Siculicidium Massacre at Madéfalva
- When
- 1764
- Where
- Csík-Mádéfalva (today Siculeni, Romania)
- Episodes
- 1
The Massacre at Madéfalva (Siculicidium) was a mass killing of Székely civilians by Habsburg soldiers at Csík-Mádéfalva in Transylvania, during the night of 7 January 1764, amid border-regiment recruitment under Maria Theresa.
Episodes
Background and detail
Background. In 1763 the Court of Vienna entrusted General Adolf Nikolaus von Buccow with setting up three Székely and two Romanian regiments to patrol the borders of Transylvania.
The Massacre. Under cover of a snowy night on 7 January 1764, Habsburg soldiers entered the village of Csík-Mádéfalva and killed about 400 unsuspecting inhabitants, including women and children. The event became known in Latin as Siculicidium, meaning 'murder of Székelys'.
Location and Naming. The massacre took place at Csík-Mádéfalva in the Grand Principality of Transylvania, today Siculeni in Romania. The Latin term Siculicidium commemorates the victims as Székelys murdered by the Habsburg army under Maria Theresa.
People involved
- Habsburg army · perpetrators of the massacre, acting under Maria Theresa
- Székelys of Madéfalva · civilian victims, about 400 killed including women and children
- Adolf Nikolaus von Buccow · general entrusted by the Court of Vienna with setting up border regiments in 1763
- Maria Theresa · Habsburg ruler under whose reign the massacre occurred
Sources
- Siculicidium Wikipedia, revision of 2025-06-06
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.