Săliște

Săliște lies on the edge of the Cindrel Mountains, on valleys draining towards the Cibin, 21 km west of Sibiu, and is the main locality of Mărginimea Sibiului. It was declared a town in 2003 and comprises the localities of Aciliu, Amnaș, Crinț, Fântânele, Galeș, Mag, Săcel, Săliște, Sibiel and Vale, over an area of 226.78 km². At the 2021 census the town had 5,710 inhabitants. The first document mentioning the place dates from 1354 and calls it, in Latin, Magna Villa; in 1383 it appears as Magna Villa Valachiealis. It belonged to the Amlaș Land, a fief granted in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by the kings of Hungary to the rulers of Wallachia. By the late eighteenth century Săliște had become the most important cultural centre of Mărginimea: a revolt of the Romanian population took place here in 1774, and local people took part in the 1848 revolution and the Memorandum movement. The school of Săliște is documented from 1616 and first operated next to the church; from 1865 it was a teacher-training school entitled to issue diplomas. The school's festival hall, built in 1903, has interior decoration inspired by Viennese theatres. Săliște is the birthplace of the historian Ioan Lupaș, the educator Onisifor Ghibu and the philosopher Dumitru D. Roșca, all members of the Romanian Academy. The rural ensemble "Historic Centre" (Piața Junilor, the streets Vale, Grui and Meseriașilor, Piața Eroilor), dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is a historic monument (LMI code SB-II-a-A-12535). Also listed are the church of the Nativity of St John the Baptist in Grui, from 1742, with a tower from 1816 (SB-II-m-A-12538), and the church of the Ascension, built between 1761 and 1785 (SB-II-m-A-12539). In Piața Eroilor stands a wooden memorial cross unveiled in 1933 for the heroes of the First World War.