BLADED WEAPONS FROM GRAVE 16 DATING TO THE MIGRATION PERIOD AT THE DZHURGA-OBA CEMETERY IN THE EASTERN CRIMEA

Описывается погребение - кенотаф № 16 из могильника Джурга-Оба в Восточном Крыму. По найденным в нем вещам (элементы ременной гарнитуры) это погребение датируется второй половиной V - первой половиной VI в. Здесь было обнаружено оружие с прямым однолезвийным клинком, которое можно идентифицировать как скрамасакс. В его конструкции и декоре есть элементы как восточного происхождения (железная гарда), так и западного (накладки на ножны с декором в виде птичьих голов). Погребения со скрамасаксами немногочисленны в Северном Причерноморье и, возможно, отражают сасанидскую воинскую традицию. The paper publishes a cenotaph grave 16 from the Dzhurga-Oba cemetery in the Eastern Crimea. Based on the items retrieved from the grave (belt sets details), the grave is dated to the second half of the 5 - first half of the 6 centuries. Among the finds there is a straight single-edge knife that can be identified as scramasax. Its design and decoration reveal some elements of Oriental origin (iron guard) and Western origin (scabbard plates featuring bird heads as a decoration). The graves with scramasax are not numerous in the North Pontic region, possibly, they reflect a Sasanid military tradition.

Transnational Far Right and Nazi Soft Power in Eastern Europe: The Humboldt Fellowships for Romanians

Foreign students and researchers in Germany became, after 1933, a tool of Nazi propaganda. Those receiving financial support from the Germans, such as the recipients of the Humboldt fellowships, were further compromised. This article aims to shed light on the role played by Humboldt fellowships in the political and ideological transfer between Nazi Germany and Romania. It aims to re-create the profile of the fellows and the influence of the fellowship on the Romanian fellows’ political and ideological development, in order to establish how they functioned as Nazi propaganda tools. Throughout the 1930s, the number of young Romanians going to study and carry out research in Nazi Germany increased considerably, while the financial support they received from the Germans became more significant—including a larger number of Humboldt fellowships. This shows not only that Nazi Germany had a special interest in developing its relations with Romania but also that Romania was embarked on a path of far-right radicalization, with students and youth becoming sympathizers of Nazi Germany and sometimes members of the Iron Guard. The Romanian Humboldt fellows were politically instrumentalized by the Third Reich: they were engaged in far-right political activism, were influenced in their professions and writings by the Nazi ideology, and sometimes they even went on to occupy various positions in the Romanian bureaucratic or diplomatic apparatus.

L’empreinte du Rhinocéros

"This article is based on a Ionesco’s testimony during a conference he delivered near Florence in 1986. Rhinocéros is a fable, an allegory which historically refers to the subversive power of the Iron Guard, whose ultranationalist and xenophobic language converted most of Eugen Ionescu’s friends to Nazism, gradually turning them into rhinos. The rhinos speak a foreign and incomprehensible language, full of violent slogans where human values are completely degraded. Everything becomes threatening. Totalitarian ideology and collectivism propagate barbarism. The risk is the definitive destruction of thought."

Staging Death: Christofascist Necropolitics during the National Legionary State in Romania, 1940–1941

The cult of death and the celebration of martyrdom lay at the core of interwar fascist movements across the European continent. However, it was in the Romanian Legionary Movement (also known as the Iron Guard) that these were articulated into a full-fledged ideology of thanatic ultranationalism. In this article, I examine the spectacular fascist necropolitics staged as state-sponsored funeral performances during the short-lived National Legionary State (September 14, 1940–February 14, 1941). A detailed description of the massive campaign of exhumations and reburials of the so-called “legionary martyrs” carried out during this short time span, culminating with the grandiose ceremony organized for the reburial of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu on November 30, 1940, provides insight into the legionary thanatic worldview and ritual praxis. It also sheds light on the movement’s politics of commemoration, death, and afterlife and shows how these were embedded into a religious framework underpinned by theological concepts such as heroic martyrdom, vicarious atonement, and collective redemption.

Fascism and Terrorism: The Iron Guard in Interwar Romania

This chapter explores terrorism as a strategy of political militancy by the fascist Iron Guard in interwar Romania. It argues that the Iron Guard was a mass movement promoting a new political faith that was based on a mythical form of apocalyptic politics with roots in Romantic theories of social palingenesis. The essence of this theological ideology was the idea of salvation through violent self-sacrifice. The chapter analyzes the Iron Guard’s political violence, with an emphasis on its terrorism. A main function of fascist terrorist actions was that of manufacturing martyrdom: as such, violent self-sacrifice was the engine of the fascist political religion, providing fascists with means of objectifying their claims to rebirth and regeneration. The importance of violent self-sacrifice for fascism must be reevaluated as being not just a strategy of political struggle, but a way of bestowing sacrality on the charismatic community of redemption through martyrdom.

Some new research about Vlaicu network during the Second World War

George Beza (1907-1997) joined the Iron Guard. He acquired the title “Commander” of the legion but soon left the organization. He worked for a while with Mihai Stelescu (excluded from the Iron Guard on September 25, 1934) to publish the magazine "Crusade of Romanism", in which they criticized the legion. In April 1936, he and Stelescu were placed on the watch list of those who were to be punished for their treachery. Beza joined PNȚ and played and played an important role in World War II a monument was erected in Jerusalem in honor of Beza. He played an important role in the plans of SOE to organize anti-Antonescu propaganda in Romania. He was the author of the Vlaicu anti-axis resistance in Romania. This paper presents some aspects of SOE's organizational activities related to the Vlaicu program.

“Christianizing” Transnistria: Romanian Orthodox Clergy as Beneficiaries, Perpetrators, and Rescuers during the Holocaust

The violent behavior of fascist Orthodox clerics serving in the Transnistrian Orthodox Mission during World War II contributed to the “Romanianization” of Transnistria initiated by the Antonescu government in 1941. These churchmen stand out as bystanders, beneficiaries, and even perpetrators of the Holocaust. Subscribing to the antisemitic programs of the outlawed Iron Guard and of the Antonescu government, these men took an active part in exploiting, robbing, and even murdering both local Jews and other deportees from Bessarabia, Bucovina, and elsewhere in Romania. They illustrate both the suffusion of fascist ideology into all sectors of Romanian society and the role of clergy at every level.