Open Access

Adina-Lucia Nistor

• The purpose of this study is to reconstruct and document the image of “The Other’’ starting with the historical street names in the Transylvanian town of Sebeş, Alba County, founded in the thirteenth century by German settlers. Due to the fact that, throughout Middle Ages, one of the criteria of naming the streets of a borough was, inter alia, the ethnic one, the street names of the town reveal the ethnic groups which would form the population of the town: Székelys (Siculorumgasse), Saxons (Sachsgasse, Herrengasse, Petrigasse a.s.o.), Romans (Opricestengasse, Suseni– and Joseni Viertel), Greek and Macedonian, as well as Germans from the Southwestern Germany and Austria, who founded the north quarter of the town, in the eighteenth century (Saxonii Noi Street, Saxonii Vechi Street, Quer Gasse). In Sebeş, the street names established after the specific place the road leads the way to also contribute to the image of “The Other’’ (Petersdorfer Gässchen, Daiagasse and Hermannstädter Straße). Furthermore, the names of various local or super regional personalities who influenced the existence of the town also have an important contribution. Examples to illustrate this aspect are particularly the street names from the early stalinist period of communism in Romania (Stalin Street, V. I. Lenin Street, Miciurin Street, Malinovski Street, Rosa Luxemburg Street).