Ágost Benárd

Ágost Fülöp Benárd de Szilvágy (3 January 1880 – 22 June 1968) was a Hungarian Christian socialist politician, diplomat, physician, and journalist.

Benárd served as Minister of Public Welfare and Labour of the Kingdom of Hungary from March 1920 to April 1921. He was one of two co-signatories of the Treaty of Trianon for Hungary, alongside Alfréd Drasche-Lázár.

Early life Ágost Benárd de Szilvágy was born on 3 January 1880 in Budapest. His parents were Lajos Benárd (1827–1885) and Emília Gáspár (1838–1907). His father was an employee of the Ministry of National Defense, and was given the noble title "de Szilvágy" in 1877, from his hometown of Szilvágyi.

Benárd attended a Piarist gymnasium in Pest and graduated from University of Budapest in 1905 with a medical degree. While in university, he engaged in political activism, organizing student protests in the aftermath of the 1905 parliamentary election.

In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Benárd enlisted in the Honvéd as a combat medic. He served for a total of fifty months as a doctor on the front lines of the war until 1917. In November 1918, Benárd began organizing armed demonstrations against Mihály Károlyi following the Aster Revolution. He returned to the Workers' Industrial Fund as director of the fund's branch in Várkerület. He was known for providing free treatment to impoverished people in Kelenföld and Lágymányos. From 1920 until 1922, he served as a representative of KNEP in the National Assembly. He later married Etelka Mária Janka Jókay (1883–1973) in 1930. They did not have any children.

Benárd was known to speak French and Esperanto, as well as his native Hungarian. He was president of the Hungarian Esperanto Examination Committee.