| Alexandru Vaida-Voevod | |
| Order: | 28th Prime Minister of Romania |
| Term Start: | 1 December 1919 |
| Term End: | 12 March 1920 |
| Predecessor: | Artur Văitoianu |
| Successor: | Alexandru Averescu |
| Term Start1: | 6 June 1932 |
| Term End1: | 19 October 1932 |
| Monarch1: | Carol II |
| Predecessor1: | Nicolae Iorga |
| Successor1: | Iuliu Maniu |
| Term Start2: | 14 January 1933 |
| Term End2: | 13 November 1933 |
| Monarch2: | Carol II |
| Predecessor2: | Iuliu Maniu |
| Successor2: | Ion G. Duca |
| Title3: | President of the Assembly of Deputies |
| Monarch3: | Ferdinand I |
| Term Start3: | 28 November 1919 |
| Term End3: | 1 December 1919 |
| Predecessor3: | Constantin Meissner |
| Successor3: | Nicolae Iorga |
| Monarch4: | Carol II |
| Term Start4: | 9 June 1939 |
| Term End4: | 5 September 1940 |
| Predecessor4: | Nicolae Săveanu |
| Successor4: | None (Parliament suspended in September 1940) |
| Title5: | Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania |
| Term Start5: | 1 December 1919 |
| Term End5: | 9 January 1920 |
| Primeminister5: | Himself |
| Predecessor5: | Nicolae Mișu |
| Successor5: | Duiliu Zamfirescu |
| Title6: | Minister of Internal Affairs |
| Term Start6: | 10 November 1928 |
| Term End6: | 7 June 1930 |
| Primeminister6: | Iuliu Maniu |
| Predecessor6: | Ion G. Duca |
| Successor6: | Mihai Popovici |
| Term Start7: | 13 June 1930 |
| Term End7: | 8 October 1930 |
| Primeminister7: | Iuliu Maniu |
| Predecessor7: | Mihai Popovici |
| Successor7: | Ion Mihalache |
| Term Start8: | 6 June 1932 |
| Term End8: | 10 August 1932 |
| Primeminister8: | Himself |
| Successor8: | Ion Mihalache |
| Office9: | President of the Romanian Front |
| Term Start9: | 12 March 1935 |
| Term End9: | 30 March 1938 |
| Successor9: | Armand Călinescu (party merged with National Renaissance Front) |
| Office10: | President of the National Peasants' Party |
| Term Start10: | January 1933 |
| Term End10: | March 1935 |
| Predecessor10: | Iuliu Maniu |
| Successor10: | Ion Mihalache |
| Birth Date: | 1872 2, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Alparét, Austria-Hungary (now Bobâlna, Romania) |
| Death Place: | Sibiu, Romania |
| Resting Place: | Church between the Fir trees |
| Party: | Romanian National Party (before 1926) National Peasants' Party (1926-1935) Romanian Front (1935-1938) National Renaissance Front (1938-1940) |
| Signature: | Signature of Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, September 1, 1919.png |
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 (Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan: Olpret, today Bobâlna, Romania). He studied at the Lutheran Gymnasium in Bistrița.[1] 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.[2] He drafted quickly a proposal in that respect and went to his good friend Iuliu Hossu in Gherla to seek his advice.[2] Pondering over the words in the draft, they decided to replace the most radical proposal with the following generic statement: "Starting now, whatever the Great Powers will decide, the Romanian nation from Hungary and Transylvania is determined to rather perish than to endure slavery and subjugation any further".[2]
On 18 October 1918, Vaida-Voevod presented this proposal in the Hungarian Diet, asking for the right to self-determination of the Romanians in Hungary.[2] He began his discourse in a dull tone, then he suddenly read the declaration of self-determination, to the shock of his fellow deputies, who started to throw objects at him.[2] Having prepared his exit in advance, Vaida-Voevod narrowly escaped lynching by leaving quickly through a back door of the Parliament building and hiding in a workers' neighborhood in Budapest, where many ethnic Romanians lived.[2]
In December 1918, after the Aster Revolution when Hungary had become a republic, Vaida-Voevod was elected in the Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia that proclaimed the union with Romania, and was, alongside Vasile Goldiș, Iuliu Hossu, and Miron Cristea, a member of the Transylvanian group of envoys that presented the decision to King Ferdinand I in Bucharest.
Vaida-Voevod joined the Romanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and was one of its most prominent members throughout the negotiations, as an organizer of press campaigns. During the conference, he joined the Masonic Grand Orient de France in order to secure a more advantageous position for his country.[3]
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.[4]
"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.