Vasile Ursu Nicola (1731 in Arada, Principality of Transylvania (now Horea, Romania) – 28 February 1785 in Karlsburg (now Alba Iulia, Romania), commonly known as Horea (in Hungarian sometimes Hóra) was a Transylvanian peasant who, with ("Cloșca") and ("Crișan"), led the two-month-long peasant rebellion that began in the Metaliferi Mountains villages of Curechiu and Mesteacăn in late 1784 and that was known as the Revolt of Horea, Cloșca and Crișan.
After the rebellion was put down, Crișan hanged himself in prison, and Horea and Cloșca were executed by being publicly broken on the wheel. Horea is a legendary figure and folk hero in Romania.
Early life
Horea was born in the Land of the Moți, in the village of Arada, Principality of Transylvania (today known as Horea, in Alba County, Romania) on Fericet Hill. He was the son of poor peasants who gave him his baptismal name, Ursu (bear), in accordance with an old pagan custom of naming children after strong animals or vigorous trees. In his youth he acquired the nickname Horea, because he played a flute-like instrument called the horea. One source describes him as having two brothers, Peter and Damian, and a sister, while another source mentions only one brother, Gavrilă. Horea was married to Ilina, with whom he had two sons, Ion and Luca, the former of whom participated alongside his father in the rebellion.
Career
Horea was a craftsman who built wooden churches, some of which still exist, among them the church in Cizer (Csizér) which dates back to 1773 and was moved in 1967 (or 1968) to the National Museum of Transylvanian History in Cluj-Napoca. The words “worked by Ursu H” are carved on the nave's beam in Cyrillic letters. Horea is also said to have taken part in the construction of the Orthodox Moon Church in Oradea (, ). Although a serf, he is supposed to have been able to read and write. Between 1770 and 1773, he lived with his family in Ciucea (Csucsa, Tschetsch).
Ever since the incorporation of Transylvania — known in German as Siebenbürgen — into the Habsburg domains in 1691, the situation of the Romanian peasants in this region, who were Orthodox Christians, had been particularly precarious. While Hungarians, Székelys, and Germans (Transylvanian Saxons) enjoyed certain rights and privileges, however, the Romanians still had no representation in politics. The Romanian peasants were serfs with no individual freedom, and had no support for their ecclesiastical institutions. Moreover, they paid high taxes to their feudal nobles, who were mostly Hungarian Catholics, as well as to the Emperor.
Probably because he was literate, Horea became the spokesman for the Romanian peasants, traveling to Vienna on four occasions between 1779 and 1784 to present their grievances in personal audiences with Emperor Joseph II. On his first journey to Vienna he was accompanied by Dumitru Todea and Cloșca, and, according to one source, Gavrilă, who is identified as his brother. On his second excursion to Vienna, in 1780, he was accompanied only by Cloșca; it was on this occasion that the Emperor is said to have ordered him to investigate the motives behind the Hungarians’ mistreatment of the Serbs and, particularly, the Romanians. His third trip was in 1782; his final Vienna sojourn, in 1783, lasted a year.
The fact that a serf was received by the Emperor himself suggests that Horea had supporters at court. One source suggests that his sponsor at court was the Austrian geologist Ignatius Born, who had estates in Alba on which Horea worked, and that Horea, when in Vienna, stayed at Born’s home. It is known that Joseph II was, at this time, in conflict with the nobility in Transylvania, because he wished to bring an end to the feudal system and wanted Romanian serfs to be able to join his army, something the nobles forbade because it would deprive them of free labor. Horea is said to have told his fellow Romanian serfs that the Emperor had authorized him to encourage them to wipe out the Hungarian nobility of Transylvania. In any event, during the period when Horea represented them, the Romanian peasants’ situation worsened – their working hours were increased and their right to exploit the forests was taken from them.
On January 31, 1784, Joseph ordered an increase in the number of border guards in Transylvania, and peasants from around the region, including many from Romania, traveled to Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár, Karlsburg) to enroll in the army and thus escape the exploitative feudal system. When the Romanian serfs got the impression that officials in Karlsburg were resisting their efforts to enroll, a feeling of having been betrayed spread among them.