Statue of Miklós Bánffy
The statue of the former Hungarian Foreign Minister stands in the oldest and one of the most beautiful parks in Sopron, the Elizabeth Garden.
After the Trianon peace treaty of 1920, the 1921 referendum in Sopron succeeded in keeping Sopron and the surrounding eight villages in Hungary. The possibility of a referendum was realized in October 1921, at the Venice Peace Conference, mostly due to the diplomatic skills of Foreign Minister Miklós Bánffy. The statue, inaugurated in the Elizabeth Garden in 2013, is the work of Péter Párkányi-Rááb. The polyhistor (he also wrote novels, plays, and painted pictures) foreign minister’s statue sits in an armchair as an elderly man in a suit with a book in his hand. The rock fragments around symbolize the country that was torn apart after Trianon. His thoughts, which are featured in his book “Transylvanian History”, are timeless: "the cornerstones of a nation: strength, self-criticism and cohesion."
Miklós Bánffy had indefeasible diplomatic merits in the realisation of the referendum in Sopron and thus in the fact that Sopron and its surroundings could remain part of Hungary.
