Iuliu Maniu was a Romanian politician who served as Prime Minister of Romania for three terms between 1928-1933. He was a leader of the National Party of Transylvania and Banat before and after World War I, and co-founded the National Peasants' Party. Maniu engaged in an intensive unionist campaign leading up to Romania gaining independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918. Throughout his career, Maniu strongly supported Western allies and opposed growing Soviet influence in Romania. For this opposition to communism, Maniu and another party founder were sentenced to life in prison, effectively a death sentence given their ages, after their party was outlawed in 1947.

1. Iului Maniu
(January 8, 1873 – February 5, 1953)
Iului Maniu was a Romanian
politician. A leader of the National
Party of Transylvania and Banat
before and after World War I, he
served as Prime Minister of
Romania for three terms during
1928–1933, and, with Ion
Mihalache, co-founded the National
Peasants' Party.

2. Maniu was born to an ethnic
Romanian family in
Szilágybadacsony, Austria-
Hungary ,his parents were
Ioan Maniu and Clara Maniu.
He finished the Calvinist
College in Zalău in 1890, and
studied Law at the Franz
Joseph University, then at the
University of Budapest and
that of Vienna, being awarded
the doctorate in 1896.

3. .
Together with such figures as Vasile Goldiș, Gheorghe Pop de Băsești,
the Romanian Orthodox cleric Miron Cristea, and Alexandru Vaida-
Voevod, he engaged in an intensive unionist campaign, leading to the
Alba Iulia gathering on December 1, 1918 (during which Romanians
demanded separation from Austria-Hungary). On December 2, Maniu
became head of Transylvania's Directory Council - a position equivalent
to interim governorship.

4. Despite its success in elections, the PNȚ was blocked out of government
by the Royal Prerogative of King Ferdinand. Maniu publicly protested,
and attempted to organize a peasants' march on Bucharest as a public
show of support modeled on the Alba Iulia assembly. He also showed
himself open to deals proposed by Viscount Rothermere regarding a
review of the Treaty of Trianon

5. Subsequently, Maniu was a prominent supporter of the
Western Allies and one of the main adversaries of
growing Soviet influence in Romania. His party became
the predilect target of PCR hostility. PNȚ supporters and
Communists engaged in several street fights in
February 1945.
In a telegram to the State Department, the US
representative in Romania, Burton Berry, wrote:
"The Department well knows that Maniu has stood out
boldly as a champion of pro-Allied action and sentiment
in Rumania even during the dark days of the Antonescu
dictatorship. He has an enormous political following in
the country and I believe the respect in which all
Rumanians hold him eclipses that held for any other
Rumanian. Because of what he has been and what he is
it seems important that he be preserved from slipping
into sharing the general conviction that the dissolution
of the Rumanian state is now in progress."

6. The party was outlawed in July 1947.
That month, Ion Mihalache was
alleged to have attempted to flee the
country in an airplane which landed at
Tămădău, in order to establish a
government in exile .This was judged
as an act of treason, and both Maniu
and Mihalache faced a kangaroo court
that sentenced them to life
imprisonment in a hard labour prison;
given their advanced age, this
amounted to a death sentence. The
show trial, signaling the suppression
of opposition groups, was a significant
step towards the establishment of an
undisguised Communist regime in
Romania.

7. Bibliografie
Gradinaru Catalin
Apalaghie Ioan
Grupa:8215
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iuliu_Maniu