Mihály Károlyi

Count Mihály Ádám György Miklós Károlyi de Nagykároly (Hungarian: gróf nagykárolyi Károlyi Mihály Ádám György Miklós; English: Michael Adam George Nicholas Károlyi; or in short simple form: Michael Károlyi; 4 March 1875 – 19 March 1955) was a Hungarian politician who served as a leader of the short-lived and unrecognized First Hungarian Republic from 1918 to 1919. He served as prime minister between 1 and 16 November 1918 and as president between 16 November 1918 and 21 March 1919.

The assessment of his political activities is strikingly contradictory, although there is a general consensus that he was a weak and unsuccessful leader. Beyond this, during the Horthy era, he was identified as one of the main causes of Treaty of Trianon and officially sentenced as a traitor by the legal court. Conversely, according to the political left, he was respected as a statesman who recognized that the culpable war policies of the leaders of the Monarchy were leading Hungary into the disaster of World War I, and he attempted, in his own way, to counteract this. These contradictions in his evaluation still continue to resonate among various political factions of Hungarian domestic political life even in the early 21st century.

His half-brother, Count József Károlyi (1884–1934), was the head of Fejér County, a member of parliament, and one of the prominent legitimist politicians of the Horthy era. When he learned that Mihály Károlyi had become prime minister as a result of the 1918 Aster Revolution, Count József Károlyi resigned from his position and became one of the most aggressive critics and opponents of Mihály Károlyi's government, as he considered Mihály intellectually unfit for a leadership role.