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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.
Georgescu came from obscurity to win the first round of presidential elections last November, prompting the courts to annul the ballot on suspicion of outside interference. On Sunday, Georgescu was barred by the country’s election authority from standing in the rerun in May, on the basis that he had violated the constitutional obligation to defend democracy.
The former agronomist was investigated in 2022 for remarks that praised Codreanu and Antonescu as patriotic heroes and “martyrs”. The case was later dropped. But last month he made what looked like a Nazi salute in public after he was questioned by prosecutors.
He enjoys the vocal support of the Eurosceptic US vice-president, JD Vance, and another apparent fan of the sieg heil salute, Elon Musk.
Nazi salutes, like the commemoration in Tâncăbești forest, are illegal under Romanian law, which prohibits the glorification of fascist figures. But such gestures and symbols have attracted new attention after November’s election turmoil.
The constitutional court annulled the vote after declassified intelligence documents alleged Russian interference, including via a TikTok disinformation campaign.
No evidence of Russian campaign financing has been uncovered so far, but prosecutors last month indicted Georgescu on six counts, including illegal campaign financing, affiliation to antisemitic organisations and promotion of fascist symbols. He has denied wrongdoing.
Even though he has been barred from standing for office, Georgescu’s emergence has amplified a culture of incendiary revisionism. Steeped in religious conservatism and ultranationalism, his rhetoric has tapped into a potent mix of discontent and nostalgia. This has resurfaced deep undercurrents of xenophobia, racism and antisemitism that many thought had been consigned to history, even though Romania’s diverse population – including significant Hungarian and Roma minorities – has long been a flashpoint for tensions.
Romania’s reckoning with its fascist past has always been tenuous. After the fall of communism, which had vilified interwar fascists as enemies of the state, people such as Codreanu and Antonescu were reframed as nationalist heroes by far-right figures. This narrative found fertile ground in a country grappling with the legacy of a brutal dictatorship and the chaos of transition.
Tensions were ratcheted up a notch in 2020 when the Alliance for the Union of Romanians party (AUR), the first far-right group to enter parliament, began normalising rhetoric that minimised the Holocaust and rehabilitated the Legionaries, according to Adina Marincea, a researcher at the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania.
But unlike the more subtle dog-whistling preferred by the AUR, Georgescu’s messaging is overt and explicit. He stood as an independent in the aborted presidential election. His support comes from groups across a broad spectrum: young people, rural dwellers, intellectuals, priests, police, military personnel and media figures. Many refer to Georgescu as “the captain” – a title once reserved for Codreanu. More than 40 organisations with affinities to the Legionary Movement, with anti-abortionist and ultranationalist views, signed a letter of support for him after he won the first round.
“The expression of extreme attitudes came to a peak,” Marincea said about the weeks after the first round of cancelled elections. “We saw a wave of threats and radical rhetoric from those who believed they were on the winning side.”
Intimidation of minorities increased at the same time. A Roma rights group, Volunteers for Roma for Democracy, says its members received death threats, photos of guns and Nazi symbols, accompanied by messages warning that “Jews and Roma must be eliminated”.
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“The threats wouldn’t have been possible if they weren’t encouraged by Georgescu, who is also emboldened by the extreme-right parties,” the head of the NGO, Alin Banu, told me. LGBTQ+ rights associations were also threatened.
My colleague, the investigative journalist Victor Ilie, researched alleged Russian financial connections that may have bolstered conspiracy theories for years before Georgescu’s campaign. He has also received death threats.
Romania’s law enforcement agencies have conducted raids on the homes of people suspected of having commemorated the fascist leaders or of displaying fascist symbols. But these actions are reactive and insufficient.
The tide of hate has already spilled over into public life, with civil society reporting increased threats, which Marincea says could turn into physical violence, especially against LGBTQ+ groups. If criminal investigations lead to no arrests, extremist groups will be further emboldened and far-right targeting of the media is likely to worsen.
Two ultranationalist parties entered parliament for the first time last year, creating a political environment where hate speech is not just tolerated but celebrated. The leader of one of these parties streamed live images of herself commemorating fascist leader Codreanu.
Georgescu recently declared his support for ethnic minorities and guaranteed them safety. Marincea believes it was a “performative” social media post and “part of a strategic calculus to wash his image”.
Many more people have been radicalised by the cancelling of the election results and what they see as a campaign against a messianic figure whose mission is to save the people from the establishment. Many are now calling the rejection of his candidacy in the re-run a coup d’état.
Georgescu’s success is symptomatic of a broader trend supported by foreign actors including Russia: the resurgence of ultranationalist, anti-democratic movements that exploit economic uncertainty, societal divisions and distrust of mainstream institutions.
In Romania, with three far-right parties holding sway in parliament, this trajectory has a uniquely dangerous edge. It is likely to increase polarisation and social divisions and reshape policy on Romania’s relationship with the EU and its support for Ukraine, as it reawakens the ghosts of a fascist past that many hoped had been exorcised.
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Andrei Popoviciu is a Romanian investigative journalist
