Important people from Reghin

Patriciu Barbu was the initiator and chief executive of „Mureșiana” Bank, the first Romanian credit institution in Mureş-Turda County, founded on 29 October 1885.

She was noted as a cultural animator, especially in Astra.

He was part of the 1892 Memorandum delegation, who had gone to Vienna to present the emperor with the historical act.

Florea Bogdan, a graduate of the Royal Polytechnic in Budapest in 1899 with outstanding results, was declared "universal engineer".

In 1902, Florian Bogdan opened a private technical office in Reghin, and in the pre-war period, together with other intellectuals, set up "Cerbul" Bank in Reghin.

In 1919 he founded the School of Boys, today Petru Maior High School, thus laying the foundations of the first Romanian high school in Reghin.

Part of the engineer's house became the headquarters of the People's Bank "Cerbul" in 1912, then in 1923 a wing of the building was transformed into the first Romanian typography in the city where the weekly "People's Voice" / “Glasul Poporului”, the first Romanian journal in the region of Reghin was printed.

At the end of the war, Florea Bogdan was appointed parliamentary in the first Reunified Parliament of Romania, for a very short time being even the Prefect of the county.

On December 1st 1918, at the Union of Transylvania with Romania, Florea Bogdan was among those involved in this political-military action.

Alexandru Ceuşianu was a writer, cultural animator and jurist, dedicating his entire life to the public good.

Joining politics, he became deputy in the Chamber and member of the parliamentary commission of foreign policy.

Historically, he left Reghin a valuable work: "Times of Doom - The Revolution of 1848/49 from the Perspective of a Transylvanian Town" (1934).

He hadd a rich literary activity, publishing prose, poetry, theater, and literary criticism. We recall the novel "Cremene" and the dramatic poem "Craiul Muntilor", played at the National Theater in Cluj in 1936.

After 1945, he was politically imprisoned, and after his release he continued to work as a teacher at the Reghin vocational school. He spent the last years of his life in Sibiu working as a lawyer.

Born in a family of pharmacists, his grandfather Hugo and his father Ernst being the owners of the former pharmacy “Vulturul” on Mihai Viteazu Street, settled in Germany in 1941, working in the Bavarian Forest Administration between 1945 and 1968.

He has produced many works on the history of Reghin, many of which remained in the manuscript and are kept in the Gundelsheim Transylvanian archive.

He conducted his studies in Cluj and Padova, being supported by Gaspar Bekes, Principal Adviser of Prince Ioan Sigismund. Meanwhile, Ștefan Báthory became king of Poland (1575), and Bekes and Gyulai went to serve him in 1577 as his royal secretary.

On April 8, 1584 he received from Ștefan Báthory the possession of Apalina and from the next year he builds a mansion here. In 1584 he is given property rights, all of these donations being rewarded for services to the King of Poland.

In 1584 he received some vineyards in Reghin, all of these donations being the reward for the services to the King of Poland.

Gyulai facilitated the printing of the first Romanian books by Diaconul Coresi.

Named "Jacob Grimm of the Transylvanians”, starting with the spring of 1849, Haltrich occupies the position of professor at the Sighişoara School / “Școala din Deal de la Sighișoara”, becoming the rector of the high school, and since 1872 he enters the church service at Şaeş.

His extensive work is dedicated to folklore studies, language, history and beyond. His first printed volume was „Deutsche Volksmärchen aus dem Sachsenlande in Siebenbürgen” (German Folk stories of the Saxon country, Transylvania) in 1856 in Berlin.

In 1857, he attended the general meeting of "Verein für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde", held in Reghin, presenting the work: "Zur Geschichte von Sächsisch-Regen seit den letzen hundert Jahren" (History of the Saxon Reghin in the recent hundred years), considered the first monograph of the Saxon Reghin.

From July 1925, Ioan Popescu will sign as mayor all the documents issued by the City Hall. Being a close friend of the royal house, he was the administrator of the hunting royal domain from Gurghiu-Lapusna and he took care of the formation of King Mihai as a hunter. On 30 September 1938 Ioan Popescu was reinvested as mayor for the next 6 years.

The decisions and reports bearing the Mayor's signature between 1925-1940 prove the involvement of Ioan Popescu in all the urban life sectors: economic, administrative, social, cultural, educational, urban-household.

Elder, sick, abandoned and unseemly forgotten, he died in Reghin in 1981, being buried in the family crypt in the cemetery on N. Bălcescu Street.

A world renowned composer, born in Reghin, he is a graduate of Leipzig Conservatory and the Berlin Academy of Music.

In 1947 he was appointed director of the Rostock Conservatory, and in 1949 he became a composition professor at the Conservatory in Berlin.

His work includes a variety of genres: chamber music, lieder and other musical works. His most renown works are inspired by the romanticism of Brahms, Prometheus and Bergwerk zu Falun (Falun Mine).

He also created works with strong critical accents on chauvinism and nationalism: Genesis and Jüdische Chronik (Jewish Chronicle).

For his valuable musical creation he was elected member of the Academy of Music of the German Democratic Republic.

Born in an old family of craftsmen, Gustav Rösler becomes a professor at the German Gymnasium in Reghin, and later settled in Brasov as a professor at the Honterus Gymnasium.

Together with the didactic activity, he had historiographical concerns when he was a professor at Reghin. His favourite subjects were: Reghin's history and the colonization of Saxons in Transylvania.

It was only a decade after his death that his book is published „Zur Geschichte der Stadt Sächsisch-Regen (Reen) und ihrer sächsischen Umgebung bis zum Aussterben der Arpaden, Köln-Graz, 1968” - claiming that the Saxons came to Reghin around the year 1100, invoking toponymic arguments - a theory challenged by other historians.

In 1929 he received the position of school inspector of the Evangelical Church in Romania. He had connections with Nicolae Iorga, being his guest at the summer course in Valenii de Munte. Nicolae Iorga proposed Rösler as the school referent in the government he is to lead.

He was named a parish priest in the Hungarian Reghin (August 1785), and then he was installed as the Gurghiu Archpriest and Inspector of Apalin until his departure to Buda in 1809.

His work illustrates ideas such as origin, precedence, romance, continuity, latinity.

He did not delay to get involved in building and endowing churches and schools in his deanery, in the political-national movement crowned with the Supplex Libellus Valachorum.

He graduated the Greek-Catholic Gymnasium in 1891 with the "eminent" grade. Then follows the Faculty of Theology of the University of Budapest (1891-1895). He is ordained a priest at Blaj on November 15, 1896, by Metropolitan Victor Mihalyi of Apsa.

In December 1905 he was named parish priest and dean of the Reghin District (deanery). Here he becomes one of the main animators of the Romanian cultural life.

In 1907 he became a founding member of the ASTRA Reghin Dividing, paying the 40 crowns tax. He was a member of the Society for the Creation of a Romanian Theater Fund.

In 1938 he was decorated with the Order of Ferdinand in the rank of Knight.

From 1934 he was sent by Metropolitan Vasile Suciu to the "De Propaganda Fide" Institute, obtaining in 1940 the title of Doctor in Theology. On 14 October 1945 he was appointed as a parish priest and Greek-Catholic deacon of Reghin.

Outlawing the union of the Romanian Church with the Rome Greek Catholic Church meant many short-term arrests and a period when Alexander Todea lived practically hidden among believers. During this time, on November 19, 1950, he was consecrated as Bishop of Cezaropolis.

Following a "trial" in 1952, he was sentenced to death, driven to life-long labor. In the 12 years of imprisonment he was worn through the worst communist prisons. He was pardoned after 14 years of imprisonment, returning to Reghin, but under the strict supervision of the Romanian Intelligence Service / “Securitate”.

Since 1986 he received the title of Metropolitan of the United Romanian Church, and as a sign of gratitude, on May 28, 1991, he was named Cardinal of the Catholic Church.

After completing his studies, Ioan Harșia was employed as a "paid practitioner" at the Royal Table in Târgu Mureş. He became a member of the Astra in 1900, and from 1907 founder member by paying the 40 crowns tax and introduced an innovation in his work, namely: setting up cultural agencies and public libraries in every village.

He is elected on November 5, 1918, Secretary of Reghin CNR. He was appointed senator after the elections of 1920. He gives up his parliamentary activity, being appointed mayor of Târgu Mureş (22 oct 1920-22 dec 1922) - dismissed from office due to "libel of slander", then president of County Council - 1926-1929. For the entire activity he was rewarded with the Order of the Romanian Crown in the rank of Officer and Medal of Commercial and Industrial Merit I.

In 1950 he was arrested at the age of 78, investigated and imprisoned at Gherla. Being sick and aged, he was released in 1951, but with his domicile at Reghin. At the funeral, no participation was accepted except for the direct members of the family. For more than 15 years, no inscription was allowed on his grave, although he was the man who had fought and signed the act of the Great Union.

Born at Reghin, Augustin Maior was an engineer, physicist, professor and academician.

After 1900, he started his research work with many works in the field of physics, and in 1919, he founded the first Transylvanian telephone school in Sibiu.

In November 1905, he was employed as an engineer at the Experimental Post Office in Budapest where, in 1906, he managed to convey 5 conversations simultaneously on a single 15 km telephone line without the signals interfering.

The theoretical foundations of multiple telephony were published in 1907 in the journal "Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift" and then in 1914 in "The use of High Frequency Alternating Currents in Telegraphy, Telephony and for Power Transmission" published in “The Electrician” magazine.

Augustin Maior founded the Theoretical Physics School at the University of Cluj, maintaining a permanent contact with the great ideas of time and having remarkable contributions in the areas in development in Europe.

In 1937 he was elected member of the Academy of Sciences of Romania.

Born to Reghin, he learns at the Evangelical Gymnasium, then learns about dermatoplasty and will work as a preparatory of various faunistic species and a skilled ornithologist.

For a long time he worked at Lucian Blaga Reghin High School, he was the founder of Reghin's zoological museum. The museum's collection includes more than 7,000 museum pieces, including species from America, Asia, Africa and Malaysia.

Stefan Kohl has published over 114 studies and zoological works with many species described scientifically in Romanian, Hungarian, German and Dutch and also participated in numerous thematic symposia.

Also, Stefan Kohl was the founder of the city's fanfare in 1945, working in the high school’s symphony orchestra.

He naturalised the most important trophies of bear, deer and lynx hunted by Nicolae Ceausescu on Gurghiului Valley.

Ovidiu Bojor is a renowned Romanian pharmacist and phytotherapist, member of prestigious academies and scientific societies. Since 1984, he has been a member of the National Geography Society of the United States of America, and since 2002 a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences in Romania.

He holds the title of Senior Honoris Causa, a patent granted by the Forum of Presidents of Romanian Employers and the Diploma of Academic Merit granted by the President of the Romanian Academy.

In 2002 he was elected president of PLANTA ROMANICA Employer within UGIR-1903, a quality he still holds.

Ovidiu Bojor is also an expert of the United Nations for industrial development programs, participating in numerous missions in Asia (India, Tibet, Nepal).

The title Mr. Ovidiu Bojor is most fond of is that of “honorary citizen of Reghin”, the city where he was born.

In Romania, he published - alone or in collaboration - over 30 (thirty) specialized and scientific books and several hundred articles in the central press.

One of the greatest scientific projects that Mr. Ovidiu Bojor accomplished is the mapping of the Medical Flora in the Carpathians, to whitch he dedicated not less than 25 years.

The methodology developed during this long work was adopted by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and recommended to developing countries.

A special note in the biography of Mr. Ovidiu Bojor is his exploratory work: he led four scientific expeditions to explore the Himalayan medicinal flora; in 1985, he led and sponsored the first Romanian-Nepalese expedition in the Himalayas; has participated in several exploratory missions in Afghanistan and Africa (Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Botswana).

Scientific acquisitions and innovative ideas have resulted in more than 40 (forty) patents, mostly applied in research and production. Two of the latest patents have been awarded with gold and silver at the International Inventions Salons.

Born to Reghin, he settled for a while in Bucharest, becoming a publicist, pedagogue and historian.

He writes “Történelmi dolgozatok-A magyar és a román nemzet” -The Hungarian and Romanian nations. His most famous work was “Életem és emlékei 1828-1890”, published in Braşov in 1890. He dealt a lot with the problems of the Hungarian diaspora. He collaborated with Vasile Goldiş in the elaboration of school manuals.

During his work, he wrote several school manuals, speeches, articles, and his main work "My Life and Memories" (1828-1890). Nowadays, in the courtyard of the reformed church in Reghin there is a statue that represents him.

Eugen Virgil Nicoară, man of culture and eminent physician, president of Reghin Astra Society, founder of cultural and hospital establishments, author of more than 160 scientific papers, is considered to be a prominent figure of Reghin’s culture, probably the most important personality of Reghin in the first half of the twentieth century.

His name is linked to the construction of important city buildings, such as the local hospital, the Cultural Palace, but also other monuments, as well as a rich publishing activity. In 1923 he was appointed Director of the Reghin Hospital, then general health inspector. In 1938 he was appointed prefect of Mureș County.

In addition to the medical brochures, he also published a number of other works in collaboration with authors from Mureş, such as Vasile Netea, leaving 55 manuscript notebooks, which entered the funds of the Municipal Library “Petru Maior” in 2003, mainly literary, autobiographical, and literary works.

After completing his studies, Bíró Donát began his teaching career in Reghin as a teacher at the Hungarian Pedagogical High School, Liceul Nr. 2, as well as at the 5th General School.

Since youth, he has begun documenting and gathering local history material. The 1980s were not very favorable for editing local history papers, but Professor Bíró continued his research work all the while.

Changes after 1989 allowed the publication of about 150 articles in various publications: Művelődés, Népújság, Hargita Népe, Szászrégen és Vidéke, Történelmi Magazin.

His publications are also present in specialized collections such as: Népismereti Dolgozatok, Maros megyei magyarság történetéből, Barangolás a Székelyföldön, and the Cultural Reghin.

Most of his works and publications relate to the history of Reghin. This history was presented in several independent volumes: Adalékok Régen monográfiájához. Tg. Mureş, 1993; A régeni magyarság művelődéstörténete. Nagykőrös, 1996; Szászrégeni kézműves mesterségek. Tg. Mureş, 2000; Szászrégen és vidéke. Tg. Mureş, 2006.

He has been awarded many times: in 1992, the third place awarded by the Ethnographic Association Kriza János - Cluj-Napoca, as well as the third place awarded by the Ethnographic Museum in Budapest.

He was a member of the Transylvanian Hungarian Society of Culture (EMKE), the Transylvanian Museum Society (EME), and a member of the Ungarisch Historischer Verein Zürich.

As a reward for pedagogical work, in 2005 the Association of Hungarian Pedagogues in Romania awarded Bíró Donátnak the Ezüstgyopár Award for the entire career.

The professor and historian Bíró Donátnak, a man of great value, died on 25 May 2010 in Reghin, leaving a big gap among local history specialists.

Kalabér Laszló worked as a nurse at the Reghin municipal hospital pharmacy, while carrying out a prolific scientific activity.

His passion for ornithology carried him in research expeditions, the result being a collection of 5000 eggs; is the most complex collection of this type in Southeast Europe.