9 February
Anniversary of the Death of Miklós Horthy

vitéz Miklós Horthy of Nagybánya
(Born in Kenderes, 18 June 1868 – Died in Estoril, Portugal, 9 February 1957)

Miklós Horthy was a Hungarian politician and a key figure in 20th-century Hungarian history. He served as a naval officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy and was an aide-de-camp to Emperor Franz Joseph between 1909 and 1914. During the First World War, Emperor Charles IV promoted him to Rear Admiral and, on the final day of the Aster Revolution, to Vice Admiral. Horthy became the last Commander-in-Chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy and continued to wear his naval uniform at official events throughout his life.

Following the proclamation of the republic and the establishment of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic, he played a role in the counter-revolutionary forces and became the Supreme Commander of the National Army.

After the restoration of the monarchy (without a reigning king), he consolidated state power and served as Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1 March 1920 to 16 October 1944. While upholding the monarchy, he blocked any return of the king. In 1920, he established the Order of Vitéz, a chivalric order.

A central aim of his foreign policy was the revision of Hungary’s post-Trianon borders. During the Second World War, Horthy initially sought to keep Hungary militarily neutral, but following the Second Vienna Award and increasing alignment with the Axis Powers, Hungary joined the war on their side in 1941. Even after the German occupation of Hungary in spring 1944, he remained in power and attempted to exit the war later that year. However, the fascist Arrow Cross Party seized control and forced him to resign.

Horthy and his wife were taken into custody by the Germans and held in Bavaria. After the war, he retired from politics and emigrated with his family to Portugal in 1949, where he died in 1957.

His reburial took place in Kenderes on 4 September 1993.