A presentation about Ion Mihalache, the founder of PNT

1. U N I V E R S I T Y O F A G R O N O M I C S C I E N C E S A N D
V E T E R I N A R Y M E D I C I N E B U C H A R E S T
Teacher coordinator:
Phd. Frumuselu Daniel
Mihai
Students:
Oancea Mihai
Dinca Valentina

2. WHO WAS?
 Ion Mihalache a romanian agrarian politician, the founder and leader of
the Peasants' Party (PȚ) and a main figure of its successor, the National Peasants' Party
(PNȚ).
 A schoolteacher born into a peasant family of Topoloveni, he served as a lieutenant
in the Romanian Army during World War I Mihalache, who soon became popular
among Orthodox priests and village teachers, served as president of the local teachers‘
association.

3. He founded the PȚ in the Romanian Old Kingdom in 1918;
under his leadership, it emerged from northern Muntenia and
became a grouping with national appeal.The PȚ had much
success in the elections of November 1919, forming a
coalition government with the Transylvanian Romanian
National Party (PNR), under Alexandru Vaida-Voevod. As a
politician, Mihalache made himself known for supporting a political
option that mixed traditionalist reserve towards industrialization and
calls for preserving the rural base of Romanian economy through
voluntary cooperative farming (allowing for a peasant-based industry)
with a vision of left-wing Corporatism.
He notably took the initiative in calling for peaceful marches of peasants
and members of the rural intelligentsia, and would almost always dress
in accordance with the peasant tradition of his native Muscel County.

4. During World War II, he opposed the National Legionary State created by the
Iron Guard, and complained to the Guard's rival partner, Ion Antonescu,
that Horia Sima and his grouping had assumed control of his cooperative
organization in Muscel County. Antonescu refused to mediate; Sima replied to
Mihalache that the measure had been partly taken as compensation for the
Legionaries' "suffering at the hands of Mihalache [in 1930-1931]", but
offered to allow some of the Muscel cooperative's former administrators
structure to regain their positions. Attacks and threats towards Mihalache in the
Guard's press became widespread, and Mille Lefter singled him out as a former
persecutor of the movement in a conference aired on Romanian Radio.

5. The Communist regime which was installed in late 1947 outlawed the PNȚ
altogether, alleging that Mihalache and Maniu had been trying to flee the
country from the airfield in Tămădău, and had planned to give Romania
a capitalist government-in-exile. Their capture and trial by a kangaroo court led
to sentences of life imprisonment with requirements of penal labour, effectively
death sentences; Mihalache, after having passed through Sighet prison, died in
custody at Râmnicu Sărat prison.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 www.wikipedia.com
 www.historyofmuscel.ro