Aristocratic statesman who led Hungary’s delegation to the Paris peace talks in 1920 and pleaded for revising Trianon at the League
A count born in Vienna, he entered parliament in 1877 and was a leading orator for half a century. As education minister in 1906–1910 he drafted the Apponyi laws of 1907, which imposed Hungarian-language teaching on non-Hungarian schools. He led the Hungarian delegation at the Paris peace talks in January 1920 and spoke on 16 January, without changing the terms, and in March lost the regency vote to Horthy. Thereafter, as a legitimist opposition deputy and Hungary’s representative at the League of Nations, he denounced the injustice of the Trianon borders. He died in Geneva in 1933, where he had come for the Disarmament Conference.
Career timeline
- 1877Enters parliament
- 1906–1910Education minister; Apponyi laws of 1907
- 1920Heads the peace delegation in Paris
- 1920Loses the regency vote to Horthy
- 1923–1933Representative at the League of Nations
Veterinarian who chaired the First All-Belarusian Congress and, as chairman of the Rada, presided over the declaration of independence
Born in Zadzvieja in the Minsk Governorate in 1879, he graduated from the veterinary school in Warsaw in 1903 and worked as a veterinarian and as a teacher at the agricultural college in Marjina Horka. He served in the Russo-Japanese War and was active in the Belarusian Socialist Hramada. Elected chairman of the First All-Belarusian Congress in December 1917, he was arrested when it was dispersed. In February 1918 he was a Belarusian delegate at the Brest-Litovsk peace talks; as chairman of the Rada from March he presided over the session of 24–25 March that proclaimed independence, and from July to November he headed the People’s Secretariat. In the 1920s he worked in agriculture in Soviet Byelorussia; arrested in 1930 in the case of the “Union of Liberation of Belarus”, he passed through exile and the Gulag, and his fate after his release in 1943 is unknown.
Career timeline
- 1907–1911Veterinarian in the Minsk Governorate; teacher at the Marjina Horka agricultural college
- 1917Chairman of the First All-Belarusian Congress
- 1918Member of the Belarusian delegation at the Brest-Litovsk peace talks
- 1918Chairman of the Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic
- 1918Chairman of the People’s Secretariat and secretary for foreign affairs
- 1925–1929Docent at the Belarusian Agricultural Academy
Commander of the Hungarian Second Army destroyed on the Don in January 1943
Born Gusztáv Hautzinger, he trained at the Ludovika Academy and the Vienna war college and served as a staff officer in the First World War. On entering the Order of Vitéz in 1924 he took his mother’s surname, Jány, and from 1931 to 1936 he headed the Ludovika Academy. He became commander of the Second Army in March 1940 and led it to the Don in 1942. During the Soviet offensive of January 1943 he held to the no-retreat order, and when the army collapsed he issued an order of the day accusing his men of cowardice. Returning home voluntarily after the war, he was sentenced to death by a People’s Court and shot in 1947; the Supreme Court exonerated him in 1993.
Career timeline
- 1905Graduated from the Ludovika Academy; commissioned
- 1914–1918Staff officer in the First World War
- 1931–1936Head of the Ludovika Academy
- 1940–1943Commander, Second Army; the Don
- 1947Sentenced by a People’s Court and executed
Bessarabian Socialist Revolutionary who headed the first government of the Moldavian Democratic Republic and put land reform first
Born in Tănătari, Bessarabia, in 1884, he graduated from the Chișinău seminary and the Faculty of Letters in Saint Petersburg and taught. A Socialist Revolutionary, he returned to Bessarabia in 1917 with Inculeț at Kerensky’s urging and was elected chairman of the governorate peasants’ soviet and to the Russian Constituent Assembly. In December 1917 he became President of the Council of Directors General, the Moldavian Democratic Republic’s first government, and Director General for Agriculture, putting land reform first. His view that the republic should bear the majority people’s name prevailed; he put the entry of Romanian troops to a vote, yet protested their presence, fearing they would be used to block land reform. He voted for union but resigned amid charges of a pro-Russian stance, and later sat in the Romanian Senate. He fled to Bucharest in 1940 and died there in 1971.
Career timeline
- 1917Chairman of the Bessarabian Governorate Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies
- 1917Member of the Russian Constituent Assembly
- 1917–1918President of the Council of Directors General and Director General for Agriculture
- 1918Director General of Education in Bessarabia
Chief of the General Staff who ordered the Bačka intervention behind the Novi Sad massacre and later sought contact with the West
Born Ferenc Knaus (or Knauz) at Moson, he served as an Austro-Hungarian staff officer in the First World War and in 1934 took his mother’s surname, Szombathelyi. In 1941 he led the Carpathian Group in the invasion of the Soviet Union. That September he succeeded Werth as Chief of the General Staff, and in January 1942 he ordered General Feketehalmy-Czeydner to intervene in Bačka, an operation that grew into punitive raids on Serb villages and the Novi Sad massacre. In 1943 he opened the investigation and court martial of those responsible for the massacre, and with Kállay he led the contacts with the Western Allies. Removed after the German occupation of 1944, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by a People’s Court after the war, handed over to Yugoslavia and shot at Petrovaradin in 1946.
Career timeline
- 1914–1918Austro-Hungarian staff officer
- 1926–1938Instructor and commander, Ludovica Military Academy
- 1938–1939Deputy Chief of Staff
- 1941Commander, Carpathian Group
- 1941–1944Chief of the General Staff
- 1946Life sentence by a People’s Court; executed after extradition to Yugoslavia
From antifascist resistance to postwar opposition
In 1945 he challenged electoral rules that left opposition groups too little time to organize.
Albanian educator and politician from Shkodra. After literary studies in Paris and antifascist resistance, he served as education minister from October 1944 to January 1945. Opposition to postwar electoral restrictions preceded his arrest in 1946 and death in custody. The dates follow AIDSSH; conflicting accounts are discussed below.
Career timeline
- 1943Joined the National Liberation Front
- 1944–1945Minister of Education
- 1945Electoral opposition and Democratic Union
- 1946Arrest and imprisonment
