Szekler, member of a people inhabiting the upper valleys of the Mureş and Olt rivers in what was eastern Transylvania and is now Romania. They were estimated to number about 860,000 in the 1970s and are officially recognized as a distinct minority group by the Romanian government. Their origin has been much debated. According to their own tradition, repeated in Procopius’ De bello Gothico, they were descended from Attila’s Huns. It is, however, now generally accepted that they are true Hungarians, or Magyars (or at least the descendants of a Magyarized Turki people), transplanted there to guard the frontier, their name meaning simply “frontier guards.”
Their ethnic identity as distinguished from other Romanians is largely preserved by the continuing vitality of the Szekler (Szekel) language, a Hungarian dialect. Runes of ancient Turkic origin continue to be used as a written alphabet, the latinized Romanian script being largely used for official and commercial communication, however. In 1952 the former province of Mureş (with the highest concentration of Szekler population) was legally designated as the Magyar Autonomous Region. It was superseded in 1960 by the Mureş Magyar Autonomous Region, itself divided in 1968 into two nonautonomous districts, Mureş and Harghira.