Students Don the Green Shirt. The Roots of Romanian Fascism in the Anti-Semitic Student Movements of the 1920s (original) (raw)
Related papers
Both Form and Substance: Romanians and Political Antisemitism in a European Context
Holocaust. Studii şi cercetări. vol. XIII, issue 1(14), 2021, 2021
nineteenth-and twentieth-century romanian public discourse was obsessed with the question of romania's place in Europe. Whereas some elements of romanian culture might have reflected European forms without their substance (forme fără fond), between roughly 1880 and 1944, political antisemitism had both form and substance. romanian anti semites were at the forefront of developments within European antisemitism and saw it as a way of demonstrating their Europeanness. anti-Jewish rhetoric, laws, and violence during this period should thus be discussed as part of a broad transnational story of political antisemitism and not in terms of romanian exceptionalism. This article situates the origins of antisemitic political organising in romania alongside similar developments in austria, Germany, and France, showing that the romanian antisemites were well connected with prominent antisemites abroad. Just as antisemitism entered urban politics during this period, it also shaped rural violence, which was provoked by the sort of propaganda and rumour-mongering seen in the russian pogroms of 1881 and the kishinev pogrom of 1903. In 1922, romanian students protested to limit the number of Jews enrolled at universities, as did nationalist students in austria, czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, latvia, Poland, and elsewhere. romanians corresponded with antisemitic students abroad and employed the same language, repertoires, and frames that were popular elsewhere in Europe.
STUDIA IUDAICA ARADENSIS, 2017
Paideia -The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden Problema antisemitismului în România nu este una endemică secolului al XX-lea. Termenul "problema evreiască" a fost utilizat şi reinterpretat de partizanii fascismului şi antisemitismului pentru a-i putea include într-o categorie specială pe membrii comunităţii evreieşti din România, făcând mai uşoară ostracizarea acestora. Această tendinţă de stigmatizare a evreilor a fost răspândită în Europa de Est şi a presupus clasificarea politică şi socială a evreilor ca duşmani ai naţiunii, prin crearea şi propagrea miturilor de sorginte naţionalistă. Acest articol creează o legatură de natură istorică între antisemitismul de secol al XIX-lea din Vechiul Regat şi noile forme de antisemitism prevalente în ultimul secol. Cuvinte cheie: antisemitism, istorie politica, fascism, nationalism, mituri istorice. "Antisemitism, a secular nineteenth-century ideologywhich in name, though not in argument, was unknown before the 1870'sand religious Jew-hatred, inspired by the mutually hostile antagonism of two conflicting creeds, are obviously not the same; and even the extent to which the former derives its arguments and emotional appeal from the latter is open to question." (Hannah Arendt 1 )
Path to the Holocaust: Fascism and Anti-Semitism in Interwar Romania
S:I.M.O.N. (Shoah: Intervention, Methods, Documentation), 2014
This article outlines the principal directions of my research: It focuses on the interplay of antisemitism and fascism in the ideology of the legionary movement in interwar Romania as well as on the virtual consensus on antisemitism that was established in the 1930s as a result of the support for the movement received from most of the representatives of the ‘new generation’ of Romanian intellectuals. This consensus was pivotal in desensitising the general population towards the plight of Romanian Jews and making it possible for the discriminatory measures to gradually escalate into outright policies of extermination. Thus my research demonstrates the responsibility held by the legionary movement even though they were not directly involved in the Romanian wartime Holocaust perpetrated by the Antonescu regime: The legionary movement nevertheless promoted an antisemitic discourse that was much more extreme than that of all its predecessors and contemporaries, advocating a radical exclusion with genocidal overtones. Moreover, while being as ideological and abstract as its Nazi counterpart, legionary antisemitism posited religion rather than race as the basis for the exclusion of the Jews in line with the ideology of a movement that presented itself as ‘spiritual’ and ‘Christian’. The legionary exclusion based on religion proved as violent and murderous as the one based on race, both before and during the movement‘s time in power. As such, the evidence from the Romanian case study can serve to nuance and even challenge existing interpretations that identify only racist antisemitism as genocidal.
Nationalism and Anti-Semitism in an Independent Romania
Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
The history of antisemitism in Romania is strictly connected to the religious and cultural framework of those territories, as well as to their political integration from the age of emancipation and independence to the establishment of a Greater Romania after World War I. This article aims to analyse the different intersections of this historical process and the continuity between the old forms of anti-judaism and their re-interpretation according to modernist dynamics during the first half of the Twentieth-Century. The Romanian case illustrates the transformation and re-adapting of old religious prejudice in new doctrines of xenophobia, nationalism and antisemitism.
Anti-Semitism in Romania: Historical Legacies, Contemporary Challenges
ECMI Working Paper 81, 2014
The present article offers a brief survey of the modes of manifestation of anti-Semitism in Romania, from the time of the establishment of the state in the 19th century and until present day. While aware of the inherent limitations of attempting to carry out such an endeavour in the space of a short article, we believe that adopting such a broad historical perspective allows for observing patterns of continuity and change that could help explain some of the peculiarities of the Romanian varieties of anti-Semitism, as well as draw attention to the importance of a phenomenon that was central (albeit to varying degrees in different historical periods) to Romania’s modern history, and that is still visible in the country today. In doing so, the author aims both to provide a survey of the existing literature on the subject for the English-speaking audience, as well as to point out some of the gaps in the literature which call for further research on the subject. Finally, while the article will be limited to the case-study of Romania, some of the patterns of prejudice explored in its pages display clear parallels with the situation in other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, while others point to context-specific particularities that render the Romanian case distinct from other countries in the region.
18th Annual World Association for the Study of Nations Convention, April 18-20, 2013, Columbia University, NY, USA
Anti-Semitism is defined at the psychological level as a cognitive and social emotional normative structure which facilitates aggressive behaviors by providing a justification for them and by providing a social context, connecting the individual to a cultural/religious value system. One of the main functions of anti-Semitism is to mitigate the cognitive dissonance created by the animosity toward Jews, the chosen people. In some ways anti-Semitism acquires the characteristics of a defense mechanism: it functions reflexively, mostly outside awareness, but unlike a defense mechanism it instigates action and justifies it. Anti-Semitic beliefs are energized by moral anger, which, in turn, activates the Contempt-Anger-Disgust set of moral beliefs. From a social point of view, anti-Semitism is seen as a self- referential and self- justifying group of axioms supported by memes, the transmission and propagation of which is facilitated by moral ambiguity relative to the Jews .Examples of possible anti-Semitic memes are provided. The paper links the resurgence and persistence of anti-Semitic beliefs in Romania to the special role played by anti-Semitism in the formation of Romanian national identity and to the consequences of being unable to acknowledge and publicly discuss during the Communist dictatorship Romania’s participation in the Holocaust, and anti-Semitism in general. The factors shaping the public sphere and the public dialogue are analyzed from a social, psychological and cultural/historical perspective. The main social factors are positive vs. negative liberty, open vs. closed morality, and fragmentation vs. integration. The main psychological factors are the sharing of the symbolic universe, obedience to authority, psychic doubling and numbing, self-deception and the emergence of a false self. The role played by the characteristics of the post- communist Romanian society in the resurgence and maintenance and propagation of anti-Semitic beliefs is analyzed as well, with emphasis on the impact of the adaptive strategies of different groups (active and passive opponents and supporters of the extinct totalitarian regime.) Key words: public sphere, public dialogue, positive liberty, negative liberty, symbolic universe, doubling, self-deception, self-censorship, memes, national identity, anti-Semitism
Tradition, Nationalism and Holocaust Memory: Reassessing Antisemitism in Post-Communist Romania
Plural. History, Culture, Society, 2022
This article is a re-evaluation of the Holocaust memory in the contemporary Romanian society. It shows that from its inception Romania's nation-building process went hand in hand with antisemitism. Furthermore, it points out that after 1989 the country's sense of frustration at its communist past managed to obscure the memory of the Holocaust. Despite Romania's government recognition of the country's involvement in the Holocaust (2004), a wholehearted acknowledgement of the issue remains improbable at the general level of Romania's society. A new law meant to counteract Holocaust denial was adopted in Romania in 2015. However, the country has proved ever since that it has barely come to terms with its historical legacy. *
Slovo , 2009
The period between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century is one that witnessed the rise and spread of anti-Semitism throughout Europe. This paper attempts a historical analysis of the development of anti-Semitism in Romania and a comparison with the case of Hungary in the period between 1866 and 1913. Such a comparison is interesting as the process of Jewish emancipation in the two countries could not have been more different: while in the Romanian principalities Jews were almost completely excluded from political life, and faced important restrictions in all areas of activity, in Hungary they enjoyed full civil and political rights. As a result, anti-Semitism in these countries took different forms as well. In Hungary, anti-Semitism is usually viewed as a reaction to emancipation, while in Romania it accompanies the offi cial policy of discrimination and exclusion. As a result, this paper follows the development of legislation dealing with the Jewish populations in the two countries, and tries to challenge the common perception of anti-Semitism as a phenomenon appearing as a reaction of the majority population to Jewish emancipation. This comparative discussion is carried out taking into account the different historical contexts of the two neighbouring lands and their impact on the situation of the Jews.