Heinen, Armin and Schmitt, Oliver Jens (eds). Inszenierte Gegenmacht von rechts. Die ‘Legion Erzengel Michael in Rumnien 1918–1938 (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 779 his judgment is sound, even if not everyone will agree with his contention that British policy sought to engineer a Russo-Japanese rapprochement after 1907 in an effort to contain Germany. This book is a considerable scholarly achievement. What a shame, however, that Professor Berton and his readers have not been better served by his publishers. The price is exorbitant, and will ensure a limited readership; and the production of the book — forty-five lines squeezed in small font onto each page — leaves much to be desired. Author and readers deserve better. University of East Anglia T. G. Otte Heinen, Armin and Schmitt, Oliver Jens (eds). Inszenierte Gegenmacht von rechts. Die ‘Legion Erzengel Michael’ in Rumänien 1918–1938. Sudosteuropäische Arbeiten, 150. R. Oldenbourg, Munich, 2013. 400 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Figures. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Indexes. €54.95. The ‘Legion of the Archangel Michael’, also known as the Iron Guard, was the only radical movement of the right in Europe to come to power without the assistance of Germany or Italy, and the only one to be toppled during Nazi Germany’s domination of continental Europe. During the Legion’s period of rule in Romania (1940–41), through its reach for total power, the excesses of the Legionary police, the utter mismanagement of the state administration and the economy by inexperienced youthful militants, it antagonized most middle-class Romanians and challenged General Ion Antonescu’s own political authority. Faced with the prospect of a breakdown in order in the country should the Guard seize complete control of the state, the officer corps stood firmly behind Antonescu and gave him its full support in his show-down with the Guard in January 1941. As the title of this penetrating volume of essays on the formative years of the Legion indicates, we are presented here with analyses of the political, social and cultural practice of the movement, one which the editors judiciously term ‘a counter-force of the Right’. Armin Heinen’s name is associated with his outstanding study of the Iron Guard in Romania which appeared in 1986 at a time when access to the relevant archives in Romania was virtually closed to non-Romanian scholars. The contributions to this volume, from scholars of the Legion such as the two editors (Heinen on the Legion’s electoral performance, Schmitt on its labour force) Constantin Iordachi (‘Fascism, Charisma and Politics’), Rebecca Haynes (‘The Ritualization of the “New Man”’) Radu Harald Dinu (‘Antisemitism as Social Practice’) and Roland Clark (‘The Women in the Legion’) — there are others, too, no less worthy of mention — lead us to the SEER, 92, 4, OCTOBER 2014 780 conclusion that if we define some of the characteristic features of fascism as a crisis of identity stemming from the traditional, often ethnic features of the community, and an authoritarian, para-military type of organization, then the most significant movement in Romania to which this definition could be applied was the Legion. But such a judgement, although accurate, requires qualification, as the editors imply in their perceptive introduction. The impact of modernity and the widespread rebellions against its influence on culture and religion provided the dynamics of the Legion’s antisemitism. That antisemitism was in part an attempt to heal the profound malaise resulting from a constellation of factors which prevented interwar Romanians from enjoying a clear sense of identity, collective national purpose, and place in ‘the modern world’. To these we can add a hatred of Marxism. As Henry Roberts pointed out, ‘fascism is not generally anti-industrial […]. But in the case of Rumania, with its particular position vis-à-vis industrial society, the fascist response in its most characteristic form involved this negation and an exaltation of the peasant’ (Rumania: Political Problems of an Agrarian State, New Haven, CT, 1951). Another unique aspect of the Legion was its missionary role, addressed by Iordachi in his contribution. In his autobiography Corneliu Codreanu, the Legion’s founder, described how he received a vision of the archangel Michael in the chapel of the Văcăreşti prison in Bucharest in November 1923 and the archangel urged him to dedicate his life to God. After his release from jail in...