Anti-Semitic Literature: The Conservative Heritage: Ion Heliade Rădulescu; Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu; Mihai Eminescu; Ioan Slavici; Octavian Goga; Nae Ionescu; Mircea Eliade

Anti-Racist Propaganda: The Extreme Right Movement and its Legacy: Nicolae Iorga; Alexandru C. Cuza; Octavian Goga; Nicolae Paulescu; Corneliu Z. Codreanu

Conclusions

Until the end of the First World War the Romanian Kingdom was one of the two European countries, the other being Russia, in which the citizenship of Jewish inhabitants was not recognized. This in spite of international pressure of European governments and despite the very active lobby of all Jewish associations concerned with the juridical situation of Romanian Jewry. After the war, due to the firm position of the Great Powers, the Romanian government was compelled to offer full citizenship to all its subjects irrespective of their religion. It seemed that the “Israelite question” was over, as the Hungarian minority became a much more important issue for Greater Romania than the Jewish minority. Yet in the twenties and thirties, a new wave of anti-Semitism was upheld by the far right movements and student fascist organizations. Thereafter, the violence of the Romanian Holocaust appeared  to confirm the apparently very long Romanian tradition of organizing and disseminating hatred against the Jews. Nowadays, it has become commonplace in the scholarship on Romanian anti-Semitism to consider the history of this phenomenon as starting in the early nineteenth century and, having very consistent social roots and cultural memory, as lasting uninterrupted until the present.

My research proposal is concerned with the intellectual sources of Romanian anti-Semitism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In the wake of my previous research in the Romanian and Hungarian libraries, and subsequently during my present research at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, I have acknowledged that the problem of Romanian anti-Semitism is far from being the expression of a simple and lineal popular prejudice and social discontent against the Jews triggered by the nationalist propaganda of certain political activists. The political exploitation of these Judaeophobic attitudes had different ingredients and directions corresponding to different periods. In other words, in the late nineteenth century a new cultural current emerged in Romania, a current that paralleled similar phenomena in other European countries such as Germany and France. This cultural trend deserves a particular attention because it forms the background of the anti-Semitic mass movements from the interwar period onwards. The origins, the forefathers of this current and the way in which it gained strength and vitality constitute the subject of my research.

I have discovered two useful distinctions that have helped me to define the topic of my research. One is offered by Sigurt Scheichlich who distinguishes a) personal prejudice b) a Kulturkritik of the modern world with many anti-Jewish components and c) anti-Semitic mass movements and their racist ideology. The second distinction is offered by Shulamit Volkov and is between anti-emancipatory Judaeophobia, blended with a certain administrative hostility and brutality, and anti-Semitism as a system of universal explanation, a cultural code that provided a sign of cultural identity or a means of belonging to a specific cultural camp. Bearing in mind these two distinctions, it seems that by the end of the nineteenth century and as a result of discontent caused by a radical process of modernization, a certain creativity was employed in criticizing modern society. As the most visible successful social group benefiting from this process, the Jews became the primary epitomes of modernity.

I would go even further in suggesting that while the intellectuals of the late nineteenth century were deeply involved in the creation of national identities as regressive utopias, they were at the same time producing a negative version of these identities that might be called Semitism. These two fictional and opposite identities (i.e. Romanianism vs. Semitism, or Aryanism vs. Semitism), were corresponding to two different attitudes towards modernity, be it interpreted as the synonym of liberalism, capitalism, urbanism, parliamentarism, democracy, or social emancipation. Semitism was an attempt to personify that contemporary world against which the young authors were revolting. Being against the contemporary world meant being a true believer in the old glory and virtue of medieval knights, or in the splendour and/or morality of the Old Regime. It was a process involving the removal of the social differences and their concentration in the symbolic confrontation between the new world, which should resurrect the old traditional characteristics and morality, and the current world, which should be revolutionarily dismissed as decadent and morally corrupted. In this symbolic opposition the Jews originally played the role of indicating the internal alterity, the constitutive other. Later, during the years of economic crisis and political instability, this polar opposition radicalised and in fact, as the indicator was identified with the indicated fictional entity, the Jews were perceived as the main and the only enemy of national revival. What started as a protestant reformist movement – a political, social, moral and religious movement – it ended by becoming a criminal one.

The Romanian case might be illustrative of the above-mentioned distinctions. During the nineteenth century and until the end of the First World War, the anti-emancipatory literature was overwhelming due to the political heated dispute over the citizenship of the Romanian Jews. Nevertheless, a particular trend developed among Transylvanian Romanians within the Habsburg Monarchy because of the different political circumstances of the Hungarian Kingdom. The nationalities there were struggling against a very restrictive political system, designed by the liberal generation of 1867 but later degenerating under the rule of their followers. As in the case of French Revolution or the 1848 German Revolution, the Jews were perceived as the only people who benefited from the Austro-Hungarian compromise. Due to their disposition towards assimilation within the Hungarian society at a time when other nationalities were desperately trying to survive under the constant Magyarization policy of the Hungarian Government, the Hungarian Jews came to be considered as the epitome of the Hungarian civilization, of course not without a malicious intent. Therefore, due to the lack of political power and administrative authority, and due to the great success of Magyarization among the Hungarian Jewry, Transylvanian Romanians adopted an anti-Semitic Kulturkritik of the Hungarian Nation-State.

The division between the Old Kingdom and the Transylvanian variant of anti-Semitism was by no means a radical one. There were many exchanges over the Carpathian Mountains. Transylvanian Romanian writers and journalists coming to Romanian Kingdom were frequently cases of political refugees from the restrictive press-law and their severe punishments. They were bringing to Bucharest not only the cultural influences of Budapest and Vienna, but their disappointments and critics as well. Very soon they interpreted their political insuccess as an example of what happened when Jews were politically emancipated and had obtained full political rights. In this way, the confrontation between Romanians and Jews became more symbolic and less political-administrative in the late nineteenth century. This happened simultaneously to the process of creation of the notion of Romanian nation. Mirroring these symbolic achievements of Romanianism, the negative image of Semitism was created. Ioan Slavici, Bogdan Duică, Octavian Goga, as well as D. A. Sturdza, Nicolae Iorga, and A. C. Cuza were central figures in defending the Romanianness against foreign and decadent influences. They extensively used the already present ethnic prejudices and previous writings by Romanian writers like Mihai Eminescu, Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, Vasile Alecsandri, etc. but the result was very different from what had been created until that point.

Yet, in the thirties, a new young generation came under the flag of Romanianness. This was the period after the economic crisis of 1923, during the political instability of the regency (1927-1930), and the atmosphere was one of visible national insecurity concerning the country’s alliance system. When in 1940 Nazi Germany demanded Romania to cede a part of Transylvania to Hungary, and when Russia gave Romania an ultimatum regarding Bassarabia, the Jews from Bassarabia became the immediate target of the nationalist propaganda. They were twice alien: they were perceived both as recent new-comers in Bassarabia and as communists, thus inherently considered as anti-Romanian. The outcome was foreseeable.

My interest lies in analysing the intellectual sources and the cultural life of that cultural mainstream of the end of the nineteenth century and of early twentieth century; in a period after the administrative anti-emancipatory Judaeophobia and before the racist state ideology during the Second World War. A number of cultural figures involved in creating this antithetical and symbolic opposition between Romanianism and Semitism were set aside by the common interpretation of the racist ideology as a natural continuation of the early anti-emancipatory Judaeophobia. All these names, many of them classics of Romanian literature, are very often mentioned in various analysis of Romanian anti-Semitism but very rarely they are properly discussed within their context, and within the entire network of cultural currents that influenced them. My approach is based on a very rich primary sources database and tries to follow the example offered by works as the ones of Winock, Carroll, or Robertson for the French and German cases.

Selected bibliography:

Zygmund Bauman, “Allosemitism: Premodern, Modern, Postmodern,” in Bryan Cheyette and Laura Marcus, Culture and ‘the Jew’ (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998)

Zygmund Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989)

Bryan Cheyette, Constructions of ‘the Jew’ in English Literature and Society. Racial representations 1875-1945, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)

Mark H. Gelber, “What is Literary Antisemitism,” in Jewish Social Studies, Vol. XLVI (1985), No. 1 (Winter), pp. 1-20.

Sigurt Paul Scheichl, “The context and nuances of Anti-Jewish Language: Were all the ‘Antisemites’ Antisemites?” in Ivar Oxaal, Michael Pollak and Gerhard Botz, Jews, Antisemitism and Culture in Vienna, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987)

Shulamit Volkov, The Rise of Popular Antimodernism in Germany: The Urban Master Artisans 1873-1896, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978)

Primary Sources:

Ghica, Ion Scrieri [Writings], vol. I, (Bucharest: Minerva, 1914).

Sturdza, Dimitrie A. Suprafata si populatiunea Regatului Romaniei. Conferinta tinuta la societatea geografica romana la 25 Februarie 1895 de Dimitrie A. Sturdza, membru al Academiei Romane si al Societatii Geografice. [The Area and the Population of the Romanian Kingdom. Conference Held at the Romanian Geographical Society in February 25, 1895 by D. A. S., member of Romanian Academy and of Romanian Geographical Society] Excerpt from Buletinul Societatii geografice romane, Anul XVI (1895), Trim. III-IV, (Bucharest: Stabilimentul Grafic I. V. Socecu, 1896)

Alecsandri, Vasile „Motiunea nerevizionistilor în Cestiunea Israelită şi cele trei discursuri ale deputatului colegiului IV de Braila, Nicolae Blaremberg, precum şi discursurile deputatului colegiului III de Iaşi, Conta, şi ale deputatului colegiului I De Bacău, D. Rosseti Teţcanu destinata a servi de comentariu, urmata de discursul ţinut în Senat de marele poet V. Alecsandri tot în acest scop. [The Motion of Non-Revisionists in the Jewish Question and the Three Discourses of the Deputy of Brăila, Nicolae Blarenberg, as well as the Discourses of the Deputy of Jassy, (Vasile) Conta, and of the Deputy of Bacău, D. Rosetti Teţcanu, as a Comment, Followed by the Discourse of the Great Poet V. Alecsandri in the Same Question] (Bucharest: Typografia Curtii, Proprietar F. Göbl, 1879), pp. 149-151.

Xenopol, Alexandru D. “Naţionalism şi antisemitism” [Nationalism and antisemitism], in Noua Revista Română, V (1904), p. 277.

Xenopol, Alexandru D. Politique de races, (Roma: Forzani E. C. Tip. Del Senato, 1903).

Lazare, Bernard. L’oppression des juifs dans l’Europe orientale. Les juifs en Roumanie. (Paris: Cahiers de la Quinzaine, 1902)

Stere, Constantin. Social-democraţia si poporanismul, (Iassy: Viaţa Românească, 19??), for the present paper I use the original article from Viaţa Românească.

Zeletin, Ştefan “Finanţă şi antisemitism. Rolul evreilor in cadrul economiei în genere. Rolul evreilor în ecenomia română. Situaţia actuală a evreilor români. Concluzii” [Finance and antisemitism. The role of the Jews in economy. The role of the Jews in Romanian economy. Their present situation. Conclusions], in Neoliberalism (Bucharest, Pagini agrare şi sociale, 1927)

Bluntschli, Johann Kaspar. Statul Român şi situaţiunea juridica a Evreilor în România, (Bucharest: Thiel&Weiss, 1879)

Maiorescu, Titu. Discursuri parlamentare cu priviri asupra desvoltarii politice a Romaniei sub Domnia lui Carol I, vol. II (1876-1881) [Parliamentary Speeches About the Political Development of Romania Under the Reign of Carol I], (Bucharest: Socecu &  Comp, 1897)

****. Cestiunea israelita inaintea adunarei generale a Romaniei din 1864. Desbaterile legei comunale. Extras din editiunea oficiala a buletinului Adunarei generale a Romaniei din 1864. Sedintele din 5-6 Martie [The Israelite Question before the General Assembly of Romania from 1964. The Debates on the Communal Law. Excerpts from the Official Copy of the Bulletin of the General Assembly of Romania from 1964. The Sessions from March 5-6], (Bucharest: Tipografia statului Curtea Serban Voda, 1879)

Heliade Radulescu, Ion. Equilibru intre antithesi, sau, spiritul si material [Equilibrium of the antithesis or the Spirit and Matter],  Bucuresti [s.n.] 1859-1869.

Hasdeu, Bogdan Petriceicu. Studie Asupra Judaismului. Trei Ovrei, Jupanulu Shylock Allu-Lui Shakespeare, Domnul Golseck Allu Balzac Si Jupanulu Moise Allu-Lui Alecsandri [Studies On Judaism. Three Jews, Shakespeare’s Shylock, Balzac’s Mr. Goldseck, And Alecsandri’s Moise]. Bucharest: 1865.

Hasdeu, Bogdan Petriceicu. Talmudul Ca Profesiune De Credinta A Poporului Israelitu [Talmud as a Profession of Faith of the Israelite People]. Bucharest: 1866.

Hasdeu, Bogdan Petriceicu. Istoria Tolerantei Religioase In Romania [The History Of Religious Toleration In Romannia]. Bucharest: 1868.

Hasdeu, Bogdan Petriceicu. O Nevastă Româncă În Traiul Pământesc Şi 'N Vieaţa După Moarte. O Cenferinţă Academică Şi Mai Multe Şedinţe Extra-Academice. [A Romanian Wife in the Present Life and in the Other after-Death Live] Bucharest: Socec, 1903.

Eminescu, Mihail. Opere complete (Bucharest:Fundatiile Regale, Academia Romana, 1939-1989). Editia CD Multimedia 2000.

Slavici, Ioan. “Soll”şi “Haben”. Cestiunea Ovreilor din România. Studiu social, (Bucharest: 1878)

Slavici, Ioan. “Barbaria modernă,” Apărarea naţională, III (1902), No. 79 (April, 9), p. 1

Slavici, Ioan. “Cine pleacă?”, A.n., III (1902), No. 85 (April, 18), p. 1.

Slavici, Ioan. “Robia modernă,” A.n., III (1902), No. 90 (April, 26), p. 1.

Slavici, Ioan. “Jidanii militanţi,” A.n., III (1902), No. 105 (3 Nov), p. 1.

Slavici, Ioan. “Miserii,” A.n., III (1902), No. 108 (Nov. 24), p. 1.

Slavici, Ioan. “Semitismul,” A.n., III (1902), No. 111 (Dec 15), p. 1.

Slavici, Ioan. “Propaganda semitică,” A.n., III (1902), No. 112 (Dec. 22), p. 1.

Octavian Goga, Opere complete

Ionescu, Nae. Roza vanturilor. Publicistica 1926-1933. Bucuresti: Editura "Roza Vînturilor,", 1990.

Ionescu, Nae. "Prefata" Mihail Sebastian, De doua mii de ani. [For two thousands years]. Bucuresti : Editura Nationala-Ciornei S.A, 1936.

Eliade, Mircea Articole legionare. On-line

Iorga, Nicolae. Problema evreiască la Cameră. O interpelare cu o introducere de A. C. Cuza şi note despre vechimea evreilor în ţară. Vălenii de Munte: Neamul Romanesc, 1910.

Iorga, Nicolae. Istoria Evreilor în ţerile noastre. Sedinţa dela 13 Septembrie 1913 [The History of Jews in our Countries. Academy Session from September 13, 1913]. Analele Academiei Romane - Tom XXXVI. - Memoriile Sectiei Istorice. Bucharest: Academiei, 1914.

Cuza, Alexandru C. Naţionalitatea în artă. Principii, fapte, concluzii. 243pp. Bucharest: Minerva, 1908.

Cuza, Alexandru C. Despre poporaţie. Statistica, teoria şi politica ei. Studiu economic. Jassy: 1899.

Cuza, Alexandru C. Numerus Clausus. Bucharest: Editura Ligii Apararii Nationale Crestine, 1924. 32pp.

Cuza, Alexandru C. Doctrina naţionalist creştină. Programul Ligii Apărării Naţionale Creştine. Cluj: 1934. 23pp.

Goga, Octavian. Discursuri [Speeches] (Bucharest: Tipografia “Cartea Româneascã” S.A., 1942)

Octavian Goga

Codreanu,Corneliu Zelea.  Pentru Legionari