Ferenc József Nagy

Ferenc József Nagy (22 April 1923 – 14 May 2019) was a Hungarian agrarian engineer and politician, who served as Minister of Agriculture between 1990 and 1991. After that he was appointed minister without portfolio, he also held this position in the cabinet of Péter Boross until 1994. Nagy was the chairman of the Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party for a short time.

Professional life Ferenc József Nagy was born into an affluent peasant family in Kisharsány, Baranya County on 22 April 1923. His Calvinist parents, Ferenc Nagy (1890–1939) and Ilona Kovács (1896–1980) were farming on 47 acres. He had a sister, Ilona (1920–1980). Ferenc József Nagy married Erzsébet Bobár in 1951. They had three children: Ferenc (b. 1952), Piroska (b. 1953) and Attila (b. 1957). Ferenc József Nagy was a Presbyter since 1957.

Nagy finished his elementary studies in his birthplace, then attended a secondary school at the nearby Siklós from 1933 to 1937. He farmed the family estate then. At the age of 14, he joined the local branch of the Independent Smallholders' Party (FKGP) in 1937. He became organizing secretary of the interest association Hungarian Peasant Alliance in 1941. As a notary, he was also involved in the Civic Reading Club between 1941 and 1948. Beside that he was a youth leader of the Christian Youth Alliance (KIE) from 1937 to 1948. He was a founding member of the Youth of Awakening Baranya in 1942. He supervised the National and Ethnic Minority Office in that capacity too. The national board of the FKPG elected József Torgyán as co-president of the party alongside Nagy on 27 April 1991. Nagy did not run as candidate in the following party congress, thus Torgyán remained the sole president of the party after 29 June 1991. Following the death of József Antall in December 1993, Nagy retained his position of Minister of Compensation in the cabinet of Péter Boross, until 15 July 1994, when the Socialist leader Gyula Horn formed his government after the 1994 Hungarian parliamentary election. He retired from the politics in 1994.