Name Aurel Popovici | Role Politician | |
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Died February 9, 1917, Geneva, Switzerland | ||
Aurel Constantin Popovici (16 October 1863 Lugoj, Banat, Austrian Empire – 9 February 1917 Geneva, Switzerland) was an ethnic Romanian Austro-Hungarian lawyer and politician.
Son of an artisan, he completed primary and secondary education and studied at the Hungarian Gymnasium on Lugoj (1873-1880), and then at Romanian Lyceum in Beiuș (1880-1884). In 1885, he enrolled at the University of Vienna to study medicine and philosophy and later transferred to University of Graz. In 1891, he became one of the leaders of the National Romanian Party and one of the editors of Tribuna. Together with other Romanian intellectuals of the National Romanian Party, in 1892 he signed the Transylvanian Memorandum, a document pleading for equal rights with Hungarians in Transylvania, and demanding an end to persecutions and Magyarization attempts. In 1893, he emigrated to Austria, then to Italy and later Romania. In 1899, he founded the journal România Junǎ (The young Romania) in Bucharest.
In 1906, in his book, he proposed the federalization of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy into the so-called United States of Greater Austria. Between 1908 and 1909, he was the editor-in-chief and director of Romanian journal Sǎmǎnǎtorul (The sower) in Bucharest. In 1912, he settled in Vienna. After Romania entrance into World War I in 1916, he moved to Geneva and died there in 1917.
He was buried in the cemetery next to St. Nicholas Church in Braşov.
It was not until the 1980s when his work was subjected to scholarly analysis and historiographic assessments.