From the Ashes of Empire: Competing Nationalisms and the Radicalisation

Recorded December 3, 2018. This public lecture will be presented by
Dr Raul Cârstocea, Lecturer in European Studies at the Europa
Universität Flensburg and Fellow at the Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena.
This talk will address the idea of ‘the nation’ in Romania after
1918 and its importance for the radicalisation of interwar
politics. It will briefly discuss the history of competing
nationalisms in 19th century Romania, the country’s wartime
experience and the post-war territorial changes that resulted in a
significantly expanded and politically heterogeneous entity
referred to as ‘Greater Romania.’ This territory was marked by the
overlapping legacies of the three Eastern empires that collapsed at
the end of the First World War (Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and
Russian). This incomplete or failed project of nationalisation and
the numerous ‘questions’ it left unresolved, the talk argues,
opened up the space for radical politics and led to the growing
popularity of Romania’s native fascist movement – the ‘Legion of
the Archangel Michael’ or ‘Iron Guard’. This talk will argue
against the existence of a monolithic ‘Romanian nationalism’ and
explore the fluid, intersecting, and competing nationalisms in
Romania during this period. Learn more at:
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/