The Massacre at Madéfalva (in Latin: Siculicidium, ‘murder of Székelys’)
(Source of the photo: https://europebetweeneastandwest.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/monument-to-the-siculicidium-in-madefalva-siculeni-romania.jpg?w=584)
No event was so horrifying in the history of Székely people, than the mass murder committed against Székelys by the Habsburg army in 1764. In 1763, the Court of Vienna ordered three Székely and two Romanian regiments to guard the borders, under Maria Theresa. However, székelys resisted to this command, as they did not want to resign from their hundred-year military traditions and privileges. As a result, Maria Theresa commissioned general Joseph von Siskovics to attack Mádéfalva (today Siculeni), where the meeting of Székely leaders was supposed to take place. The night of January 7 in the year of 1794, was unimaginably dark for over 400 Székely people, including women and children. Habsburg hessians unsuspectedly entered the village and massacred all innocent people. As this coup de main lived on vividly in their collective memory, an obelisk was placed at Mádéfalva, on the top of which a Turul-bird is represented and the following inscription can be seen at the bottom: “SICVLICIDIVM”. Interesting may seem, adding up the values of the letters as Roman numbers, it results the exact year of the massacre.