Antifascist demonstrators shouting slogans during a protest in Bucharest. — Photos: ©2025 The New York Times Company
IT seemed like a straightforward proposal: renaming a Bucharest avenue that honoured a convicted World War II war criminal.
Diana Mardarovici, a city councillor, believed her motion to remove Mircea Vulcanescu’s name would be uncontroversial. Vulcanescu, a philosopher and economist, was part of Romania’s Nazi-aligned government, implicated in confiscating Jewish property and other wartime crimes.
“I thought this would be peanuts,” Mardarovici recalled.
“Surely, we all agree that Nazis are bad.”
To her shock, the proposal didn’t even reach a vote.
“My colleagues on the city council are not Nazis,” she said.
“But they feel that admitting past crimes by people they see as heroes takes away from their national identity.”
The incident underscores Romania’s struggle to confront its fascist past.
Efforts to purge honours for wartime collaborators often falter, particularly when figures like Vulcanescu are revered for their cultural contributions or anti-communist stance.
Tarnished legacy
Vulcanescu, who died in a communist prison in 1952, remains celebrated as a leading intellectual. Statues and street names perpetuate his memory, detached from his conviction for war crimes.
A bust of Vulcanescu in Bucharest.
A Bucharest street sign honoring Mircea Vulcanescu, a philosopher and economist who, though convicted of war crimes after World War II, is still widely lauded as a luminary of Romanian culture.
This ambivalence reflects broader tensions in Romanian society.
The survival of these honours, critics say, enabled figures like Calin Georgescu, a former presidential frontrunner, to gain traction.
Georgescu surged to prominence by exploiting nationalist sentiments, blending leftist criticism of foreign corporations with admiration for Romania’s fascist past.
He won the first round of the presidential election on Nov 24 but was derailed when the constitutional court annulled the runoff.
Mardarovici welcomed the court’s intervention but said it addressed only the symptoms of a deeper problem.
“We are going through an identity crisis as a country,” she said.
History in conflict
Romania’s historical narrative is fraught. Ruled by successive empires, the country gained full independence only in 1877.
This long history of domination fostered a “siege complex”, said Liviu Rotman, a history professor in Bucharest.
Nationalists trace Romania’s roots back millennia, asserting cultural primacy over neighbouring Slavic and Hungarian populations.
Yet, this sense of identity often overlooks the darker chapters of Romanian history.
During World War II, Romania allied with Nazi Germany.
Under Marshal Ion Antonescu, the regime facilitated the deaths of up to 380,000 Jews in Romania and territories under its control.
After communism’s collapse in 1989, figures convicted as war criminals by communist courts were recast as martyrs or cultural icons.
Vulcanescu, for example, is remembered more for his intellectual contributions than his role in the Holocaust.
“Cultivated amnesia” has allowed such figures to retain their status, Rotman said, and made it easier for nationalists like Georgescu to gain popular support.
Nationalism and the intellectual elite
Georgescu’s rise highlights the enduring influence of extreme nationalism in Romania.
A woman holding a flag of Romania’s antisemitic Legionary Movement during a commemoration for its founder in a forest near Bucharest.
Unlike other populists, Georgescu presented himself as measured and intellectual, grounded in Orthodox Christian values.
“Georgescu is not a noisy, vulgar politician but can actually convince people,” said Oliver Jens Schmitt, a historian at the University of Vienna.
Schmitt noted that Georgescu’s rhetoric echoes propaganda from the 1930s Legionary Movement, an ultra-nationalist and antisemitic group.
While Georgescu denies supporting the Legionaries, his success reflects their lingering impact on Romanian society.
Romania is not alone in wrestling with its wartime past.
In neighbouring countries, figures like Stepan Bandera in Ukraine and Admiral Miklos Horthy in Hungary are similarly honoured despite their complicity in atrocities.
After World War II, Romania’s communist regime condemned fascism while embracing a nationalist ideology with parallels to fascism.
Nicolae Ceausescu’s policies promoted “Romanisation”, targeting ethnic minorities like Hungarians.
Andrei Ursu, a historian, said these nationalist undercurrents persisted after 1989, facilitated by former communist security officers. This environment nurtured the careers of xenophobic politicians, paving the way for figures like Georgescu.
Cultural icons or war criminals?
Romania’s reluctance to reckon with its past also stems from the prominence of intellectuals who supported fascism.
Writers like Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade, celebrated for their literary achievements, embraced extreme nationalism in the interwar period.
Their contributions to Romanian culture complicate efforts to confront their political legacies.
“You can’t cancel them. They are too important,” said Liviu Ornea, a Jewish writer and professor in Bucharest.
“If we cancel all the fascists, we will be left with Nadia Comaneci and Dracula.”
Small victories
There have been some attempts to address this historical reckoning.
In October, a court ordered Bucharest’s government to rename Vulcanescu Street after a lawsuit by the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania.
Yet even this small victory faces resistance. After Georgescu’s election success, city hall announced plans to appeal the court ruling.
Alexandru Florian, director of the Holocaust institute, expressed dismay at the decision.
“It shows how deeply rooted this problem is,” he said.
A national crossroads
As Romania prepares for a rescheduled presidential runoff, mainstream parties have pledged to unite against Georgescu.
But many fear this show of unity is merely a temporary bandaid on a deeper wound.
“The forces that propelled Georgescu remain strong,” Rotman warned.
For Mardarovici, the struggle to rename a street has become emblematic of a broader battle for Romania’s soul.
“We need to face our history honestly,” she said.
“Only then can we move forward as a country,” Mardarovici said. — ©2025 The New York Times Company
