Ferencz Deak, a Hungarian statesman, born at Sojtor, in the county of Zala, Oct. 17, 1803. He was educated at Comorn and Raab, studied law, was elected to the diet of 1832-'6, and became the leader of the opposition. He was reelected to the diet of 1839-40, and to that of 1843-4, but refused to serve in the latter on account of the instruction given to the representatives to vote against the proposed equality of taxation, to which Deak with some 200 other nobles now voluntarily subjected himself. Failing health compelled him to decline the offered election to the diet of 1847-'8; but in the spring of 1848, after the decisive victory gained by the opposition, under the lead of Kossuth, over the Austrian government, he accepted the portfolio of justice in the Batthyanyi ministry. While holding this office he attempted a complete judicial reform, but the scheme was interrupted by the war. The ministry resigning on the outbreak of open hostilities against Austria, he retired to private life. In December he was a member of the unsuccessful deputation sent to the camp of Windischgratz for the negotiation of peace, was arrested by that commander, but soon released, and took up his abode at Pesth. After rejecting various overtures made him by the Vienna cabinet with the object of gaining him over as a mediator between the dynasty and the Hungarian people, he reappeared in the public arena toward the close of 1860, after the reverses in Italy and financial embarrassments had compelled Francis Joseph to promise the restoration of the national liberties.

Elected by the city of Pesth to the diet of 1861, he was acknowledged as the leader in that assembly. But his efforts to bring about a satisfactory solution of the national difficulties on the basis of the laws of 1848 failed, and in August, 1861, the diet was dissolved. A new diet was convoked late in 1865, but was prorogued shortly before the outbreak of the Austrian war with Prussia in 1866. After its disastrous termination the national demands of Hungary, as formulated by Deak, then again representative from Pesth, were readily assented to by Beust, the new chief minister of Francis Joseph, and thus the dualistic basis was created on which the Austro-Hungarian empire now rests. (See Austria, and Hungary.) Deak, who had throughout evinced equal firmness and moderation, now became the leader of the majority in the diet, which was favorable to the Hungarian cabinet formed by Andrassy, though occasionally opposing it upon minor points. He has since continued nearly in the same attitude toward the cabinets of Lonyay (formed in 1871) and Szlavy (in 1872), having been successively reelected by the city of Pesth.