Sighetul Marmaţiei

Sighetul Marmaţiei (Ukrainian: Syhit Marmaroskyi; Hungarian: Máramoros Sziget). Map: Romania near the Ukrainian border. Situated in the Maramureş Basin along the Tysa River, the city has a diverse population of Ukrainians (15–20 percent), Romanians, Hungarians, and Jews. Its major economic activities include construction, textile manufacturing, lumbering, and the food industry. A number of Ukrainian villages surround the city in the Maramureş region.

The earliest references to the settlement are from the 13th century. By 1394 it had become the principal city of the Maramureş komitat. In the 19th and 20th centuries the Greek Catholic church and a Ruthenian student residence were active there. The city was the site of notorious show trials early in the 20th century when the Hungarian government, fearing pro-Russian sentiment in its borderland regions, tried recent converts to Orthodoxy for treason. In 1904–6, 9 people were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment, and in 1913 a total of 94 people from the region were tried, of whom 32 were convicted and sentenced to fines and prison terms. The trials became a cause célébre in both the Slavic world and Western Europe. The city was also the site of a meeting of representatives from the Maramureş region on 8 December 1918, who voted to unite Transcarpathia and Ukraine, as well as the site of a battle between the Ukrainian Galician Army and Romanian troops on 15–17 January 1919.