Corneliu (Cornel) Coposu () (20 May 1914 – 11 November 1995) was a Christian Democratic and liberal conservative Romanian politician, the founder of the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party (), the founder of the Romanian Democratic Convention (), and a political detainee during the communist regime. His political mentor was Iuliu Maniu (1873–1953), the founder of the National Peasant Party (PNȚ), the most important political organization from the interwar period. He studied law and worked as a journalist. Biography Early life Corneliu Coposu was born in Bobota, Sălaj County, at that time in Austria-Hungary (now in Romania), to the Romanian Greek-Catholic archpriest Valentin Coposu (17 November 1886 – 28 July 1941) and his wife Aurelia Coposu (née Anceanu, herself the daughter of Romanian Greek-Catholic archpriest Iuliu Anceanu). Corneliu had four sisters: Cornelia (1911–1988), Doina (1922–1990), Flavia Bălescu (b. 1924), and Rodica (b. 1932). He too was a devout member of the church and joined the Romanian National Party (PNR), a group dominated by Greek-Catholic politicians – Gheorghe Pop de Băsești was an acquaintance of the Coposu family, and Alexandru Vaida-Voevod was a relative on Corneliu Coposu's mother's side. After studying Law and Economy at the University of Cluj (1930–1934), he engaged in local politics with the PNR's direct successor, the National Peasants' Party (PNŢ), and worked as a journalist; he wrote for România Nouă, edited by Zaharia Boilă, Mesajul (Zalău), Unirea (Blaj). He became the private secretary of Iuliu Maniu, the leader of the PNR and PNŢ, who had been a leading actor factor in Transylvania's union with Romania (1918), and as head of the Transylvania Directory Council. Coposu wrote in detail about this experience in his "secret diary", discovered after the collapse of communism and published in 2014. World War II Accused of propaganda against the National Rebirth Front (Frontul Renașterii Naționale), Coposu was sent into forced domicile in Bobota. After the Second Vienna Award of August 1940, when Romania was forced to cede Northern Transylvania to Hungary, Coposu moved to Bucharest. He became the political secretary of Maniu, the leader of the clandestine opposition to Marshal Ion Antonescu, and the leader of the anti-Nazi resistance in Romania. Maniu was contacted by representatives of the British authorities, and Coposu was one of his trusted assistants; the group maintained contacts between the Romanian politicians who were negotiating the country's exit from the alliance with the Axis Powers, in order to