România - Transylvania, Szekely Land - Lupeni


Lupeni is the most significant community of the Nicaul de Sus.
Lupeni and the name of Áron Tamási - the village and the writer - live together in the mind of the locals.
The tomb of Tamási and the monument are visited daily, the Tamási memorial house (native house) are visited mainly in the summer.
Lupeni has become the classical pilgrimage place of the Hungarian literature.
Besides the literary aspects well-known abroad as well, the village could and can also show important economic achievements (wood cutting, charcoal-burning, homecrafts).
Lupeni lies in the valley of the Nicaul de Sus, on both sides of the river, in the western foreground of the Gordon Peak (953 m) at 540-580 m.
The houses of the village were built on both sides of the old public road and there are some steep ways down leading to the streets of the Nicau Valley.
This old road led up to the Kalonda Peak.

The tomb of Áron Tamási
The great writer of the Szeklers was entombed on the west edge of Lupeni, in the flowery park behind the Roman Catholic church and the cemetery.
A short alley leads to the tomb under a Szekler-gate (having had carved at Satu Mare by Árpád Jakab agricultural engineer).
Behind the tomb we can see the Tamási memorial-house.
In his last will (of May 19, 1966) the writer expressed his wish of being interred in Lupeni, his native village.
On the carved gravestone the epitaph written by Tamási himself can be read.

The Tamási monument (on the Church Hill, in the foreground of the tomb)
The monument, a 3 m high, 1 m wide, 8 t andesite rock illustrating the values of Tamási's work and ars poetica was brought here from the Harghita-mountain.
Heroes of Tamási's well-known plays and novels 'populate' this monument called 'the sermon on the mount of several tons' by András Sütő, contemporary Transylvanian writer.

Roman Catholic Church
It was built on the Church Hill rising to the west of the village, at 581 m altitude, between 1842-1848.
The 47 m long, 15.80 m wide church with its 38 m high tower is one of the village churches characteristic to the Austrian Classicism with a simplified classical-Baroque fitment.
In the porch we can see the monument of the locals who died in the World War I.
The frescos are the work of the painter brothers of Arad.
Tamási Memorial House (the native house of Tamási, museum - Str. Mare nr. 238)
The memorial house was inaugurated on 24th September 1972.
It is a tiled house with wooden harrow, almost 150 years old.
The first room, 'the large house' holds a memorial exhibition of the writer's personal objects, books, letters and photographs as well as some objects of the Tamási family.
Áron Tamási was born in the 'small house' (room) on 19th September 1897.