Report on collective memory practices concerning the right-wing
A Restrictive History
Dana Dolghin,
PATRIR1
In 2020, the unexpected triumph of the new AUR Party (Alliance for the Union of Romanians) in the Parliamentary elections in Romania triggered controversies. This is a nationalist organisation that often uses far-right notions of exclusion and purity46 and their sudden ascent triggered questions about the profiles of AUR voters and avenues by which this new movement attracts voters. Although much less visible, it also stirred memory debates. Because representatives of AUR had glorified authoritarian interwar figures responsible for the Holocaust, such as Marshal Ion Antonescu, leaders and actions of the Romanian Iron Guard movement, main far-right organization active in Romania in the years leading up to World War II and disbanded in 1941, there was a general concern with the lack of critical memory of the far-right.47 Some of its members insist that the histories of the Holocaust or anti-Semitism of the nationalist movements of the past are mere exaggerations, or “minor histories”.48 In fact, AUR even emulate their ideas about a “pure” Romanian nation.49 The party stokes a narrative of exceptionalism of the Romanian “nation” proper to right-wing authoritarianism that argues that historical conditions, geopolitical insecurity and economic conditions excuse any conditions of racism or discrimination. Instead, ideas about regaining sovereignty and national pride are peddled to make Eurosceptic narratives acceptable to a largely young audience of this political party.50 AUR generally rejects accusations of having dangerous allegiances with the past Romanian far-right and contemporary far-right movements by emphasising memorial positions which are explicitly anticommunist and discuss values freedom and “dignity”.51
The success of AUR triggered a memorial debate on historical genealogies and taxonomies of extremism in the public Romanian space, and about how memorial narratives contribute to mainstreaming of far-right ideologies. On the one hand, commentators such as historian (and prominent member of the Liberal Party) Andrei Muraru were adamant in labelling the ideology and often used the term “neo-fascist” to describe the organisation and its messages, and, rhetorically, to showcase the their lineage to the old far-right movements in Romania. 52 Together with other historians, journalists and politicians, he has spearheaded a discussion about the fascist allegiances of the group, social emulations of the past far-right leaders such as Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the old popular leader of the Iron Guard movement and his appeals to social acumen and popularity.53 On the other, readings such as Muraru’s were challenged by a vocal group of journalists and historians who consider it historically inaccurate to apply the label of fascism to the Romanian context and unsuitable to define local dynamics.54 It echoes a long- standing discourse in Romanian historiography, perpetuated, for instance by Dan Berindei, a well – known conservative historian, who emphasised that the Iron Guard could not really be integrated into a transnational “fascist” context since the movement was solely the result of local dynamics.55
In a region like Central and Eastern Europe, where antifascism was co-opted as an ideological narrative of leftist authoritarianism and was instrumental in the consolidation of the communist regime, this is a polarized discussion which has rarely produced widespread reflection.56 The distrust and indeed reluctance to consider “antifascism” to be anything but a Soviet propaganda narrative for the “popular” democracy meant that the opposition to the right was not really a factor in democratic activism. In fact, antifascism has been overshadowed by the political debates about democracy that followed the Second World War everywhere in Europe57, and condemning or dealing with the far-right history lost its urgency after the 1960s, as argues historian Jay Winter.58 It lost its relevance for definitions of democracy with the advancement of the Cold War.59 For Central and Eastern Europe, anticommunism, rather than antifascism, spurred a fight for democracy, and usages of “fascism” or “antifascism” have consistently emerged as controversial and presented as outdated in Romania.60 It was a Cold War position that emphasised repressions of religions, and individual enterprise that often de-ideologized the right-wing alternatives.61 The insistence on freedom and sovereignty, through anticommunism, has been the key of this dynamic.62 For instance, the Iron Guard’s righteousness and Orthodox nationalism has superseded the racism, homogeneity and masculinity imagery perpetuated by the movement.63
A discussion about how and why the historical far-right continues to be seen as a benign presence in Romania never really consolidated in both popular discussion and academia.64 The lack of an appropriate language has weighted down on the memorial culture of the past victims of the far-right (primarily the Iron Guard movement) and the rationale of its political violence. Historian Marius Oprea, a prominent advocate of memorial retributions, lamented the lack of “incisive debates” on the history of far-right movements or their pull regionally or nationally.65 Yet the lack of critical awareness of how far-right ideas “normalised” into mainstream political languages and cultural discourses is a global concern.66 More recently, young, and fresh-faced politicians are taking up the case of a menaced “identity” caused by globalisation, such as the AdF in Germany, Chega in Portugal, and Forum voor Democratie in the Netherlands.67 The movements and parties work with notions of superiority and hierarchy in society, particularly in relation to minorities, and help mainstream their politics and bring a sense of normality (or inevitability) to the re-emergence of the radical right.68 Some of these also have memorial components: minimisation of the Holocaust,69 challenging histories of political violence of certain minorities or denying their memorial visibility altogether.70
Romanian recent debates are not an exception in this “normalization” of the radical right but they are in fact for region, where the acceptance on past far-right ideologies and memorial silences on victims have been discussed in relation to the Chetniks in former Yugoslavia or the Ukrainian OUN, which have often been eulogized and hold important footing in contemporary politics.71 The OUN, the Ukrainian nationalist and far-right interwar organization continues to be a popular source of identity and solidarity in Ukraine.72 Similar to the dynamics on the Iron Guard, members of the interwar far right are hailed as popular democracy symbols, uncorrupted democracies and national figures of self-attainment in Croatia, Poland and Ukraine.73
There are several memorial tropes which have been primarily discussed in this mainstreaming of the far-right (and implicitly of the antifascist angle). Whitewashing their political views through their “anticommunist resistance” has been a potent mechanism of airbrushing biographies of members of these organizations.74 For instance, Octav Bjoza, former President of the Association of Former Political Prisoners (of communism), has continuously refused to incriminate members of the Guard and argued these were fighters for freedom.75 When asked about his camaraderie with members of the Guard while in prison, he apologetically queried whether that should still matter in the face of the context of the 1950s.76 It also happened more publicly, for instance in 2010, when Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu (1926-1993), a member of the Iron Guard and lifelong advocate of the movement was the protagonist of the internationally praised documentary Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man (Portret al Luptătorului la Tinerețe), focusing on the anticommunist resistance in Romania’s Făgăraş Mountains following the Second World War. As the movie made its way through European cinemas, the Elie Wiesel Holocaust Institute in Bucharest cautioned that the film’s narrative decontextualises Ogoranu’s pre-war anti-Semitic biography and that Ogoranu “was part of the Romanian Iron Guard and a militant for this fascist- like organisation, with both anti-Semite and racist undertones”.77 Yet the director of the documentary, Constantin Popescu, played down all these controversies and argued the movie “was not a hagiography” of Ogoranu but that he hoped the film avoided new controversies regarding recent political history.78 Faced with criticism, Popescu defended his position as being impartial.
The religious elements also shaped this silence. For instance, biographies of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the movement, frequently struggle to spell out and identify the radical right ideological message of the movement, because he perpetuated a mobilizing tone.
Notes
1 Some passages rework earlier work in the author’s PhD thesis. Unpublished.
46 The group identifies itself as anti-corruption, socially minded and anticommunist and sceptical of the impositions from Brussels. Various of its representatives have shown disdain for any type of constraint of xenophobic tones, such as writer Sorin Lavric who questions gender equity and human rights as “political correctness” and Claudiu Târziu who openly commemorates far-right historical references (https://claudiutarziu.ro/declaratie-politica-in-senatul-romaniei-un-deceniu-de-la-urcarea la-ceruri-a- parintelui-iustin-parvu/. More generally, they fit into a European context where young, and fresh-faced politicians are taking up the case of a menaced “identity” caused by globalization; see, for example, the AdF in Germany, Chega in Portugal, and Forum voor Democratie in the Netherlands. The movements and parties work with notions of superiority and hierarchy in society, particularly in relation to minorities, and that have helped mainstream their politics and bring a sense of normality (or inevitability) to the re- emergence of the radical right. (Carlos Morgado Braz, “CHEGA! A sceptre of the mainstream Portuguese parties’ disaggregation or a spectre of fascism?”, Populism Studies, 2023, https://www.populismstudies.org/chega-a-sceptre-of-the-mainstream portuguese-parties-disaggregation- or-a-spectre-of-fascism/).
47 The Iron Guard, with its nationalist, entrepreneurial and youth. See Roland Clark, Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist Activism in Interwar Romania; Raul Cârstocea, “Building a Fascist Romania: Voluntary Work Camps as Mobilisation Strategies of the Legionary Movement in Interwar Romania”, Fascism, 6, 2 (2017), 163–95, https://doi.org/10.1163/22116257-00602002.
48 See https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/aur-noi-afirmatii-scandaloase-istoria holocaustului-o-tema- minora-muraru-partidul-extremist-a-depasit-cadrul-legal 1789607.
49 Magdalena Ulceluse, “The Golden Dawn of Romania?”, Populism Observer, 2021, https://populismobserver.com/2021/03/24/aur-the-golden-dawn-of-romania/. 50 Alexandra Coțofană, “Weaponising the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), Novelties and Continuums in Romania’s Far-Right Political Extremism” in Routledge Handbook of Non- Violent Extremism (London: Routledge, 2023). 51 Sergiu Mișcoiu, Euroscepticismul Româesc, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2021, https://library.fes.de/pdf- files/bueros/bukarest/18433.pdf.
52 A.V.D. ”Deputat PNL: AUR este „o grupare de factură neofascistă”, Digi24 (Bucharest, June 2021). https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/politica/deputat-pnl-aur este-o-grupare-de-factura-neofascista- 1520755.
Last accessed December 5, 2021.
53 Interview Oliver Jens Schmitt, Radio Free Europe,
https://romania.europalibera.org/a/31663221.html.
54 RFi, https://www.rfi.ro/politica-141208-alexandru-muraru-aur-scos-afara-lege. 55 Raul Cîrstocea, “Between Europeanisation and Local Legacies: Holocaust Memory and Contemporary Anti-Semitism in Romania”, East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, 35 (2) 2021, 313–335. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888325420906201,.
56 Griffin, “Studying Fascism”, 1–17; Michael Rothberg and Neil Levi, “Memory Studies in a Moment of Danger”, Memory Studies, 11, 3(2018), 355-367. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698018771868.
57 In the 1950s, fascism was approached cautiously, only so far as it stabilized Western Christian Democracy, and debates over fascism were generally envisaged as a benchmark for definitions of democracy, and historiography adopted this perspective immediately after the Second World War, according to Mark Mazower, “Fascism and Democracy Today: What Use Is the Study of History in the Current Crisis?”, European Law Journal, 22, 3 (2016), 375-385. https://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12176
58 Jay Winter, “Human Rights and European Remembrance” in Aleksandr Etkind, ed., Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 43–58; See also Hugo García, Mercedes Yusta, Xavier Tabet and Cristina Clímaco, “Beyond Revisionism: Rethinking Antifascism in the Twenty-First Century”, in Hugo García, Mercedes Yusta, Xavier Tabet and Cristina Clímaco, eds., Rethinking Antifascism: History, Memory and Politics, 1922 to the Present (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016),
2-19. 59 García, Yusta, Tabet, and Clímaco, “Beyond Revisionism”, 36-39. Furthermore, the life of the far right in postwar Europe continued to blur political lines, as the reassembling of the right in the 1950s, under the leadership of the Italian Social Movement (the MSI) brought together far-right extremists who had been ousted from countries in Western Europe and Eastern European emigres alike, many coming from far-right circles, were there to prove their anticommunist credentials. See Jean-Yves Camus, Nicolas Lebourg, Far- Right Politics in Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017), 23–36.
60 See Paul Nicholas Jackson, “Debate: Donald Trump and Fascism Studies” in Fascism, June 2021.
61 Clark, Images of Crisis, xx
62 Clark, Fascism Activism, XX
63 Clark, Images of Crisis, xx
64 Michael Shafir, “Unacademic Academics”; Alexandru Florian ed., Holocaust Public Memory in Postcommunist Romania, especially “Memory under Construction: Introductory Remarks” (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2018); Mihai I.
Poliec, The Holocaust in the Romanian Borderlands: The Arc of Civilian Complicity (London: Routledge, 2019), 78-82; Mihai Dinu Gheorghiu, “The Iaşi Pogrom in Curzio Malaparte’s Kaputt: Between History and Fiction”, in Valentina
Glajar and Jeanine Teodorescu eds., Local History, Transnational Memory in the Romanian Holocaust (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 47–57.
65 Marius Oprea, “Marius Oprea: Cei Mai Tari Din Europa”, Mediafax, May 19, 2020, https://www.mediafax.ro/editorialistii/comentariu-marius-oprea-cei mai-tari-din-europa-arestarea- legionarilor-in-1948-e-la-noi-zi-nationala-19148962. Last accessed June 5, 2021.
66 Francesco Zavatti, “Making and contesting far right sites of memory. A case study on Romania”, Memory Studies, 14, 5 (2021), 949-970.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698020982054.
67
68 Carlos Morgado Braz, “CHEGA! A sceptre of the mainstream Portuguese parties’ disaggregation or a spectre of fascism?”, Populism Studies, 2023. https://www.populismstudies.org/chega-a-sceptre-of-the- mainstream-portuguese parties-disaggregation-or-a-spectre-of-fascism/).
69 See for instance “ Rewriting the Netherlands’ Past and Future: Thierry Baudet’s Use of Holocaust Analogies during the COVID-19 Pandemic”, Europe Now Journal, https://www.europenowjournal.org/2022/04/28/rewriting-the-netherlands-past-and-future thierry-baudets- use-of-holocaust-analogies-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/. 70 Huub van Baar, “Cultural policy and the governmentalization of Holocaust remembrance in Europe: Romani memory between denial and recognition”, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 17, (1), 2017, 1-17, DOI: 10.1080/10286631003695539.
71 Jelena Đureinović, The Politics of Memory of the Second World War in Contemporary Serbia: Collaboration, Resistance and Retribution (London, Berlin: DeGruyter, 2019), 14-20.
72 Yulia Yurshuk, “Reclaiming the Past, Confronting the Past: OUN–UPA Memory Politics and Nation Building in Ukraine (1991–2016)”, in Julie Fedor, Simon Lewis,
Tatiana Zhurzhenko (eds), War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, London: Palgrave, 2017, 107-137.
73 Subotić, Yellow Star, Red Star, 1–30. Đureinović, “The Politics of Memory“, 25-28. 74 Roland Clark, Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist Activism in Interwar Romania; Raul Cârstocea, “Building a Fascist Romania: Voluntary Work Camps as Mobilisation Strategies of the Legionary Movement in Interwar Romania”, Fascism, 6, 2 (2017), 163–95, https://doi.org/10.1163/22116257-00602002.
75 F.N, “Octav Bjoza, Primul Român Decorat de Iohannis: ‘Legionarii mi-au marcat tot restul vieţii’”,
Frontpress, 2013, https://www.frontpress.ro/octav-bjoza-primul-roman-decorat-de iohannis-legionarii-mi
au-marcat-tot-restul-vietii/. Last accessed March 5, 2019.
76 G.P, “Interview Octav Bjoza”, Gândul, April 1, 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awiOKrTR65U&ab_channel=NTDRomania. Last accessed July 24, 2019.
77 William Totok, “Portretul Luptătorului La Tinereţe” a Stîrnit Controverse La Berlinală”, Deutche Welle, 2010.
https://www.dw.com/ro/portretul-luptătorului-la-tinereţe-a-stîrnit-controverse-la berlinală/a-5255039.Last accessed April 1, 2020.
78 Ibid.