Manuel Mireanu holds a PhD in political science from Central European University, Budapest. Currently working as associated lecturer in the University of Cluj, teaching International Political Sociology and Qualitative Research Methods. Main research interests are critical security studies, far-right studies, as well as the criminalisation of various marginalised groups. As side projects, he conducted research on Romanian history, foreign policy and international relations.
- When the Civic Becomes Extreme: accounting for far-right groups' readiness for action in Romania, New Europe College Yearbook, 2024.
- Taming Transylvania: Paramilitaries Building State and Peace after World War I’, East European Politics and Societies, 2023.
- The Spectacle of Security in the case of Hungarian Far-Right Paramilitary Groups’, Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies, 2: 68 – 93, 2013.
We, the Fascists: Iosif Drăgan and Far Right ideas in post-1948 Romania
The research of which this paper is part of aims to trace a genealogy of Romanian Far Right dating as early as the end of the First World War. I shed light on the intricate relationship between nation-building, militarization and far-right violence. In my proposal for this conference, I focus on the period following the Second World War, when Romania became a Communist republic.
My analysis is centred on Iosif Drăgan (1917 – 2008), a member of the interwar Romanian Far Right, who immigrated to Italy and became a successful businessman. He was initially approached by the Romanian secret services in late 1950’s in order to facilitate a number of business contracts for the Romanian state. Within few years, this cooperation became also ideological. In the mid-1970’s, Drăgan was allowed to publish and spread his ultra-nationalist ideas in Romania, as well as to sponsor and maintain contact with key supporters of Far Right ideas within the country. At the same time, the Securitate used his influence among the Romanian diaspora to soften the regime’s image in ‘the West’ and to propagate nationalist – and at times even anti-Soviet ideas, such as revisionism related to Bessarabia (the Republic of Moldova). Among the members of this diaspora were also former members of the Romanian Iron Guard.
Indeed, Drăgan’s brand of far right ideology derived directly from Romania’s interwar Fascist thinking. He emphasised the historical exceptionalism of the Romanian people, along with explicit anti-Semitic tropes. His publishing house in Italy (named Nagard, established in 1977) issued tracts in Romanian, English and Italian. To the international audiences, these books, some authored by Drăgan himself, were meant to showcase Romania’s history as an exceptional case within the ‘European civilisation’. During Communism’s last decade, Drăgan’s ideas were already influencing not only the cultural and academic milieus, but also important members of the Party elite, including the Ceausescu family. Following their downfall in 1989, Drăgan became one of the main ideologues and sponsors of the main Far Right party, the Greater Romania. Drăgan’s efforts to rehabilitate Romania’s anti-Semitic World War II leader Antonescu, were increasingly picked up by the post-communist elites, as Far Right ideas and groups were systematically tolerated during the first decade of this century. Today, Romania’s already complex parliamentary Far Right constellation uses ideas and narratives steeped in the ultra-nationalist discourse articulated and kept alive by Iosif Drăgan.
There is an unbroken continuity of the Romanian Far Right, in terms of ideas and actors, throughout the 20th century and until present day. The inauguration of a Communist regime in 1948 merely scattered and displaced several actors outside the country, while repressing others. However, as a political ideology, the Romanian Far Right not only survived, but thrived during the Cold War decades, both within and outside the country. Therefore, when the seemingly hostile Communist regime finally crumbled, this political ideology was effortlessly embraced by various actors of the political elite, and continued to this day.