Nicolae Mărgineanu

Nicolae Mărgineanu (June 22, 1905 – June 13, 1980) was a Romanian psychologist. In his publications, he incorporated concepts from philosophy, literature, science and logic. A key work, Psihologia persoanei, focuses on the uniqueness of the individual and his development. ), which allowed him to conduct research at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago, and Duke Universities (1932–1934). He was instructor (1926–1928), teaching assistant (1928–1936), head of research at the Cluj Psychology Institute (1936–1938), and associate professor (1938–1947). From 1938 to 1942, he was substitute professor of psychology and director of the institute. In 1941–1943 he headed the psycho-technical laboratory in Cluj, under temporary Hungarian administration.

Towards the end of World War II, being close to the United States consul Burton Y. Berry, he militated for the retrocession of Northern Transylvania (ceded by Romania to Hungary in 1940 as a result of the Second Vienna Award). When Petru Groza became Prime Minister in March 1945, Mărgineanu was offered the post of Romanian ambassador to the United States, but he turned down the offer. In December 1951, together with Mircea Vulcănescu (who was detained with him at Aiud), he planned a mass escape of the prisoners, so that, once they were free, they would contact the anti-communist resistance in the mountains. However, not all the detainees agreed, and in the end only three of them (aviators and , and journalist Valeriu Șirianu) managed to escape. After being liberated in 1964, he returned to work, but was not fully rehabilitated. From 1969 to 1971, he was a researcher at the Institute of Pedagogical Sciences. Until his death, Mărgineanu was a substitute professor of psychology at what was now Babeș-Bolyai University. He was an invited professor at the Universities of Bonn (1971) and Hamburg (1972), and again a Rockefeller invitee in the United States (1979–1980).

He had two children: a daughter, Oana, and a son, also called Nicolae Mărgineanu, who is a film director. In 2012, he was posthumously elected a member of the Romanian Academy. A street in Cluj-Napoca is named after him.