Gheorghe Mironescu

Infobox_Prime Minister
name =Gheorghe Mironescu
nationality =Romanian
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order =Prime Minister of Romania
term_start =June 8, 1930 – June 13, 1930
October 10, 1930
term_end =April 9, 1931
vicepresident =
deputy =
predecessor =Iuliu Maniu
Iuliu Maniu
successor =Iuliu Maniu
Nicolae Iorga
order2 =
term_start2 =
term_end2 =
predecessor2 =
successor2 =
birth_date =birth date|1874|1|29|mf=y
birth_place =Vaslui, Romania
death_date =1949
death_place =Bucharest, Romania
constituency =
party =National Peasants' Party
spouse =
profession =
religion =Romanian Orthodox


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Gheorghe G. Mironescu, commonly known as G. G. Mironescu (January 29, 1874—1949), was a Romanian politician, member of the National Peasants' Party (PNŢ), who served as a Prime Minister of Romania for two terms.

Biography

Born in Vaslui, Mironescu joined the PNŢ and became one of most its recognizable leaders, the main figure of a pro-authoritarian faction bitterly opposed to left-wing groups such as those of Nicolae L. Lupu, Petre Andrei, Mihai Ralea, and Armand Călinescu. [Hitchins, p.379; Ornea, p.295] After 1928, he served as Foreign Minister in Iuliu Maniu's first cabinet.

In 1930, Carol II of Romania returned to Romania (with a fake passport). On the morning of June 7 1930, the Government convened Parliament in order to cancel the act of January 4, 1926, through which Carol had renounced the throne. [Hitchins, p.409-410] Carol was proclaimed the new King of Romania, replacing his own son Michael. Maniu resigned, and a new PNŢ government was formed, under the leadership of Gheorghe Mironescu, restoring Carol II to the throne on June 8, 1930. The cabinet was welcomed by regent Nicholas with the words:

"You are called on to fulfill King Ferdinand's dream, and you are the most qualified to do it." [Prince Nicholas, in Scurtu]

The PNŢ subsequently repealed the 1926 laws preventing Carol from inheriting the Crown, and faced a constitutional crisis after Constantin Sărăţeanu and Patriarch Miron Cristea resigned from the regency in protest. [Scurtu] The impass was quickly prevented, as the two chambers of parliament passed legislation awarding Carol the crown and awarding Michael the honorary dignity of "Grand Voivode of Alba Iulia". [Scurtu] That same evening, Mironescu resigned in order for the king to name a new government.

The king's project for a broad-coalition government was not accomplished: Carol offered the appointment to Maniu (who cited health reasons in his refusal, but was in fact disappointed by Carol's ongoing scandalous relationship with Magda Lupescu) [Veiga, p.129] and then to General Constantin Prezan (who was rejected by the National Liberal Party). Eventually, the king renounced the project, recognized the mandate of Maniu as majority leader, and conceded to a regular cabinet. [Scurtu] Mironescu was Foreign Minister in the first two Maniu cabinets, and remained in office in the ministry for the duration of his premiership.

His second time in office, with Ion Mihalache as Minister of Internal Affairs and Carol's supporter Mihail Manoilescu as Minister of the Economy, was marked by the outlawing of the far right movement known as the Iron Guard and the arrest of its leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (who was later tried and acquitted). [Ornea, p.295] Nevertheless, Mironescu was to contribute to the appeal of fascism: his was the first in a series of governments that, faced with the Great Depression, reduced salaries for state employees, who soon began supporting the revolutionary solutions advanced by Codreanu. [Veiga, p.156-157] The cabinet was ultimately ousted by the king himself, who nominated an attempted technocracy under Nicolae Iorga (aiming to provide a mask for Carol's "camarilla"). [Veiga, p.130]

In early 1943, during World War II, Mironescu was given a mandate to approach the leadership of Miklós Horthy's Hungary, in an attempt by Romania's Ion Antonescu to have both countries achieve a new territorial settlement and a common withdrawal from the Axis Powers ("see also Romania during World War II"); he began talks with Miklós Bánffy's delegation in Bucharest (June 9), but these negotiations ended when the two sides could not agree on a future status for Northern Transylvania, a region held by Hungary at the time. [Hitchins, p.480]

He died in Bucharest in 1949.

Notes

References

*Keith Hitchins, "România, 1866-1947", Humanitas, Bucharest, 1998 (translation of the English-language edition "Rumania, 1866-1947", Oxford University Press, USA, 1994)
*Z. Ornea, "Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească", Ed. Fundaţiei Culturale Române, Bucharest, 1995
*Francisco Veiga, "Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919-1941: Mistica ultranaţionalismului", Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993
* [http://www.itcnet.ro/history/archive/mi2000/current5/mi69.htm Ioan Scurtu, "Regele a dorit guvern de concentrare"] , in "Magazin Istoric"