Albert Apponyi

The native form of this personal name is Nagyapponyi gróf Apponyi Albert. This article uses the Western name order.

Albert Apponyi
File:Apponyi Albert 1910.jpg Photograph by Ferenc Veress
Minister of Religion and Education of Hungary
In office 8 April 1906 – 17 January 1910
Preceded by	Gyula Tost
Succeeded by	Ferenc Székely
In office 15 June 1917 – 8 May 1918
Preceded by	Béla Jankovich
Succeeded by	János Zichy
Personal details
Born	(1846-05-29)29 May 1846 Vienna, Austrian Empire
Died	Geneva, Switzerland
Political party	Deák Party, Liberal Party, National Party, Party of Independence and '48
Spouse(s)	Clotilde von Mensdorff-Pouilly
Children	György Alexander Mária Alexandrina Julianna
Profession	politician

Albert György Gyula Mária Apponyi, Count of Nagyappony (29 May 1846 – 7 February 1933) was a Hungarian aristocrat and politician. He was a Board Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Chairman of Saint Stephen Academy from 1921 to 1933, and a knight of the Austrian Golden Fleece from 1921.

Early life and career

File:Apponyi Albert koloriert albuminabzug.jpg

21 years old Albert Apponyi.

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 to the women's rights activist 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 had not been prescribed or 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 at a basic level, being a necessity deserving of support. These laws caused various forms of resentment from the ethnic minorities. Eventually, the law prescribed the teaching of Hungarian in all schools without Hungarian education, whether the pupils' mother tongue was Hungarian or not, ignoring parents' claims that Hungarian education could be provided privately. If the number of pupils with Hungarian-mother tongue reached 20% of the total number of pupils in a school, Hungarian education had to be provided. However, in case the total number of pupils whose mother tongue was Hungarian exceeded 50%, the language of all education had to be changed to Hungarian with the proviso that education to pupils with non-Hungarian mother tongues could still be provided.

The teachers got a grace period - 3–4 years - in order to learn the language. Schools which could not provide teachers able to deal with the Hungarian-language had to be closed. Approximately 600 Romanian villages were left without education as a result of the law.

Unilingual schools	Hungarian	Non-Hungarian
1869	5818	6355
1880	7342	6052
1905	11664	3246

Multilingual schools	Hungarian	Non-Hungarian
1869	1455	1784
1880	2287	2437
1905	1598	1620

Paris Peace Conference

Albert Apponyi, top-hatted, in front of the Quai d'Orsay, January 1920.

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.

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-06908, Graf Alvert Apponyi.jpg

Albert Apponyi on a visit in Berlin to meet president Paul von Hindenburg, 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 (and still is) 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

File:Apponyi Albert2.jpg

Portrait by Philip de László, early 1930s

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 his 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. (It was rechristened Felszabadulás tér, meaning Liberation Square, by the Communist authorities in 1953.) Many Hungarian cities and towns still have an Apponyi street (Apponyi utca, sometimes Gróf Apponyi Albert utca) or Apponyi square (Apponyi tér) 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 Géza 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 (now Táncsics Mihály) 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)

• 1889: Parlamentarismusunk veszedelme, őszinte szó Apponyi Albert Grófról. Budapest
• 1895: Aesthetika és politika, művész és államférfiu (Esthetics and Politics, the Artist and the Statesmen), Budapest
• 1896: Apponyi Albert gróf beszédei. 2 vols. Budapest
• 1908: A Brief Sketch of the Hungarian Constitution and of the Relations between Austria and Hungary. Budapest
• 1909: Hungary of to-day. London
• 1911: Lectures on the Peace Problem and on the Constitutional Growth of Hungary: lectures. Budapest: St. Stephen's Printing Press
• 1912: Magyar közjog osztrák világitásban. Budapest
• 1915: Austria-Hungary and the War, New York: Austro-Hungarian Consulate-general. Co-authors: Albert Apponyi, Ladislaus Hengelmüller von Hengervár, Konstantin Theodor Dumba, Alexander Nuber von Pereked
• 1919: The american peace and Hungary. Budapest
• 1921: Hungarian foreign policy. London, New York, Budapest
• 1922: Ötven év, ifjukorom--huszonöt év az ellenzéken. Budapest: Pantheon irodalmi intézet r.-t
• 1922: Emlékirataim. Ötven év Apponyi Albert gróf. Második, átnézett kiadás. 2 vols. Budapest, 1922, 1934.
• 1925: Gróf Apponyi Albert hét előadása a magyar alkotmány fejlődéséről. Budapest
• 1928: Justice for Hungary: review and criticism of the effect of the Treaty of Trianon. 376 p. London: Longmans, Green (one of several contributors)
• 1935 (posthumous): The Memoirs of Count Albert Apponyi. The MacMillan Company, New York.

Ancestors

Count Albert György Apponyi de Nagy-Appony's ancestors in three generations

Count Albert György Apponyi de Nagy-Appony	Father: Count György Apponyi de Nagy-Appony	Paternal Grandfather: Count György Apponyi de Nagy-Appony	Paternal Great-grandfather: Count Antal György Apponyi de Nagy-Appony
			Paternal Great-grandmother: Countess Maria Karolina von Lodron-Laterano-Castelromano
		Paternal Grandmother: Countess Anna Zichy de Zich et Vásonkeö	Paternal Great-grandfather: Count Ferencz Zichy de Zich et Vásonkeö
			Paternal Great-grandmother: Countess Maria Anna Kolowrat-Krakowsky
	Mother: Countess Juliánna Sztáray de Nagy-Mihály et Sztára	Maternal Grandfather: Albert Sztáray de Nagy-Mihály et Sztára	Maternal Great-grandfather: Mihály Sztáray de Nagy-Mihály et Sztára
			Maternal Great-grandmother: Mária Anna Eleonora Eszterházy de Galántha
		Maternal Grandmother: Franziska Károlyi de Nagykároly	Maternal Great-grandfather: József Károlyi de Nagykároly
			Maternal Great-grandmother: Maria Elisabeth Johanna von Waldstein-Wartenberg

See also

• The "Carte Rouge", a map used by Apponyi in his presentation on 16 January 1920.

References

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 

External links

• Albert Apponyi in The New York Times
• Newspaper clippings about Albert Apponyi in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Political offices
Preceded by Dezső Perczel	Speaker of the House of Representatives 1901–1903	Succeeded by Dezső Perczel
Preceded by Gyula Tost	Minister of Religion and Education 1906–1910	Succeeded by Ferenc Székely
Preceded by Béla Jankovich	Minister of Religion and Education 1917–1918	Succeeded by János Zichy