Mária Pozsonec (16 January 1940 – 3 April 2017) was a

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

of Hungarian ethnicity. Between 1990 and 2008, she served as representative of the Hungarian national community in the

National Assembly of Slovenia The National Assembly ( sl, Državni zbor Republike Slovenije, or ), is the general representative body of Slovenia. According to the Constitution of Slovenia and the Constitutional Court of Slovenia, it is the major part of the distinctively ...

. She was born to Hungarian parents in the village of Dolga Vas ( hu, Hosszúfalu) near

Lendava Lendava (; formerly ''Dolnja Lendava'', in older sources also ''Dolenja Lendava''; hu, Lendva, formerly ''Alsólendva''; german: Lindau, formerly ''Unter-Limbach'') is a town in Slovenia in the region of Prekmurje. It is the seat of the Municipa ...

, in what was then the

Drava Banovina The Drava Banovina or Drava Banate ( Slovene and Serbo-Croatian: ''Dravska banovina''), was a province ( banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. This province consisted of most of present-day Slovenia and was named for the Dra ...

of the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 unt ...

(now in Slovenia). She attended the high school in

Subotica Subotica ( sr-cyrl, Суботица, ; hu, Szabadka) is a List of cities in Serbia, city and the administrative center of the North Bačka District in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. Formerly the largest city of Vojvodina region, ...

(

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

), and studied pedagogy at the

University of Maribor The University of Maribor ( sl, Univerza v Mariboru) is Slovenia's second-largest university, established in 1975 in Maribor, Slovenia. It currently has 17 faculties. History The university's roots reach back to 1859, when a theological semin ...

, in Slovenia. She worked as an elementary school teacher in her native region of

Prekmurje Prekmurje (; dialectically: ''Prèkmürsko'' or ''Prèkmüre''; hu, Muravidék) is a geographically, linguistically, culturally and ethnically defined region of Slovenia, settled by Slovenes and a Hungarian minority, lying between the Mur Ri ...

. During the 1980s, she emerged as an activist of the Hungarian minority in Slovenia. In the first free elections in Slovenia in April 1990, she was elected to the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

as the representative of the Hungarian national community. She was re-elected four times, in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004. In 2008, she was defeated by László Göncz. She served as vice-mayor of Lendava from November 2006 till November 2011. Pozsonec died on 3 April 2017 at the age of 77.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pozsonec, Maria 1940 births 2017 deaths People from the Municipality of Lendava Slovenian people of Hungarian descent Members of the National Assembly (Slovenia) 20th-century Slovenian women politicians 20th-century Slovenian politicians 21st-century Slovenian women politicians 21st-century Slovenian politicians University of Maribor alumni