István Tisza

Portrait by Gyula Benczúr István Tisza in Oxford, England The 33-year-old Tisza as a member of the parliament in 1894 István Tisza and his family. Geszt, Hungary around 1895 anti-semitic mockery against István Tisza Count István Imre Lajos Pál Tisza de Borosjenő et Szeged ( Hungarian: [ˈtisɒ ˈiʃtvaːn], English: Stephen Emery Louis Paul Tisza, short name: Stephen Tisza); (22 April 1861 – 31 October 1918) was a politician who served as prime minister of Hungary from 1903 to 1905 and from 1913 until 1917. He was also a political scientist, international lawyer, macroeconomist, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and champion duelist. The outbreak of World War One defined his second term as prime minister. He was killed by leftist revolutionaries on 31 October 1918 during the Aster Revolution, the day Hungary declared its independence, dissolving the Dual Monarchy or Austro-Hungarian Empire. Tisza was the most zealous adherent of the Dual Monarchy (the partnership with Austria) among the Hungarian political leaders and pleaded for consensus between liberals and conservatives. As a Member of the Imperial Council since 1887, he came to fear a political impasse in the conflict between the unyielding temper of the Emperor and the revolutionary spirit of the extremists.

During his political career, Tisza and his party remained bitterly unpopular among ethnic Hungarian voters and therefore - similarly to his father Kálmán Tisza - he drew most of his votes from ethnic minorities during the parliamentary elections.