Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist Activism in Interwar Romania Review (Questions

1, 2, 7, 8)

Michael Ryan

EUH4284: Fascism and Nazism in Interwar Europe

Dr. Vladimir Solonari

December 7, 2020

Word Count: 2259

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In Ronald Clark’s book Holy Legionary Youth, he discussed how the ideology of fascism

and ultranationalism were intrinsically linked and the roots began to sprout long ago; the idea of

ultranationalism requires first that the people become aware of their own identity and attempt to

exclude outsiders from this group. Romanian ultranationalism requires antisemitism in order to

stoke the fire of nationalism within the Romanian people, and these antisemitic thoughts were

not brought about on one day, it had been constantly building up ever since a wave of Jewish

immigration from Polish Galicia into Romanian territory in the 18th century.1 Those who lived

there provided the Jews anything but a warm welcome into their lands and some of the other

national groups even began antisemitic acts of violence. While their actions failed to deal with

their “problem” directly, it led to a buildup of propaganda against Jews within Romanian

documents which depicted them as liars and cheats among worse things. This hatred was an

effective tool used to further divide the Romanians from other types of people which is essential

to fascism. The students at Romanian universities were not mostly Romanian, and with most of

them having been wholly underprepared for the environment the university provided,

ultranationalism was an easy outlet for all of their anger. By having joined the ultranationalists,

they were now part of a group that was “better” than the rest of the nationalities on campus,

which in their minds allowed them to harass, beat, or in some cases even kill other nationalities,

effectively only Jews. While the students had no real goals and their whole movement was

anarchic, it could not be ignored the effect they had on the universities and Jews in general; they

forced them to submit to them with nothing but sheer will based on imaginary issues.2 If you

took these issues and applied them to Romania as a whole, it becomes clear that they set

1
Clark, R. (2015). The Roots of Ultranationalism. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania (pp.
9-27). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2
Clark, R. (2015). The Roots of Ultranationalism. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania (pp.
9-27). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
 2

themselves up for a fascist movement long before they even supposed they wanted to. The

Legion was a stark contrast to the violence of the youth movements with the moral high ground

being used as tool to entice more people to join the legionaries with their fellow Romanians.

Morality was not the only thing they touted however as faith was an essential tool the Legion

used to recruit members with its legionaries often used baptisms and weddings as a time to not

only deepen their ties to the community but also spread propaganda. While this was an effective

way to curry favor with the public, these methods did not help when you wish to establish a

dictatorship. A fatal error for the Legion was the prohibition of violence to achieve their end

goal as once the Legion had power, Codreanu could have implemented what he desired. Another

error in this same area was disbanding the Legion, then allowing anyone to be sent to prison

should they be found performing any legionary activity.3 The last mistake of the legionaries that

will be discussed is their lack of a concentrated response once Codreanu was in prison, instead

they opted to become domestic terrorists and were shut down slowly but surely. A failure to act

is ultimately what led to the Legion’s downfall.

While it was already stated that the wave of antisemitism for Romanians began in the 18th

century with the wave of Jewish immigrants, the features of these inequalities was not. In a

rhetoric that is still seen today, when the Jews originally came out of Polish Galicia, they were

instantly discriminated against in order to “protect the jobs” of those who already lived on the

land. Acts of antisemitic violence spread throughout the area in an attempt to prevent the

immigrants from receiving a job in their chosen field.4 While violence was an immediate threat

to any of the immigrants at the time, the legacy of the antisemitic thoughts that gave rise to that

3
Clark, R. (2015). Rise and Fall. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania (pp. 216-244). Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
4
Clark, R. (2015). The Roots of Ultranationalism. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania (pp.
9-27). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
 3

violence in the first place were not addressed which allowed for these thoughts to fester for

centuries. Religion was a big part of the exclusion act against Jews, with the stereotypical Jew

described as a baby killer who did horrific things to gain sympathy with the devil. The

documents that portrayed Jews as such were commonly accepted as fact, which only stood to

alienate the Jews more from Romanians, making ultranationalism a seemingly sound option.

While the roots of Romanian ultranationalism are not simply based on a distaste for the Jewish

people, a common enemy allowed for the Romanians to come together as a nationality against

them. Even though it was not fact, propaganda against Jews and foreigners painted them as the

enemy in control of the economy despite the fact that Romanians were the ones who actually

worked the land.5 These brazen twists of fact worked well for the ultranationalists as it stoked

that antisemitic fire even more as it was a plausible scenario for the average citizen to understand

given what they had been taught all their lives about Jews. The very idea of ultranationalism is

to believe that your nationality is superior to others which is what Romanian citizens have been

taught; this allowed fascism an easy in with Romania as the doctrine of fascism requires the

citizen believe they are part of something greater, which in this case was the Romanian

nationality.

This nationalistic “pride” was not contained by the citizens, especially when it came to

the students at Romanian universities who committed largescale acts of violence against Jews.

Almost acting as their own paramilitary and even being compared to the Italian squadristi,

groups of students would go around asking for identification cards which contained ethnicity

information and harassed both verbally and physically the Jewish people they encountered.6

5
Clark, R. (2015). The Roots of Ultranationalism. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania (pp.
9-27). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
6
Clark, R. (2015). Youthful Justice. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania (pp. 28-63).
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
 4

Though measures were put in place to limit the effect the students could have on the population

of the campus, most generally failed to accomplish much lest the use of violence and arrests.

These ultranationalist students refused to be put down no matter what was being done to them

and it showed; they had a great influence over whichever area they occupied and provided true

harmful intent to any Jew who entered their line of sight. This rule by fear is not what the Legion

intended as could be seen through their message of nonviolence in order to achieve their goals,

but the student violence lacked a certain foresight that Codreanu had with the Legion. One of the

characteristics shared by the Legion and these students is that they were strong as a group united

under a single cause, and while their opinions on how to handle some matters differentiated, that

collective identity is a keystone portion of fascism that would have already been established in

their minds. It was said that groups of 40 to 100 people would attack just a handful of Jews,

which showed they all had the same mindset and desired that group element no matter who it

harms.7 The students did not have any real goals in their violence besides a deep-seated hatred

for Jewish people, and while they may not have had the same methods as the Legion would later,

the common enemy this group of people shared as well as the knowledge to others that they have

resorted to violence before set the stage for fascism to take over.

The ethical implications behind being a member of the Legion was a gigantic part of why

it gathered so many members; they always preached that they held the high ground over other

political parties as well as different fascist ideologies. A big part of the idea of self-sacrifice in

joining the Legion was that while it did have similar goals to comparable fascist movements at

the time or after, they were distinct in the vast inclusion of religion and spirituality as part of the

central goals. While it almost seemed paradoxical in nature to be part of the massive collective
7
Clark, R. (2015). Youthful Justice. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania (pp. 28-63).
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
 5

and still retain the characteristics of religion, it garnered quite a bit of support despite the

unorthodox approach. On an ethical scale, the Legion did wonders in order to justify what was

done; they acted like the military and gave out awards to those who displayed “faith and

courage” during campaigns or to those who donated large sums of money, proof they could

physically look at to know they were doing the right thing.8 These awards were respected among

society too, and that only made them more sought after which boosted the numbers of people

who joined the Legion in hopes of serving a greater good. They gave up their own identity to

become a legionary, sacrificing their self for something much greater as the ultimate goal, much

in the same way religion preaches martyrdom. The idea that they were a greatly honorable

organization while also maintaining their spirituality appealed to many, but to maintain this

without the grasp for power ultimately seemed foolish to me.

While the Legion saw a glad little amount of power in 1940-41, the first of many

mistakes I found should they have been vying for a dictatorship would be in 1938 to abandon the

platform of nonviolence for this cause and stage a coup d’état and seize power for the Legion. I

believe Codreanu and his choice to wait until rightfully put into power is in reality a pipe dream

that would have likely taken years to even come close to accomplishing.9 On the other hand, a

coup would have showed that the Legion was willing to engage in a massive amount of violence

in order to achieve power much as the university students did years before. While this would

have involved a large amount of violence for the sake of showing they are willing to do it and

instilling fear in the public, for a dictatorship a healthy amount of fear would do them well. In

that same set of action, Codreanu also disbanded the Legion on the grounds it could no longer
8
Clark, R. (2015). Elections, Violence, and Discipline. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania
(pp. 95-121). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

9
Clark, R. (2015). Rise and Fall. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania (pp. 216-244). Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
 6

legally participate in any political battle.10 This is the second misstep Codreanu made in my

opinion because after he disbanded the Legion, anyone, even students seen performing any form

of legionary activity could be arrested. This disallowed any form of support for the Legion and

in the case of a dictatorship would be a fatal flaw as even though you may have had to use

violent means in order to gain power, the more support you have from the public the better it will

generally go. Codreanu allowed for legionaries to be thrown into prison simply for the crime of

following his ideology; not only did this beg the question why people should join the Legion, it

took the already loyal members away from the public where they could sway others to their

ideology. Codreanu eventually was thrown in prison for 10 years on the charge of inciting a

rebellion and while he could have tried to have taken the route of Hitler and gotten power upon

release, this did not seem like the likely option.11 In order to establish a dictatorship the Legion

would have needed a de facto leader immediately and taken it upon themselves to either curry

more political favor or make a last ditch attempt at action. While a dictatorship seemed unlikely

in this specific case, the Legion definitely had the ability to go further politically than it ended up

going. The precursors of violence in the universities set the students up to be susceptible to

becoming part of a “superior” group which is the ultranationalists. This combined with the

antisemitic propaganda put forth for centuries gave the people someone to hate beyond any

logical reason for they could just make things up that were believed. The amount of fervor

possible with ultranationalism could bring about scary amounts of change through will, but

Codreanu wanted the Legion to be seen as an ethical superior with a spiritual goal. This ethical

10
Clark, R. (2015). Rise and Fall. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania (pp. 216-244). Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
11
Clark, R. (2015). Rise and Fall. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania (pp. 216-244). Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
 7

superiority did come at the cost of other ethnicities but given what the Romanian people already

knew about Jews and others, superiority almost came naturally.

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Bibliography

Clark, R. (2015). The Roots of Ultranationalism. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in

interwar Romania (pp. 9-27). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Clark, R. (2015). Youthful Justice. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar

Romania (pp. 28-63). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Clark, R. (2015). Elections, Violence, and Discipline. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism

in interwar Romania (pp. 95-121). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Clark, R. (2015). Rise and Fall. In Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist activism in interwar Romania

(pp. 216-244). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.