Vaida-Voevod, Alexander

Vaida-Voevod, Alexander (vä`ēdä voivōd`), 1871–1950, Romanian statesman, b. Transylvania. He was (1906–18) a member of the Hungarian parliament, in which he advocated the cause of the Romanians in Transylvania. In 1918, on the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, he led in proclaiming the union of Transylvania with Romania, and in 1919 he was made premier and foreign minister of Romania. He secured recognition of the incorporation of Transylvania and Bessarabia into Romania, although Russia refused to concede the loss of Bessarabia, and he had Romanian troops intervene in Hungary to oust the Communist regime of Bela Kun. He resigned in 1920 but was later premier in 1932 and 1933 at the head of the National Peasants' party. Withdrawing from that party, he associated with the reactionary, pro-German, and anti-Semitic elements in Romanian politics and set up in 1935 the right-wing Romanian Front.