târnava Mare River.

Later, the castle played an important role in the history of the Armenian community in Romania. Being great merchants, they populated the area during the 16th century, and Dumbrăveni thus became the second city among the most intensively populated by Armenians in Romania, after Gherla. It was declared a "free royal city", a fact that gave this community a lot of privileges and the right to self-administer through its own laws and courts. The castle was intensively used by the community during that period, becoming a gathering place for festivities, but also an important commercial center.

In the centuries that followed, the castle had various functions, becoming the seat of the Treasury, the City Hall, the Royal Court, the Court, the school and even the police prison. All this led to its gradual decay, and nowadays local authorities are making sustained efforts to attract funds to restore it to its former glory and grandeur.

Since the 12th century, the land on which the castle stands today belonged to some of the greatest Hungarian noble families: Szentivány and Ernyei. Through succession and repeated sales, it came over time into the possession of the Bethlen and Apafi families. At some point, a manor appeared here, on the site of which, between 1552 and 1556, a Renaissance castle was built.

In addition to the role of family residence, it also acquires administrative functions during the time of Apafi Győrgy. His son, Mihai Apafi, consolidates and develops the construction, adding several administrative buildings and numerous fortifications. His successor, Mihai Apafi II, was Prince of Transylvania between 1690 and 1696, when he formally renounced the title in favor of the Austrian Emperor Leopold 1 and retired to Vienna until the end of his life. His wife, Kata Bethlen, attempted a financial rescue of the domain, but after his death, due to debts, the castle became the property of the Habsburg Empire and then of the Armenian Community.

Important historical events and meetings of great relevance took place at the Dumbrăveni castle. In 1685, the "Treaty of Ebesfalva" was signed here between Prince Mihai Apafi I and the Emissary of the Emperor of Austria, thus trying to stop the bringing of new imperial troops to Transylvania. The Chancellor of Transylvania Teleky Mihály signed here the "Act of Submission", by which the Assembly of States gathered in Sibiu requested, on May 9, 1688, the protection of the Austrian Emperor, which led to the loss of Transylvania's independence in favor of the Habsburg Empire.

Later, in 1773, Emperor Joseph II visited the castle, and during the revolution of 1848, it was the place where General Bem Jozsef and Petofi Sandor stayed for three days. Later, on April 27, 1919, Apafi Castle hosted the Great National Assembly of Roma, where a memorandum of support for the Great Union of 1918 was signed. On June 23, 2019, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of this event, a commemorative plaque was unveiled in the castle courtyard by the Roma Party PRO-Europa.

An unusual fact worth knowing is that two secret tunnels started from the huge cellars of the castle, under the Târnava Mare River. One of them connected the castle in Dumbrăveni and the Apafi Castle in Mălâncrav, located 19 km away, and the other reached Slimnic commune (Sibiu County) for a length of 58 km, and then continued another 20 km to Sibiu. They were used as an underground shelter for the population during wartime, but also for fast transport. Nowadays, the tunnels are impassable due to landslides.

The local administration regularly organizes events in the castle courtyard. Also in Dumbrăveni you can visit the Armenian Church of St. Elisabeta of Tunigia, built in baroque style, an edifice that preserves the memory of the wealth and grandeur of the Armenian community in the past.

However, the area offers many other attractions for tourists passionate about history. A short distance away are the towns of Sighișoara and Biertan, known for their medieval atmosphere and one of the most impressive fortified churches in Transylvania.