500 Lei Iuliu Maniu

Iuliu Maniu led the National Peasants' Party through interwar Romania with enough stubbornness to frustrate both King Carol II and, ultimately, the postwar communist regime that imprisoned him. He died in Sighet Prison in 1953, somewhere between 79 and 80 years old, after years of deliberate neglect — the exact circumstances remain disputed. The Romanian state's decision to honor him in gold reflects a broader rehabilitation of figures the communist era spent decades erasing.