Albert Apponyi


Albert György Gyula Mária Apponyi, Count of Nagyappony was a Hungarian aristocrat and politician. He was a Board Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Chairman of St Stephen Academy from 1921 to 1933, and a knight of the Austrian Golden Fleece from 1921.

Early life and career

He was born on 29 May 1846, in Vienna, where his father, Count György Apponyi, was the resident Hungarian Chancellor at the time. He belonged to an ancient noble family dating back to the 13th century. He married Clotilde von Mensdorff-Pouilly in 1897. Until expropriation by Czechoslovakia following World War I, he owned the family castle in Éberhard, now Malinovo, Slovakia, where he entertained guests including Theodore Roosevelt during his tour of Europe in 1910. Roosevelt described Apponyi as "an advanced Liberal in matters political but also in matters ecclesiastical" and "like an American Liberal of the best type."
Count Albert Apponyi became a member of the Hungarian Parliament in 1872 and remained a member almost uninterrupted until his death, most of the time for the constituency of Jászberény where he was first elected in 1881 and which he still represented half a century later. From the late 1880s, he was the leader of the “united opposition,” which consisted of all parties hostile to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. He was Speaker of the House of Representatives of Hungary from 31 October 1901 to 6 November 1903.

"Apponyi laws"

As the minister of education of the conservative-led government in 1906-1910 he drafted the laws passed in 1907, known as Apponyi laws or Lex Apponyi, in which the process of Magyarization culminated. However, the incentives started in 1879, until then Hungarian was not prescribed even to be taught by any means. Reading, writing and counting in selected primary schools was introduced in Hungarian for the first four years of education. The Hungarian Government claimed all citizens should be able to understand, speak and write in the state language in a basic level, being a necessity to be supported. These law caused various resentment from the ethnic minorities regarding more aspects. Eventually, the law prescribed in any school without Hungarian education, in case having pupils with Hungarian mother-tongue or without it, but by the parents claim Hungarian education could be provided. In case the number of pupils with Hungarian-mother tongue reach 20 or they are at least 20% of the total number of pupils, Hungarian education had to be provided. However, in case the total number of pupils exceed 50%, the language of education had to be changed to Hungarian as well, nevertheless, education to pupils with non-Hungarian mother tongue could be provided.
The teachers got a grace period - 3-4 years - in order to learn the language. The affected schools which could not provide teachers being able to deal with Hungarian-language had to be closed, approximately 600 Romanian villages were left without education as a result of the law.
Unilingual schoolsHungarianNon-Hungarian
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Multilingual schoolsHungarianNon-Hungarian
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Paris Peace Conference

After World War I, Apponyi's most notable public office was his appointment in late 1919 to lead the Hungarian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference to present Hungary’s case to the Allied and Associated Powers assembled there to determine the terms of the peace treaty with Hungary, which subsequently became known as the Treaty of Trianon on account of it having been signed in the Grand Hall of the Palace of Trianon. Apponyi’s mission culminated in a speech to the negotiators at the Quai d'Orsay on 16 January 1920, which he delivered in French, simultaneously translated himself into English, and concluded in Italian.
This performance was widely acclaimed but remained eventually fruitless as the Allies refused to amend the terms of the peace treaty, or even to discuss them with the Hungarian delegation. Even so, Apponyi's reputation in Hungary was enhanced by the episode and he came close to being chosen as provisional head of state, a position that however went to Miklós Horthy on 1 March 1920.

Later life

After leading the Hungarian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, he remained active in politics and diplomacy, as an opposition member of Parliament, legitimist advocate of the Habsburgs as Kings of Hungary, and regular representative at the League of Nations.
Beyond his talent as an orator and fluency in six languages, Albert Apponyi had wide-ranging interests outside politics, encompassing philosophy, literature, and especially music and religion, namely Roman Catholicism. He visited the United States three times, first in 1904 and last in 1924, where he engaged in lecture tours and befriended leading public figures, including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. He also visited Egypt twice, including in 1869 for the inauguration of the Suez Canal. In 1931 he started working on a collection of essays that was published in 1935 after his death as The Memoirs of Count Apponyi. In these, among other themes, he describes his encounters with Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner, his audiences with Popes Pius IX and Pius XI as well as with Benito Mussolini, his impressions of Egypt and America, and his role during the 1920 sequence that led to the Treaty of Trianon. One of his earlier books was titled Esthetics and Politics, the Artist and the Statesman.
, 1928.
Apponyi died on 7 February 1933 in Geneva, where he had come to speak at the re-opening of the World Disarmament Conference. Such was his stature among survivors of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy that Otto von Habsburg made a short trip from Belgium to Geneva for the sole purpose to lay a wreath on his bier. After transfer to Budapest, his body was left lying in state under the cupola of the Hungarian Parliament Building, then following a special act of parliament was buried on 14 February 1933 in the crypt of Matthias Church, the church where he used to come and pray every morning before breakfast while living nearby on Buda Castle Hill since 1902.
Attendants at the state funeral included Regent Miklós Horthy, Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös and Archbishop Serédi. A four-meter-diameter laurel wreath was sent by Benito Mussolini, whom Apponyi had met and admired, and the quasi-legendary Horn of Lehel was brought from his constituency in Jászberény where it was kept in the local museum. In 1938, however, following the First Vienna Award, his old domain at Éberhárd became part of Hungary again, and his remains were reburied in the family chapel there.

Appreciation and legacy

By the American and British media, he was often called as "The Grand Old Man of Central Europe". In Hungary he was named as "The Greatest Living Hungarian". His memory, however, is less positive in Slovakia and Romania where is name is associated with the Apponyi laws and Magyarization.
Between 1911 and 1932, he was five times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Hungarian universities, scientists and political groups, but never became a laureate.
He was the subject of national celebration on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday in May 1921, when he was made an honorary citizen by numerous Hungarian cities and towns. This is also when Ferenciek tere, a major intersection in Budapest, was renamed Apponyi tér in his honor. Many Hungarian cities and towns still have an Apponyi street or Apponyi square in his memory. There is also an Apponyi Street in Fairfield, Connecticut, a town that was home to many Hungarian immigrants in the early 20th century.
A bust of Albert Apponyi by sculptor Geza Maróti was dedicated in 1939 in Jászberény, the seat of his parliamentary constituency for many decades. It was presumably destroyed during the Communist era. A new bust, by local sculptor György Máté, was dedicated in 1996.
A collection of Herend Porcelain is named after Albert Apponyi, who is said to have custom-ordered the collection's design.
A plaque on the Buda Castle Hill house which Apponyi inhabited from 1901 or 1902 until his death, Werbőczy utca 17, honors his memory and that of his son György, a liberal politician who was arrested by the Gestapo and briefly deported to Mauthausen in March 1944 for his opposition to the persecution of Hungarian Jews.

Works (selected)