Aurel Onciul

Aurel Onciul (29 February 1864 – 30 September 1921) was a Romanian pro-Austrian political leader in the Austrian Bukovina, prior to its union with the Kingdom of Romania.

He was born in Vicovu de Sus, now in Suceava County, Romania, and graduated with a law degree from the University of Vienna.

He collaborated with Iancu Flondor, a boyar of Storozhynets (the other famous politician in Bukovina), and tried to appeal to a social-democratic oriented segment of rural population, clergy, and rural teachers, as leader of the Democratic Peasants' Party.

Accused of machiavellianism, Onciul failed to attract the support of intellectuals, who were more concerned with the national question at the time, after the failure of the Ausgleich in 1909.

With Romanian troops securing the region, Flondor called on a General Congress of Bukovina, where members of various ethnicities, except Ruthenian, decided on an unconditional union with the Kingdom of Romania.