THE GUARDIAN: Economic uncertainty and polarisation are a potent cocktail that extremist politicians such as Cǎlin Georgescu thrive on
In a forest outside Bucharest, a woman cradled her infant in one arm while raising the other in a Nazi salute. She was one of about 70 people who gathered on 30 November last year to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, a leader of Romania’s interwar fascist Legionary Movement and head of its paramilitary wing, the Iron Guard.
Codreanu and his ally, Ion Antonescu – Romania’s virulently antisemitic wartime dictator – were central figures in the country’s Holocaust history. Codreanu was assassinated in 1938 and Antonescu was executed as a war criminal in 1946.
Yet, in today’s Romania, their legacy is being posthumously resurrected as part of the same nationalist pride movement that has driven the meteoric rise of far-right pro-Russia candidate Cǎlin Georgescu. » | Andrei Popoviciu | Tuesday, March 11, 2025
