Early Years
Maniu was born to an ethnic Romanian family in Szilágybadacsony, Austria-Hungary (now Bădăcin, Romania); his parents were Ioan Maniu and Clara Maniu. He finished the Calvinist College in Zalău in 1890, and studied Law at the Franz Joseph University, then at the University of Budapest and that of Vienna, being awarded the doctorate in 1896.
Maniu joined the Romanian National Party of Transylvania and Banat (PNR), became a member of its collective leadership body in 1897, and represented it in the Budapest Parliament on several occasions. He settled in Blaj, and served as lawyer for the Greek Catholic Church (to which he belonged). Maniu was influenced by the activity of Simion Bărnuţiu, a maternal uncle of his father, Ioan Maniu.
After serving as an advisor for Archduke Franz Ferdinand, counseling on the latter's projects to redefine the Habsburg states along the lines of a United States of Greater Austria, Maniu moved towards the option of a union with the Romanian Old Kingdom when the Archduke was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914.
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