Abstract
Romania came out of the First World War with double its former population, territory and industrial capacity — 7.3 million Romanians had by 1919 increased to 16.2 million, but they still lived mostly on the land. The economy was characterized by agricultural overpopulation and low productivity per acre — about half that of Western Europe. The newly enlarged provincial Romania with its legacy of a different historical experience, coupled with the diverse ethnic mix of the significant minority Hungarian, German and Jewish populations which it contained, posed major problems of harmonization and consolidation which, in the brief interlude of the inter-war period, the country’s leaders had little time, capacity and will to address. A failure to solve these issues blighted the country’s progress towards modernization and the exercise of genuine democratic rule.
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Notes
Armin Heinen (1999), Legiunea ‘Arhanghelul Mihail’: O contribuţie la problema fascismului internaţional [The Legion of the Archangel Michael: A Contribution to the Problem of International Fascism] (Bucharest: Humanitas), p. 32, note 5.
Hugh Seton-Watson (1962), Eastern Europe between the Wars 1918–1941 (3rd edn.) (New York, London: Harper Row), pp. 203–4.
For a study of the Iron Guard leader see Constantin Iordachi (2004), Charisma, Politics and Violence: The Legion of the ‘Archangel Michael’ in Inter-war Romania (Trondheim: Trondheim Studies on East European Cultures and Societies, No. 15).
Nicholas Nagy-Talavera (1970), The Green Shirts and Others: A History of Fascism in Hungary and Rumania (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press), p. 247.
Eugen Weber (1965), ‘Romania’, in H. Rogger and E. Weber (eds), The European Right: A Historical Profile (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson), p. 541.
Two basic studies on the Iron Guard are Francisco Veiga’s (1989), La Mistica del Ultranacionalismo: Historia de la Guardia de Hierro (Barcelona: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra), translated into Romanian as Istoria Gărzii de Fier, 1919–1941: Mistica Ultranaţionalismului [The History of the Iron Guard, 1919–1941: The Mystique of Ultranationalism] (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1993);
and Armin Heinen’s (1986), Die Legion ‘Erzengel Michael’ in Rumänien Soziale Bewegung und Politische Organisation (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag);
see also Armin Heinen and Oliver J. Schmitt (2013) (eds), Inszenierte Gegenmacht von rechts. Die ‘Legion Erzengel Michael’ in Rumänien 1918–1938 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag).
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1936), Pentru legionari [For the Legionaries] (Sibiu: Totul pentru Ţară), p. 413.
I am indebted here to Keith Hitchins (1994), Rumania 1866–1947 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 419.
Carol Iancu (2000), Evreii din România de la emancipare la marginalizare, 1919–1938 [The Jews in Romania from Emancipation to Marginalization, 1919–1938] (Bucharest: Editura Haseler), p. 257.
These anti-Semitic measures are discussed by Paul Shapiro (1974), ‘Prelude to Dictatorship in Romania: The National Christian Party in Power, December 1937–February 1938’, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, Vol. 8(1): 45–88.
The situation under Goga was described in a report of January 1938 from the Board of Directors of British Jewry and the Anglo-Jewish Association to the British Foreign Secretary: ‘You will be aware that year by year the position ol the Jews ol Roumania has worsened from every aspect — political, economic, moral. Conspicuous and distressing examples of this trend have been the Law for the Protection of National Labour of July 1934; the decrees ol September and October 1937 issued by the former Ministry ol Industry and Commerce, Monsieur Pop, to all individual and community establishments, strongly recommending that 50 per cent ol the administrative personnel and 75 per cent ol unskilled labourers employed in all undertakings should be ol Romanian ethnic origin; and the decree issued by the Ministry ol Justice, dated October 3rd 1936, to all public prosecutors, in accordance with which the citizenship ol Jews and all other minorities in certain provinces will be reviewed’ (Larry Watts (1993), Romanian Cassandra: Ion Antonescu and the Struggle for Reform, 1916–1941 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs), p. 160).
Dov B. Lungu (1988), ‘The French and British Attitudes towards the Goga-Cuza Government in Romania: December 1937–February 1938’, Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. 30(3): 323–41 (335).
Bela Vago (1975), The Shadow of the Swastika: The Rise of Fascism and Anti-Semitism in the Danube Basin, 1936–1939 (London: Saxon House), p. 267.
For the figures see Roberts (1951), p. 214, note 13. Romanian oil exports to Germany in the mid-1930s represented some 25 per cent of total exports to that country (Călin-Radu Ancuţa (2004), ‘Die deutsch-rumänischen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen während der Kriegsjahre 1940–1944’, in Krista Zach and Cornelius R. Zach (eds), Modernisierung auf Raten in Rumänien. Anspruch, Umsetzung, Wirkung (Munich: IKGS Verlag), p. 335).
Mark Axworthy, Cornel Scaleş and Cristian Craciunoiu (1995), Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941–1945 (London: Arms and Armour), p. 21.
Ibid. According to Andreas Hillgruber (1965), Hitler, König Carol und Marschall Antonescu: Die Deutsch-Rumänischen Beziehungen, 1938–1944 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag), p. 161, 1.27 million tons of petroleum products were exported by Romania to Germany in 1939, and 1.17 million tons in 1940. Axworthy et al. (1995), p. 190 gives higher figures: 1.56 million tons for 1939, 1.30 million for 1940, and 3.14 million for 1941.
Rebecca Haynes (1999), ‘Germany and the Establishment of the Romanian National Legionary State, September 1940’, The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 77(4) (October): 700–72(711).
Paul Schmidt (1949), Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne, 1923–45; Erlebnisse des Chefdolmetschers im Auswärtigen Amt mit den Staatsmännern Europas (Bonn: Athenäum-Verlag), pp. 511–12. One must bear in mind that Antonescu spoke through the interpreter, which drew out the length of his tirade.
Andreas Hillgruber (1969), Les Entretiens Secrets de Hitler, septembre 1939-decembre 1940 (Paris: A. Fayard), pp. 432–41.
Matatias Carp (1946–8), Cartea Neagră. Suferinţele Evreilor din România, 1940–1944, Vol. 1 (Bucharest: Socec & Co.), pp. 219–323.
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© 2016 Dennis Deletant
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Deletant, D. (2016). Setting the Scene: Problems of Cohesion, 1918–1938. In: British Clandestine Activities in Romania during the Second World War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-57452-7_3
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