Is fascism returning to Romania?
One of the big surprises of the Romanian elections in December 2020, was the stunning success of the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR), a new party on the…
Posts by tag
romania
10 posts
When All Your Friends Are Fascists
The first-person perspective on the spread of fascism provided in “Rhinoceros” is valuable because it shows how disorienting it is for non-fascists. The playwright Eugene Ionesco spent most of his…
How Democracies Collapse: Lessons From Interwar Romania
Tracing the rise of right-wing authoritarianism in interwar Romania reveals a number of key factors that are too familiar for comfort. Almost every state in Europe had a parliamentary democracy…
Review of Victor Neumann, ed., The Banat of Timişoara: A European Melting Pot (London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers, 2019), xvi+495pp.
The first time I visited Timişoara, in 2002, it looked drab, depressed and wrecked by Ceauşescu’s appalling communist regime. Today, a remarkable transformation has taken place; with the city on…
Within the Romanian Orthodox Church, Strong Fascist Currents Still Exist
Far from the whole of the church supports extreme right-wing platforms, but ethnonationalism does have a long history in Romanian Orthodoxy. In a recent book evaluating the prospects for Romanian…
Love in a Romanian Fascist Movement
In a fascinating CARR Insights Blog last year, Cynthia Miller-Idriss and Daisy Gebbia-Richards argued that ‘love drives extremism’ because the close communities provided by extremist organisations meet activists’ need ‘for…
A Fascist Christmas: Romania 1940
When leaders of the National Legionary State celebrated Christmas in 1940, it was with a feeling of exuberation and victory. Since it was founded in 1927, the fascist Legion of…
Romania Puts Homophobia on the Ballot
Had the referendum passed, this would have made Romania the 15th European country to include a ban on same-sex marriage in its constitution — eighth in the EU. It is…
When Liberals Have Had Enough: A New Wave of Protests in Romania
Whereas the stereotypical pro-government voter consumes partisan local media; by contrast, the stereotypical protester in Bucharest owns an iPhone and reads international newspapers online. Over the weekend of 10-12 August…
Are Right-Wing Voters Being Duped? Or, Why Sane People Voted Fascist.
It is one of life’s great mysteries why other people vote the way they do, particularly when their favored candidates embrace policies that appear so obviously detrimental to them. ‘The…