Alexandru Vaida-Voevod was a politician, a medical doctor, a publicist and one of the distinguished leaders of the Romanian National Party of Transylvania, later of the National Peasant Party. He completed his high school studies in Transylvania (in Bistrița and Brașov), and his university studies in Vienna.

Upon entering politics, he established himself as one of the most active representatives of Transylvanian Romanians in the Budapest Parliament. He was the leader who read, on October 18, 1918, in the Hungarian Legislature, the Resolution of the Romanian National Party, adopted on September 29, 1918, by which the Romanians of Austria-Hungary, ‘free of any foreign influence’, decided to choose ‘to settle among the free nations’.

Through his attitude and activism, he made a very important contribution to the realisation of the union of Transylvania with Romania. On December 1, 1918, he attended the Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia, where the 1,228 elected delegates of Romanians ‘from Transylvania, Banat and the Hungarian Lands (present day Crișana)’ voted the Resolution of Union ‘which decreed the unification of those Romanians and all the territories inhabited by them with Romania’.

After 1918, Vaida-Voevod continued to be one of Greater Romania’s most important politicians. He was directly involved in the process of administrative unification, in light of his membership of the Directing Council (the acting government) of Transylvania. Together with Vasile Goldiş and bishops Iuliu Hossu and Miron Cristea, he presented the Resolution voted in Alba Iulia to King Ferdinand I in order to be ratified.

Vaida-Voevod had an impressive political career: he served as a Member of the Romanian Parliament from 1919 on, as Minister of State for Transylvania, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and as Prime Minister three times. As the head of the government, he signed the Peace Treaty with Austria and the Treaty with the U.S.S.R. On March 30, 1938, he was appointed Royal Counsellor, thus becoming member of the Crown Councils.

After the establishment of the Communist regime, he was arrested and from 1946 was forced to live in Sibiu, where he remained until the end of his life.

The January 29, 1920 issue of The Times characterised him as:

‘A man of a dignified and independent character, possessing selected qualities and a rare political intelligence, who was able to resist all the efforts of the Hungarian authorities to intimidate or discredit him.’[1]

[1] Ionela Simona Mircea, Romania 1918-2008, From the Generation of the Great Union (Alba-Iulia: Altip Publishing House, 2008), p. 16.