Александр Вайда-Воевод: Трансильванияны Румыниямен біріктіруші саясаткер

Austro Hungarian born Romanian politician

Alexandru Vaida Voevod or Vaida Voievod (27 February 1872 – 19 March 1950) was an Austro Hungarian born Romanian politician who was a supporter and promoter of the union of Transylvania (before 1920 part of Hungary) with the Romanian Old Kingdom. He later served as 28th Prime Minister of Romania.

Vaida Voevod was born to a Greek Catholic family in the Transylvanian village of Alparét, Austria Hungary (Olpret, today Bobâlna, Romania). Initially, Voevod was supportive of a plan to federalize the domains of the Habsburgs along the lines of a United States of Greater Austria, and was close to Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In 1906, Vaida Voevod joined a group of Romanian nationalists in the Budapest Parliament (the Romanian National Party of Transylvania and Banat), becoming an important opponent of the Hungarian governmental policy of Magyarization, and fought for the right of Transylvania to self determination. Disappointed by the Austrian cause after Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo, and turned towards an advocacy of Transylvania's union with Romania.

In October 1918, United States President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points were published in the German press. While in his native village of Olpret, Vaida Voevod read about the Wilsonian principles in a newspaper from Munich, which made him realize that instead of demanding the federalization of Austria Hungary, the only valid alternative was to push towards the union with the Romanian Kingdom. He drafted quickly a proposal in that respect and went to his good friend Iuliu Hossu in Gherla to seek his advice.

The elections of November 1919 were successful for his party, and Vaida Voevod replaced the National Liberal Ion I. C. Brătianu as prime minister and Nicolae Mișu as foreign minister. He secured the demarcation lines by ordering Romanian troops to fight off the Hungarian Soviet Republic. However, Vaida Voevod's radical approach toward the land reforms made King Ferdinand dissolve his government in March 1920, to be replaced by one formed by General Alexandru Averescu's People's Party (a populist movement that had attracted Brătianu's conditional support). Vaida Voevod's party emerged as the National Peasants' Party in 1926, and he served as its leader. He also served twice as Interior Minister (1928–1930 and 1932).

Vaida Voevod's second cabinet existed from 11 August until 17 October 1932; he resigned and was succeeded by Iuliu Maniu. After Maniu resigned as prime minister in January 1933, Vaida Voevod returned as prime minister. "Vaida and his supporters, who formed the National Peasants' Party's right wing, were acting more like Liberals than Peasantists. They crushed strikes by oil workers in Ploiești and by railway workers in Bucharest in February 1933, dissolved Communist Party front organizations and all other 'anti state' organizations, and proclaimed martial law in a number of cities." Nonetheless, the problems posed by his new cabinets (in 1932 and 1933) – the Legionary Movement's intimidation of the political scene, and Vaida Voevod's own antisemitism (which began to manifest itself in measures of repression encouraged by the Legionaries), led to a split between the prime minister and his Party. His second government fell because of Armand Călinescu, who was a staunch opponent of the Legionary Movement.

On 25 February 1935, Vaida Voevod created his own movement, the Romanian Front, which survived through the increasingly authoritarian regime of King Carol II, the National Legionary State, Ion Antonescu's regime and most of World War II. It was dissolved after King Michael's Coup of August 1944, when the Romanian Communist Party started gaining influence with Soviet backing. Nevertheless, the party never eluded obscurity in front of competition from the Legionaries, and its members were victims of the repression carried out by the communist regime after 1948. Vaida Voevod was arrested on 24 March 1945. In 1946, he was put under house arrest in Sibiu, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died four years later.