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Károlyi, Mihály, Count (Gróf), in full MIHALY, COUNT KÁROLYI VON NAGYKÁROLYI
(b. March 4, 1875, Fót, Hung., Austria-Hungary [now in Hungary]--d. March
20, 1955, Vence, France), Hungarian statesman
who before World War I desired a reorientation of Austro-Hungarian foreign
policy toward friendship with states other than Germany. He also advocated
concessions to Hungary's non-Magyar subjects. After the war, as president of the
Hungarian Democratic Republic in 1919, Károlyi was nevertheless unable to
hold the lands of the former kingdom together and was soon forced into exile.
Károlyi
was a member of one of the wealthiest and most famous families of the Hungarian
aristocracy. Entering the Hungarian parliament as a conservative in 1910, he
soon drifted to the left. His policies--the breakup of large estates, universal
suffrage, equality of nationalities, and a maximum of freedom in the joint
institutions of Austria-Hungary--were radical positions in conservative prewar
Hungary; he had little actual power and almost no following. When, however, the
military situation turned against the Central Powers toward the end of World War
I, Károlyi emerged as an influential figure, and on Oct. 25, 1918, he
formed a national council composed of his followers, bourgeois radicals, and
social democrats. King Charles IV (Emperor Charles I of Austria) appointed him
Hungarian prime minister on October 31 and recognized Hungary as a separate
state with a separate army. Károlyi hoped to gain a favourable peace
settlement from the Allies but was disappointed. Czechoslovakia, Romania, and
Yugoslavia seized extensive stretches of Hungary, and when the Allies demanded
yet further territorial concessions, he resigned (March 20, 1919) the presidency
that he had held since January 11. He was replaced by Béla Kun and the
Hungarian Soviet Republic. After fleeing abroad in July 1919, Károlyi
became a left-wing socialist, returning to Hungary in 1946. While ambassador to
Paris (1947-49), he resigned after the arrest of László Rajk and
protested, from Paris, against Rajk's death sentence.
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