The investigation of those who advocate anti-Semitic personalities in history actually aims to eliminate Romanian nationalism and patriotism, according to a false narrative that emerged after the authorities started enforcing the law that bans fascist, Legionnaire, racist or xenophobic organizations and symbols.
NEWS: Rhetorical anti-Semitism or anti-Semitism as a diversion = I did not coin these terms: they were formulated by politicians, historians, writers and journalists from the interwar period until today.
On June 15, in Arad, there was a hearing in the lawsuit against the city of Iași, which placed a bust of Octavian Goga on a street corner. Next Monday, on June 29, also in Arad and with the same plaintiff, there will be a lawsuit against a village in Arad County that named a street with three houses after Nicolae C. Paulescu (who discovered the insulin in 1921, but who also founded the political doctrine of Christian nationalism). (Interestingly enough, the complaint was not made against a top-notch opponent such as the "Nicolae Paulescu" National Institute of Diabetes, Nutrition and Metabolic Diseases in Bucharest, for instance (which bears his name) but against a tiny village town hall 🙂 — because what matters, in the event of a success, is creating a precedent, which would also force the national institution to change its name). Against the name of the "Octavian Goga" County Library in Cluj, one lawsuit is blocked but a new one has been filed. Another court case was opened for a statue of the poet Octavian Goga in Alba Iulia. It seems there is another lawsuit in Timișoara against Radu Gyr and another in Odorheiul Secuiesc against József Nyirő (“the apostle of the Szeklers”).
A careful analysis shows that the TRUE TARGET PURSUED by this campaign IS NOT ANTI-SEMITISM - BECAUSE ROMANIANS ARE NOT AND HAVE NEVER BEEN ANTI-SEMITIC! DO NOT MISTAKE ANTI-JEWISH ATTITUDES, which have existed since the dawn of time, everywhere in the world, FOR ANTI-SEMITISM, WHICH IS SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and is not inherent to us. THE TRUE TARGET IS NATIONALISM, WHICH IS MEANT TO BE STIFLED.
Because Nationalism is the defining trait that connects all these personalities who have had a court file opened against them, not anti-Semitism. It’s just that, right now, nationalism is an undesirable policy for the UE.
I once argued it is curious how Octavian Goga (and more recently Nicolae C. Paulescu) are criticized for their association with A. C. Cuza, but the latter, considered the “patriarch of Romanian anti-Semitism”, the one who introduced the swastika into Romanian politics, virtually faces no public criticism whatsoever! And, by all accounts,... rightfully so! 🙂
Countless testimonies from the era attest that A. C. Cuza'S ANTI-SEMITISM WAS JUST A RUSE. (...) But one needs to reflect on the fact that the true idea whose elimination from the public space is desired through this campaign carried out against statues, names of streets and institutions is not anti-Semitic extremism, but nationalism = the consciousness of identity and the pride of belonging to a national community, both for the majority of Romanians (including those from the Republic of Moldova who, from another point of view, are urged to want “statehood”, not a unification with Romania) as well as for certain minorities (Hungarians, Szeklers, etc.). It would also be interesting to know if those who are used as tools or as a maneuverable mass in this undertaking realize the true purpose they serve.
NARRATIVE: Romanians are not anti-Semitic, and anti-Semitism is just a ruse aimed at eliminating nationalism and certain prominent personalities of Romania.
PURPOSE: The narrative drastically downplays the actions and the role that “Romania's personalities” had in consolidating the anti-Semitic cult, in raising or consolidating the Legionnaire Movement, or in amplifying support/admiration for fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany.
The law in Romania bans the promotion of anti-Semitism. The scientific and cultural activity of certain historical personalities does not justify bypassing the law
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In fact, the authorities are simply enforcing legislation that has existed for decades in Romania, but which was largely ignored. This legislation was unknown to a large part of society, which did not know, for instance, that it is forbidden to advocate war criminals such as the former anti-Semitic marshal Ion Antonescu, whom many view as a hero, but who coordinated the Holocaust in Romania.
Law 51/1991 labeled Legionnarism as a threat to national security, and 11 years later, GED 31/2002 was passed to outlaw organizations, symbols and acts of a fascist, Legionnaire, racist or xenophobic nature and the promotion of the cult of individuals guilty of committing crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
In interwar Romania, there were numerous personalities with important contributions to science, economics, literature, etc., who simultaneously were involved in editorial and political activities (some were members of Parliament and the Government) in which they expressed, promoted and put into practice anti-Semitic, neo-Legionnaire, and xenophobic ideas and policies. Contributions to other fields do not mean that the law should no longer be applied in the case of those individuals.
Octavian Goga, Nicolae Paulescu, and A.C. Cuza: virulent antisemites, active members of the political far right
Octavian Goga promoted a radical strand of anti-Semitism, and his short term in office was the first moment in Romania's history when anti-Semitism became official state policy, translated into discriminatory laws targeting the Jewish minority.
Goga's discourse radicalized after World War I, and Jews became the main “problem” of Romanians in his rhetoric. In 1935, Goga joined forces with A.C. Cuza and formed the National Christian Party, which demanded the restriction of Jews' civil rights, their elimination from several professional categories, and the revocation of Jewish citizenship.
Although the party had obtained only 9% of the votes, King Carol II appointed Goga as Prime Minister. During his 44 days of governance, through the laws he passed, Goga led to the revocation of citizenship for over 220,000 Jews. He eliminated Jews from public administration, subjected them to forms of administrative and financial harassment and limited their right to work. All these actions made Jews vulnerable to the atrocities that were to come.
Moreover, Octavian Goga said that the existence of a large number of Jews in Romania posed a “threat to the country” and sought a “resolution to the Jewish question” possibly through their concentration in a separate territory, far from Romania.
Nicolae Paulescu is commonly considered in Romania to be the true discoverer of insulin, who was “robbed” of the recognition and, implicitly, the Nobel Prize (awarded to scientists Frederick Grant Banting and John James Rickard Macleod) he rightfully deserved. However, the truth is more nuanced (Paulescu did indeed manage to isolate insulin, but his method had been used previously and he failed to reach a purified form that could be used to treat diabetes, as the Nobel winners did).
Beyond his scientific merits, however, Paulescu was a radical anti-Semitic theorist, and his editorial and political activity strongly influenced the far-right in Romania. Unlike other contemporary intellectuals who only occasionally made anti-Semitic remarks, Paulescu had developed an entire coherent anti-Semitic doctrine, spread through books and articles in which he openly claimed that Jews are a threat to the Romanian nation, that a Jewish conspiracy exists against Christians, and that Jews represent an inferior race, different from other people (Philosophical Physiology. The Hospital, the Koran, the Talmud, the Kahal and Freemasonry, The Degeneration of the Yid Race, etc.). Paulescu’s publications use extremist language and some of the most violent formulations in interwar Romanian political literature.
On the political front, Paulescu founded the National Christian Union together with A.C. Cuza, and then contributed to the establishment of the National-Christian Defense League (LANC), both organizations having an explicitly antisemitic political program that demanded the restriction of Jews' rights simply because they were Jews, and their ideology later developed and formed the basis of the Romanian far-right.
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu himself, who was a disciple of A.C. Cuza, cited Paulescu and emphasized the impact he had on him.
Alexandru C. Cuza (A.C. Cuza) is considered by historians to be the main or one of the main theorists of political anti-Semitism in Romania, who laid the foundations of the Romanian far-right in the interwar period.
Cuza built his entire political doctrine around what he called the “Jewish problem”. Much like Goga, he argued that Jews represented the main danger to the development of the Romanian nation and demanded the drastic restriction of their civil and political rights.
Cuza combined traditional Orthodox Christian anti-Semitism with modern racial theories that led to the “conclusion” that Jews, a race distinct from others, are incapable of integration, and this could not change even if they converted to Christianity, because their Jewishness was “biologically” determined , so the only solution to resolve the “problem” was their expulsion.
In 1923, Cuza founded the National-Christian Defense League (LANC), the first Romanian party organized around an explicitly anti-Semitic program, which used the swastika as a symbol before it became the official emblem of Nazi Germany, organized campaigns against Jews and demanded amendments to legislation to eliminate their rights.
Historians consider that Cuza's radical anti-Semitism served as a source for the Legionnarism later founded by Codreanu, except that A.C. Cuza pursued the persecution of Jews through laws, while Codreanu did so through violence.
Romanian authorities ignored anti-extremism legislation for decades and turned a blind eye to deviations until Călin Georgescu reached the second round of the presidential election
BACKGROUND: Despite the existence of legislation banning extremist ideologies, anti-Semitism and the cult of those who promoted them, Romanian authorities chose for decades to turn a blind eye to these things. Veridica showed here and here how, after the Revolution, the Legionnaire Movement was rekindled in Romania under the broad tolerance of the Romanian authorities, who not only ignored the phenomenon of the “old” and “new” Legionnaires, but also indirectly encouraged the extremist discourse of the politicians of the time (ex: president Ion Iliescu awarded Vadim Tudor the “Star of Romania”).
An analysis carried out by Info Sud-Est and G4Media showed that prosecutors closed 96% of the settled cases regarding the banning of racism, Legionnarism and the promotion of war criminals under GED 31/2002, according to information transmitted by the General Prosecutor's Office in 2023.
Conversely, the pilgrimage of neo-Legionnaires to Tâncăbești, where Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the founder of the Legionnaire Movement, was killed, had become a tradition. Meanwhile, public space was flooded with images of the Nazi / Legionnaire salute at Codreanu’s wayside cross.
Prosecutors and police officers started to take notice of violations of GED 31/2002 only after the pro-Russian Călin Georgescu (supported by an entire underground neo-Legionnaire, antisemitic, anti-Western and pro-Russian network that operated primarily on social media) was propelled into the second round of the November 2024 presidential election with the help of TikTok algorithms.
Only then did the authorities open their eyes wide to the neo-Legionnaire cult consolidated after 1989, every year, through meetings, training sessions, camps, pilgrimages to symbols of the Legionnaire movement leaders, etc., all with the tacit tolerance of the authorities and the support of the Romanian Orthodox Church (BOR).
Exponents of the sovereignist movement promote extremist interwar figures and severely downplay the gravity of Legionnaire and racist propaganda
Starting 2024, authorities also started to identify people who participated in the pilgrimage at Codreanu’s wayside cross and made the Legionnaire salute, a fact interpreted by a large part of society not as a natural enforcement of the law, but as a “neo-communist” persecution “by globalists” or as a “persecution of Christians” and “national values”, or as an attempt to “eradicate nationalism and patriotism”.
Such narratives are increasingly commonplace in the rhetoric of extremist factions in Romania in the context where the authorities enforce the law more often and carry out searches, detentions or seize Legionnaire propaganda materials from people who advocate war criminals, cultivate anti-Semitism or promote Legionnaire narratives. Such actions were not common or frequent before 2024.
Claudiu Târziu (whom Veridica showed was tied to to the new Legionnaire movement after the Revolution, the co-founder of the extremist AUR party and the founder of the Conservative Action Party) also downplayed the gravity of the Legionnaire and racist propaganda allegations prosecutors charged lawyer Mihai Rapcea with. Rapcea was later detained.
Târziu published a nearly two-minute video on social media in which he criticized the “Vexler law”, which strengthens GED 31/2002 and toughens penalties, describing it as a “persecution against those who cultivate national identity” and defends the “victims” who merely “have crosses and books by Eminescu and Goga in their homes”.
Târziu also referred to the case of several young people detained in Brașov, whom he called “16-year-old children who had crosses in their homes”, but he forgot to mention that the operation in question targeted a group of young people, aged 16 to 22, accused of joining a fascist organization and distributing photo and video materials online containing Nazi insignia “designed to promote the Legionnaire movement”, according to the official press release of the Brașov County Police Inspectorate, cited by Agerpres.
Moreover, the video published by the Police and picked up by the media in Brașov, shows how, during the searches, law enforcement officers found Nazi materials, images with the Nazi salute, symbols associated with the SS, including the Nazi “lightning bolts”, the official emblem of the SS, or the “skull”, the emblem of the most radical Nazi division.
Thus, Elena Chiabur's statements are part of a broad campaign orchestrated by “sovereignists” who deny the Holocaust, downplay it or who deride or want to erase the anti-Semitic / Nazi / racist actions and ideology of personalities from the medical, scientific and literature fields, etc., of the 19th and 20th centuries. They ridicule anti-Semitism or deny it (“Romanians are not anti-Semitic”) and abuse an exacerbated nationalism that delivers a truncated truth about Romanians in modern and contemporary history.
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