The nation as object: Race, blood, and biopolitics in interwar Romania

Slavic Review

Volumn 66, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 413-441

  Turda, Marius ^a  

^a OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 35448963737     PISSN: 00376779     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/20060295     Document Type: Article

References (213)

1. Iuliu Moldovan, Biopolitica (Cluj, 1926).
2. See also Maria Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania (Pittsburgh, 2002), 83. Many of Moldovan's biopolitical ideas resurfaced in articles and books he published in the 1940s.
3. See, for example, I. Moldovan, Statul etnic (Sibiu, 1943)
4. and Moldovan, Introducere în etnobiologie şi biopoliticǎ (Sibiu, 1944).
5. The first discussion of biopolitics was attempted in 1911 in the modernist journal The New Age in reference to policies of public health, reproduction, and social welfare. This article established a strong connection between these policies and the state, which was seen as the only institution capable of implementing those policies. See G. W. Harris, "Bio-Politics," The New Age 10, no. 9 (28 December 1911): 197. Another trend was to insist on the fusion between political science and materialist sociology in order to explain the functioning of the state as a biological organism.
6. One such interpretation was first suggested by Morley Roberts, Bio-Politics: An Essay in the Physiology, Pathology and Politics of the Social and Somatic Organism (London, 1938).
7. For an early conceptualization of this direction, see Albert Somit, "Biopolitics," British Journal of Political Science 2, no. 2 (1972): 209-38;
8. for more recent developments, see Ira H. Carmen, "Biopolitics: The Newest Synthesis?" Genetica 99, nos. 2/3 (1997): 173-84.
9. It was largely in this sense that Michel Foucault employed the term in the late 1970s, in connection with his theory of governmentality. See Michel Foucault, Naissance de la biopolitique. Cours au Collège de France (1977-1978) (Paris, 2004);
10. and Maarten Simons, "Learning as Investment: Notes on Governmentality and Biopolitics," Educational Philosophy and Theory 38, no. 4 (2006): 523-40. An enlarged definition was proposed by Edward Ross Dickinson, according to whom biopolitics should include "medical practices from regimes of personal hygiene to state organized public health campaigns and institutions; social welfare programs; racial sciences, from physical anthropology to the various racial theories; eugenics and the science of heredity; demography, scientific management and occupational health; and the related disciplines and practices such as psychiatry and psychology."
11. See Edward Ross Dickinson, "Biopolitics, Fascism, Democracy: Some Reflections on Our Discourse about 'Modernity,'" Central European History 37, no. 1 (2004): 3-4.
12. Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence (Ithaca, 1991);
13. Ann Laura Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things (London, 1995);
14. Tzvetan Todorov, Hope and Memory: Lessons from the Twentieth Century (Princeton, 2004);
15. and Roger Griffin, Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (London, 2007).
16. Margit Szöllösi-Janze, ed., Science in the Third Reich (Oxford, 2001);
17. and Marius Turda and Paul J. Weindling, eds., "Blood and Homeland": Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900-1940 (Budapest, 2006).
18. Much of the recent literature dealing with nationalism in interwar Romania is indebted to Benedict Anderson's influential conceptualization of the nation as a cultural, imagined artifact. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1986). According to Anderson, the idea of race does not play an important role in shaping nationalist imagination.
19. For a different view, see Nancy Leys Stepan, "The Hour of Eugenics": Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (London, 1991);
20. Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley, 2002);
21. and Marius Turda, The Idea of National Superiority in Central Europe, 1880-1918 (New York, 2005).
22. See Katherine Verdery, "National Ideology and National Character in Interwar Romania,"
23. and Keith Hitchins, "Orthodoxism: Polemics over Ethnicity and Religion in Interwar Romania," both in Ivo Banac and Katherine Verdery, eds., National Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe (New Haven, 1995), 103-33 and 135-56;
24. Katherine Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu's Romania (Berkeley, 1991);
25. Sorin Alexandrescu, Paradoxul român (Bucharest, 1998);
26. Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building and Ethnic Struggle, 1918-1930 (Ithaca, 1995);
27. and Irina Livezeanu, "Generational Politics and the Philosophy of Culture: Lucian Blaga between Tradition and Modernism," Austrian History Yearbook 33 (2002): 207-37.
28. Radu Ioanid, "The Sacralised Politics of the Romanian Iron Guard," Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 5, no. 3 (2004): 419-53;
29. Viorel Achim, "Romanian-German Collaboration in Ethnopolitics: The Case of Sabin Manuilǎ," in Ingo Haar and Michael Fahlbusch, eds., German Scholars and Ethnic Cleasing, 1919-1945 (New York, 2005), 139-54;
30. and Michael Wedekind, "Wissenschaftsmilieus und Ethnopolitik im Rumänien der 1930/40er Jahre, "in Jürgen Reulecke, Josef Ehmer, und Ursula Ferdinand, eds., Herausforderung "Bevölkerung": Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag Rainer Mackensens (Wiesbaden, 2007).
31. See H. Sanielevici, "De ce rasǎ e poporul român," in H. Sanielevici, Noi probleme literare, politice, sociale (Bucharest, 1927), 127-36;
32. H. Sanielevici, "Rasa, limba şi cultura b_̌cestinaşilor Daciei," in H. Sanielevici, Literatura şi ştiinţa (Bucharest, 1930), 17-46;
33. Ion Pillat, Rassengeist und völkische Tradition in der neuen rumänischen Dichtung (Jena, 1939);
34. C. Rǎdulescu-Motru, "Rassa, cultura şi naţionalitatea ̂in filozofia istoriei," Arhiva pentru ştinţǎ şi reformǎ socialǎ 4, no. 1 (1922): 18-34;
35. and Garabet Ibrǎileanu, "Caracterul specific în literaturǎ," Opere 5 (Bucharest, 1977), 92-94.
36. Unfortunately, space limitations do not permit me to deal here with Saxon racial research in Transylvania during the interwar period, Austrian racial research in the Banat during the 1930s, or Hungarian serology in northern Transylvania after 1940. Hence racial research in this article is referred to as "Romanian," as it deals only with Romanian researchers. For the Austrian research in the Banat, see Maria Teschler-Nicola, "'Volksdeutsche' and Racial Anthropology in Inter-war Vienna: The 'Marienfeld Project,'" in Turda and Weindling, eds., " Blood and Homeland," 55-82.
37. The institutional and political difficulties experienced by the Romanian state after 1918 have been the subject of much analysis. In addition to classic works such as Henry L. Roberts, Rumania: Political Problems of an Agrarian State (New Haven, 1951);
38. Kenneth Jowitt, ed., Social Change in Romania, 1860-1940: A Debate on Development in a European Nation (Berkeley, 1978);
39. and Daniel Chirot, ed., The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe (Berkeley, 1989);
40. see Keith Hitchins, Rumania, 1866-1947 (Oxford, 1994);
41. John R. Lampe and Mark Mazower, eds., Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe (Budapest, 2004);
42. and John R. Lampe, Balkans into Southeastern Europe: A Century of War and Transition (Basingstoke, Eng., 2006).
43. The subject generated an extensive scholarship. Such animated interest notwithstanding, critical evaluations are rare. See Katherine Verdery, Transylvanian Villagers: Three Centuries of Political, Economic, and Ethnic Change (Berkeley, 1983);
44. László Péter, ed., Historians and the History of Transylvania (Boulder, Colo., 1992);
45. Keith Hitchins, A Nation Affirmed: The Romanian National Movement in Transylvania, 1860-1914 (Bucharest, 1999);
46. and László Kurti, The Remote Borderland: Transylvania in the Hungarian Imagination (New York, 2001).
47. N. Al. Rǎdulescu, "Anthropologische Beweise für das Alter und die Ureinwohnerschaft der Rumänen in Siebenbürgen" (1941), Central State Archive Prague, file Reichsprotektor in Boehmen und Maehren, No. 114, Office RuSHA, Box 1, p. 12. I would like to thank Michal Š;imůnek for drawing my attention to this document.
48. See also N. Al. Rǎdulescu, Antropologie rasialǎ şi antropogeografia (Bucharest, 1941).
49. Although the main focus here is on racial research dealing with Transylvania, it should not be assumed that other regions (and ethnic groups) were not subject to constant anthropological attention. See, for example, I. Botez, Contribuţii la studiul taliei şi al indicelui cephalic în Moldova de nord şi Bucovina (Iaşi, 1938),
50. and Olga C. Necrasov, Étude anthropologique de la Moldavie et de la Bessarabie septentrionales (Bucharest, 1941).
51. J. Deniker, The Races of Man: An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnography (London, 1900), 8.
52. For a discussion of the relationship between the concept of race and physical anthropology, see Paul Topinard, "De la notion de race en anthropologie," Revue d'anthropologie 8, no. 2 (1879): 589-660.
53. Deniker, Races of Man, 325-35.
54. William Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study (New York, 1899).
55. Hans F. K. Günther, Rassenkunde Europas, 2d ed. (Munich, 1926).
56. See also Amos Morris-Reich, "Race, Ideas, and Ideals: A Comparison of Franz Boas and Hans F. K. Günther," History of European Ideas 32, no. 3 (September 2006): 313-32.
57. In 1842, the Swedish anatomist Anders Retzius (1796-1860) first used the ratio of width to length to distinguish between dolichocephalic and brachycephalic crania, thus establishing a craniological comparative study of racial groups. For a discussion of different anthropological traditions of race, see Anders Retzius, Coup d'oeil sur l'état actuel de l'ethnologie au point de vue de la forme du crane osseux (Geneva, 1860).
58. For a description, see Carlos C. Closson, "The Hierarchy of European Races," American Journal of Sociology 3, no. 3 (1897): 314-27.
59. For how ideas of racial classification were used in different institutional contexts, see Frederik Barth, Andre Gingrich, Robert Parkin, and Sydel Silverman, One Discipline, Four Ways: British, German, French, and American Anthropology (Chicago, 2005).
60. See the critique provided by G. M. Morant, "A Preliminary Classification of European Races Based on Cranial Measurements," Biometrika 20, nos. 3-4 (1928): 301-75.
61. See also Benoit Massin, "From Vichow to Fischer: Physical Anthropology and 'Modern Race Theories' in Wilhelmine Germany," in George W. Stocking Jr., ed., Volksgeist as Method and Ethic: Essays on Boasian Ethnography and the German Anthropological Tradition (Madison, 1996), 79-154.
62. See Paul J. Weindling, "Central Europe Confronts Racial Hygiene: Friedrich Hertz, Hugo Iltis and Ignaz Zollschan as Critics of Racial Hygiene," in Turda and Weindling, eds., "Blood and Homeland," 263-80.
63. For a general discussion of serology and blood groups, see Paul Steffan, Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde (Munich, 1931);
64. P. P. Negulescu, Geneza formelor culturii: Priviri critice asupra factorilor ei determinanţi (Bucharest, 1934);
65. Fritz Schiff and William C. Boyd, Blood Grouping Technic: A Manual for Clinicians, Serologists, Anthropologists, and Students of Legal and Military Medicine (New York, 1942);
66. Arthur Ernest Mourant, The ABO Blood Groups: Comprehensive Tables and Maps of World Distribution (Oxford, 1958);
67. Kathleen E. Boorman and Barbara E. Dodd, An Introduction to Blood Group Serology: Theory, Techniques, Practical Applications, 2d ed. (London, 1961);
68. William H. Schneider, "Chance and Social Setting in the Application of the Discovery of Blood Groups," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 57 (1983): 545- 62;
69. and Pauline M. H. Mazumdar, "Blood and Soil: The Serology of the Aryan Racial State," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 64 (1990): 187- 219.
70. L. Hirschfeld [Hirszfeld] and H. Hirschfeld, "Serological Differences between the Blood of Different Races," The Lancet 197, no. 2 (18 October 1919): 675-79. The Romanian presentation of Hirschfeld's research appeared in 1922.
71. See C. Velluda, "Dr. L. Hirschfeld şi Dna Dr. Hirschfeld, Incercǎri de aplicaţiune a medodelor serologice în problema raselor," Clujul medical 3, no. 12 (1922): 367- 68.
72. Leone Lattes, Individuality of the Blood in Biology and in Clinical and Forensic Medicine (1st Italian ed., 1923; London, 1932), 43.
73. For the role "blood" has played in shaping European imagination since the Middle Ages, see Uli Linke, Blood and Nation: The European Aesthetics of Race (Philadelphia, 1999).
74. See, for example, Eugène Pittard, "Anthropologie de la Roumanie: Nouvelles recherches sur le Skoptzy," Bulletin de la Société Roumaine des Sciences 22, nos. 4-5 (1913): 298-328;
75. Pittard, Anthropologie de la Roumanie: Les Peuple Sporadiques de la Dobrudja (Bucharest, 1913);
76. and Pittard, Anthropologie de la Roumanie: Documents somatologiques pour l'étude des Tsiganes (Bucharest, 1915).
77. Eugène Pittard, "Recherches anthropologiques sur les Roumains de Transylvanie," Revue anthropologique 29, nos. 3-4 (1919): 57-76;
78. and Pittard, together with Alexandru Donici, Etude sur l'indice céphalique en Roumanie avec un essai de repartition géographique de ce caractère (Bucharest, 1927).
79. See also Eugène Pittard, Les Peuples des Balkans: Esquisses anthropologique (Paris, 1916);
80. and Pittard, La Roumanie (Paris, 1917). Pittard exercised a lasting influence on Francisc I. Rainer, the first director of the Institute of Anthropology in Romania.
81. See Francisc Rainer, Enquêtes anthropologiques dans trois villages roumains des Carpathes (Bucharest, 1937).
82. Victor Papilian, "Studiul indicelui cranian vertical şi transverse-vertical pe craniile de români şi maghiari," Clujul medical 1, no. 9 (1920): 763-77;
83. Papilian, "Cercetâri antropologice asupra românilor ardeleni," Clujul medical 2, no. 11 (1921): 335-39;
84. and Papilian, "Nouvelles recherches anthropologiques sur la tête des Roumains de Transylvanie," Revue anthropologique 33, nos. 9-10 (1923): 337-41. Although Bucur notes that Papilian used "notions of hereditary determinism in evolution to define the parameters of [his] own scientific discipline, anthropology," she does not provide any evidence to support the claim. See Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 70.
85. Ion Chelcea, "Tipuri de cranii româneşti din Ardeal (Cercetare antropologicǎ)," Academia Românǎ: Memoriile Secţiunii Ştiinţifice 10, no. 3 (1934 /35): 341-68.
86. Rudolf Martin, Lehrbuch der Anthropologie in systematischer Darstellung mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der anthropologischen Methoden (Jena, 1914).
87. Chelcea, "Tipuri de cranii," 360-62.
88. For the classical version of this narrative, see Nicolae Iorga, Histoire des Roumains et de leur civilisation (Paris, 1920).
89. See, for example, Jovan Cvijić, La Péninsule Balkanique: Géographie humaine (Paris, 1918);
90. and Christian Promitzer, "Vermessene Körper: 'Rassenkundliche' Grenzziehungen im südöstlichen Europa," in Karl Kaser, Dagmar Gramshammer-Hohl, and Robert Pichler, eds., Europa und die Grenzen im Kopf (Klagenfurt, 2004), 357-85.
91. N. Densuşianu, Dacia prehistoricč (Bucharest, 1913);
92. A. Donici, "Crania Scythica: Contribution à l'étude anthropologique du crane scythe et essai relatif à l'origine géographique des scythes," Academia Românǎ: Memoriile Secţiunii Ştiinţifice 10, no. 3 (1934 /1935): 289-329;
93. and N. Lahovary, "Istoria şi o nouǎ metoda de determinare a raselor," Arhiva pentru ştiinţǎ şi reformǎ socialǎ 7, nos. 1-2 (1937): 122-73.
94. Soirin Antohi, "Romania and the Balkans: From Geocultural Bovarism to Ethnic Ontology," Trνsit online (Eurpäische Revue) 21 (2002), available at http://www.iwm.at/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=235&Itemid=411 (last consulted 25 May 2007).
95. See Vasile Pârvan, Dacia: An Outline of the Early Civilizations of the Carpatho-Danubian Countries (Cambridge, Eng., 1928);
96. Lucian Blaga, "Revolta fondului nostru nelatin," in Iordan Chimet, ed., Dreptul la memorie (Cluj, 1993), 3:41-43;
97. and Mircea Vulcǎnescu, Dimensiunea româneascǎ a existenţei (Bucharest, 1991).
98. See, for example, the anthropological framework suggested by Viktor Lebzelter, "La Répartition des Types Raciaux Romano-Méditerranéens en Roumanie," L'Anthropologie 45, nos. 1-2 (1935): 65- 69.
99. Despite his critical attitude toward Lebzelter and others, when it came to explaining racial variety and composition, Iordache Fǎcǎoaru had to rely on the racial taxonomies produced by western European anthropologists. He thus accepted six criteria for racial classification: height, the cephalic index, the facial index, the nasal index, and eye and hair color. Based on these criteria, Fǎcǎoaru then identified four principal races: Alpine, Dinaric, Mediterranean, and Nordic; and five secondary races living in Romania: Dalic, East-European, Oriental, West-Asian, and Indian. The study was first published as "Criteriile pentru diagnozǎ rasialǎ," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 6, nos. 10-11-12 (1935): 341- 68;
100. and later as a brochure in the collection edited by the Institute of Hygiene and Social Hygiene in Cluj. See I. Fǎcǎoaru, Criteride pentru diagnozǎ rasialǎ (Cluj, 1936).
101. Contrary to what Bucur assumes, Fǎcǎoaru did not study in Berlin and did not receive a PhD in sociology. See Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 37.
102. Interestingly, later in the book she partly corrects this by saying that Fǎcǎoaru "had completed his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Munich in 1929." Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 112. In fact, Fǎcǎoaru received his PhD (cum laude) from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Munich in 1931. He studied pedagogy with Aloys Fisher, anthropology with Theodor Mollison, and racial hygiene with Fritz Lenz. See Studenten-Kartei: Fǎcǎoaru Jordache, O-Np-SS 31, Archiv der Ludwig-Universität München and the Archive of Ministry of Health, Bucharest, Fǎcǎoaru Iordache, Personal File, No. 10.489. I would like to thank Michael Wedekind for drawing my attention to Fǎcǒaru's student files and to Alexandru Dumitriu in Bucharest for his help in locating Fǎcǎoaru's personal files.
103. Iordache Fǎcǎoaru, "Socialantropologia ca ştiinţǎ pragmatistǎ," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 9, nos. 9-10 (1938): 358.
104. A similar perspective was advocated by Petru Râmneanţu, "Românii dintre Morava şi Timoc şi continuitatea spaţoului lor etnic cu al românilor din Banat şi din Timocul bulgar," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 12, nos. 1-4 (1941): 40-62;
105. and E. Petrovici, "Românii dintre Morava şi Timoc," Transilvania 72, no. 3 (1941): 201-11.
106. For a discussion of Romanian irredentism in the 1940s, see Rebecca Ann Haynes, "'A New Greater Romania?' Romanian Claims to the Serbian Banat," Central Europe 3, no. 2 (2005): 99-120.
107. See especially the articles Fǎcǎoaru published in Germany during the 1930s, such as I. Fǎcǎoaru, "Die 'Ganzheitsanthropologie' und das Studium des Menschen in Rumänien," Zeitschrift für Rassenkunde 6, no. 2 (1937): 248-50;
108. and Fǎcǎoaru, "Beitrag zum Studium der wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Bewährung der Rassen," Zeitschrift für Rassenkunde 9, no. 1 (1939): 26-39.
109. I. Fǎcǎoaru, Structura rasialǎ a populaţiei rurale din România (Bucharest, 1940), 16 (emphasis in the original).
110. I. Fǎcǎoaru, "Valoarea biorasialǎ a naţiunilor europene şi a provinciilor româneşti (O primǎ încercare de ierarhizare etnicǎ)," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 14, nos. 9-10 (1943): 278-310.
111. Thus, for example, Bulgarians were composed of the following racial components: Mediterranean, 41 percent; Dinaric-Alpine, 24 percent; Alpine, 15 percent; Paleoasiatic-Mongoloid, 12 percent; and Nordic, 8 percent. Germans were composed of Nordic, 50 percent; Alpine, 20 percent; Dinaric, 15 percent; East-European, 6 percent; Oriental, 5 percent; Mediterranean, 2 percent; Lapoid, 1 percent, and Mongoloid, 1 percent. Romanians were composed of Alpine, 29 percent; Mediterranean, 19 percent; Nordic, 14 percent; East-European, 12 percent; Dinaric, 11 percent; Atlantid, 10 percent; Oriental, 3 percent; and Dalic, 2 percent. Hungarians were composed of East-European, 35 percent; Dalic, 20 percent; Caucasian-Mongoloid, 20 percent; Alpine, 15 percent, Nordic, 5 percent, Mongoloid, 4 percent; and Mediterranean, 1 percent. Fǎcǎoaru, "Valoarea biorasialǎ," 280-81. The lesser known "Dalic" and "Atlantid" races are subdivisions of the Nordic race.
112. Fǎcǎoaru, "Valoarea biorasialǎ," 283.
113. Ibid., 292.
114. Ibid., 306-7.
115. For a literary and philosophical idea of race, see Lucian Blaga, "Despre rasǎ ca stil," Gândirea 14, no. 2 (1935): 69-73.
116. See also Marin Simionescu-Râmniceanu, Contribuţii la o ideologie politicǎ specific româneascǎ (Bucharest, 1939).
117. See Iordache Fǎcǎoaru, "Amestecul rasial şi etnic în România," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 9, nos. 9-10 (1938): 276-87.
118. See Constantin Rǎdulescu-Motru, "Tipul rasial românesc dupǎ indicele cephalic," in C. Rǎdulescu-Motru, Psihologia paporului român (Bucharest, 1999), 150-66.
119. Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power, 144.
120. S. Manuilǎ and G. Popoviciu, "Recherches sur les races roumaine et hongroise en Roumanie par l'isohémagglutination," Comptes rendus des séances de la Société de Biologie 90, no. 1 (1924): 542-43;
121. and S. Manuilǎ, "Recherches séro-anthropologiques sur les races en Roumanie par la méthode de l'isohémagglutination," Comptes rendus des séances de la Société de Biologie 90, no. 2 (1924): 1071-73.
122. Sabin Manuilǎ, "Cercetǎri biologice cu privire la rasse, prin aplicarea unei metode nouǎ," Convorbiri literare 56 (1924): 694-98.
123. Ibid., 696.
124. Gheorghe Popovici, "Diferente şi asemǎnǎri în structura biologicǎ de rasǎ a popoarelor României," Cultura 3 (1924): 224-34.
125. Ibid., 224.
126. Ibid., 224-25.
127. Oskar Weszeczky, "Untersuchungen über die gruppenweise Hämagglutination beim Menschen," Biochemische Zeitschrift 107 (1920): 159-71;
128. and F. Verzár and O. Weszeczky, "Rassenbiologische Untersuchungen mittels Isohämagglutininen," Biochemische Zeitschrift 16 (1921/1922): 33-39.
129. Popovici, "Diferenţe şi asemǎnǎri," 226.
130. Ibid., 227-34.
131. Georges Popoviciu, "Recherches sérologiques sur les races en Roumanie," Revue anthropologique 35, nos. 4-5-6 (1925): 152-64.
132. In the first volume of Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic edited by Moldovan and published in 1927, the legal physician and lecturer at the Law Academy in Oradea, Mihai Kernbach, published a short commentary on blood groups in which he evaluated the importance of serology for anthropology and surveyed new vistas of research opened up by the discovery of the agglutinating properties of blood.
133. See M. Kernbach, "Grupuri sangvine," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 1, no. 3 (1927): 102-6.
134. Other researchers interested in serological research were Francisc: Rainer, Maria Horia Dumitrescu, Alexandru Manuilǎ, and Maria Veştemeanu. See Francisc Rainer, "Existǎ corelaţie între grupele sanguine umane şi celelalte caractere antropologice?" in Omagiu lui Constantin Kiriţescu (Bucharest, 1937), 696-701;
135. Maria Horia Dumitrescu, "Cercetǎri asupra grupelor sanguine în România," România medicalǎ 12, no. 10 (1934): 141-42, 144;
136. and Alexandru Manuilǎ and Maria Veştemeanu, "Constatǎri cu privire la aplicarea metodei sero-antropologice pe teren," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 14, nos. 3-4 (1943): 121-25.
137. A good example is the collaboration between Fǎcǎoru and Râmneanţu occasioned by the Seventeenth International Congress of Anthropology held in 1937 in Bucharest. See P. Râmneantu and I. Fǎcǎoaru, "The Blood Groups and the Pigmentation of the Iris in the Population from Transylvania";
138. P. Râmneantu and I. Fǎcǎoaru, "The Blood Groups and the Facial Index in the Population from Transylvania"; I. Fǎcǎoaru and P. Râmneanţu, "Das Verhältnis, zwischen Rassen und Blutgruppen bei der Siebenbürgischen Bevölkerung"; I. Fǎcǎoaru and P. Râmneanţu, "Der Längen-Breitenindex und die Blutgruppen bei der Siebenbürgischen Bevölkerung," all in XVIIe Congrès International d'Anthropologie et d'Archéologie Préhistorique (Bucharest, 1939), 323-25, 333-37, 337-39, and 339-42.
139. That this was not something exclusively confined to Romania, but a common feature of racial nationalism in the Balkans is eloquently demonstrated by the case of Yugoslavia. See Rory Yeomans, "Of 'Yugoslav Barbarians' and Croatian Gentlemen Scholars: Nationalist Ideology and Racial Anthropology in Interwar Yugoslavia," in Turda and Weindling, eds.,"Blood and Homeland, "83-122.
140. Petru Râmneantu (in collaboration with Petru David), "Cercetǎri asupra originii etnice a populaţiei din sud-estul Transilvaniei pe baza compoziţiei serologice a sǎngelui," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 6, no. 1 (1935): 36-75.
141. See also Pierre Râmneanţu, "Origine éthnique des Széklers de Transylvanie," Revue de Transylvanie 2, no. 1 (1935/1936): 45-59;
142. and I. Fǎcǎoaru, "Compoziţia rasialǎ la români, sǎcui şi unguri," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 7, nos. 4-5 (1937):124-42.
143. Râmneanţu, "Cercetǎri asupra originii etnice a populaţiei," 40.
144. Ibid., 56
145. Ibid., 64-65.
146. G. Popoviciu and I. Birau, "Nouvelles contributions a l'étude des isohémagglutinines en Roumanie," Revue anthropologique 46, nos. 4-6 (1936): 181-83;
147. and G. Popoviciu, "Comparaison entre les groupes sanguins des Roumains et ceux des autres peuples de la Roumanie," Revue anthropologique 46, nos. 4-6 (1936): 184-89.
148. Popoviciu and Birau, "Nouvelles contributions," 182-83.
149. Popoviciu, "Comparaison entre les groupes sanguins," 181-89.
150. See also Georges Popoviciu, "Les races sanguines en Roumanie," in XVIIe Congrès International d'Anthropologie et d'Archéologie Préhistorique, 309-16.
151. George Popovici, "Le problème des populations de la Roumanie vu a la lumière des recherches sur les races d'après le sang," Revue de Transylvanie 4, nos. 1-2 (1938): 14-27.
152. Ibid., 14.
153. Ibid., 15.
154. Râmneantu proposed a similar argument: "The application of the serological investigations in the populations is one of the most important achievements for anthropology. In this way, based on the variations among fixed limits of the classical blood groups, we are able to determine to which nation belongs every population nucleus. We are convinced that the distribution of the blood groups gives better indication about the extension of an 'ethnie,' than the language, the culture, and the customs." In Peter Ramneantzu, "The Classical Blood Groups and the M, N and M, N Properties in the Nations from Transylvania," in XVIIe Congrès International d'Anthropologie et d'Archéologie Préhistorique, 325.
155. Popovici, "Le problème des populations de la Roumanie," 24.
156. See also Rǎdulescu, "Anthropologische Beweise," 12.
157. According to Maria Bucur, "The relationship between Romanian eugenics and the policies of the Antonescu regime, especially with regard to its treatment of 'undesirable' minorities - the Jews and Roma - remains unclear." Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 224.
158. Scholars dealing with the Holocaust in Romania, like Radu Ioanid, Jean Ancel, Lya Benjamin, and Dennis Deletant, have documented clear connections, however. See Radu Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944 (Chicago, 2000);
159. Jean Ancel, "The German-Romanian Relationship and the Final Solution," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 19, no. 2 (2005): 252-75;
160. Lya Benjamin, "Bazele doctrinare ale antisemitismului antonescian," in Viorel Achim and Constantin Iordachi, eds., România şi Transnistria: Problema Holocaustului: Perspective istorice şi comparative (Bucharest, 2004), 237-51;
161. Lya Benjamin, ed., Evreii din România între 1940-1944, vol. 1, Legislaţia antievreiascǎ (Bucharest, 1993);
162. and Dennis Deletant, Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and His Regime, Romania 1940-1944 (Basingstoke, Eng., 2006).
163. Moreover, archival documents indicate the importance bestowed on Râmneanţu's work on the racial origins of the Csangos by the religious leaders of the Csango communities in Moldova in their attempts to assure General Antonescu of their loyalty to the Romanian state. See, for example, the informative note sent on I April 1943 to Serviciul Special de Informaţii (SSI), "În jurul problemei originei entice a ceangǎilor şi a românilor catolici din Moldova," Arhivele Statului Bucureşti, Preşedinţia Consiliului de Miniştri, f. 63/1942 (I am grateful to Chris Davis for locating this document). The note was occasioned by the publication of Petru M. Pál's article, "Glasul sângelui," in Originea, a strong endorsement of Râmneanţu's racial theories about the Csangos.
164. Nicolae Roşu, Dialectica naţionalismului (Bucharest, 1936), 18.
165. See Arens Meinholf, "Die Moldauer Ungarn (Tschangos) im Rahmen der rumänisch-ungarisch-deutschen Beziehungen zwischen 1940 and 1944: Eine vornational strukturierte ethnische Gruppe im Spannungsfeld totalitärer Volkstumspolitik," in Mariana Hausleitner and Harald Roth, eds., Der Einfluss von Faschismus und Nationalsozialismus auf Minderheiten in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa (Munich, 2006), 265-315.
166. See Michael Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards: A Study of Ostforschung in the Third Reich (Cambridge, Eng., 1988).
167. This exercise in racial mapping continued after the war, especially in the period between 1945 and 1947 when some of the territories that Romania lost in 1940, like northern Transylvania, were reintegrated into the Romanian state. See Peter Râmneantzu, The Biological Grounds and the Vitality of the Transilvanian Rumanians (Cluj, 1946).
168. I. Fǎcǎoaru, Contribuţie la studiul compoziţiei morfologice a românilor din Republica Moldoveneascǎ (Bucharest, 1944), 4.
169. See also Iordache Fǎcǎoaru, "Cercetǎri antropologice în patru sate din Transnistria" (unpublished paper, 1943) available on microfilm, Holocaust Memorial Museum Institute, f. 2242, op. 1, RG-31.004, reel 4 (I would like to thank Radu Ioanid and Carl Modig for their help in obtaining this manuscript). Fǎcǎoaru and his wife, Tilly, belonged to a group of Romanian research teams assigned by the Romanian Social Institute and Central Institute of Statistics to complete the social, economic, cultural, and racial evaluations of the Romanian population in Transnistria.
170. See Anton Galopenţia, Românii de la est de Bug, 2 vols. (Bucharest, 2006).
171. Petru Râmneanţu, "Distribuţia grupelor de sânge la populaţia din Transilvania," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 12, nos. 9-12 (1941): 137-59;
172. and P. Râmneanţu and V. Luşirea, "Contribuţii noi la studiul seroetnic: al populaţiei din România," Ardealul medical 2, no. 12 (1942): 503-11.
173. Râmneanţu, "Distribuţia grupelor de sânge," 152-56.
174. Ibid., 158.
175. P. Râmneanţu, "Grupele de sânge la Ciangǎii din Moldova," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 14, nos. 1-2 (1943): 51-65.
176. Ibid., 52.
177. Ibid., 54. This highly nationalistic interpretation of historical sources was also applied to Catholic Romanians in Moldova, whom Râmneanţu declared to be "Catholicized Orthodox Romanians."
178. Râmneanţu, "Grupele de sânge la Ciangǎii," 60-63.
179. Petru Râmneanţu, Die Abstammung der Tschangos (Sibiu, 1944).
180. Ibid., 7-29.
181. Most prominently in the 1938 manifesto "Programul statului etnocratic" proposed by the poet and Orthodox philosopher Nichifor Crainic. See Nichifor Crainic, Ortodoxie şi etnocraţie. Cu o anexǎ: Programul statului etnocratic (Bucharest, 1938), 284.
182. Râmneanţu, Die Abstammung der Tschangos, 43-48.
183. Csango priests themselves adopted Râmneanţu's racial narrative (although not his negation of Csango Catholicism). See Iosif P. Pál, Originea catolicilor din Moldova şi franciscanii lor, pǎstorii lor de veacuri (Roman, 1941).
184. Later this view was integrated into the standard Romanian discourse on the Csangos developed during communism. See Dumitru Mǎrtinaş, The Origins of the Csangos (1985; reprint, Iaşi, 1999).
185. Petru Râmneanţu, "Probleme etno-biopolitice ale Transilvaniei," Transilvania 74, no. 5 (1943): 325-48.
186. In 1934, the Romanian philosopher Petre P. Negulescu provided a comprehensive investigation into biological theories of belonging. Preoccupied with deciphering cultural mechanisms that could influence the formation of national identity, Negulescu also reflected on the relationship between racial serology and national essence. He skeptically concluded that "Not even through the analysis of blood can we - at least not yet - establish the existence of a 'national specificity.'" See P. P. Negulescu, Geneza formelor culturii: Priviri critice asupra factorilor ei determinanţi (Bucharest, 1934), 375.
187. See, for example, Ion Foti, Concepţia eroicǎ a rasei (Bucharest, 1936);
188. and Alexandru Randa, Rasism românesc (Bucharest, 1941).
189. Roger Griffin, "Tunnel Visions and Mysterious Trees: Modernist Projects of National and Racial Regeneration, 1880-1939," in Turda and Weindling, eds., "Blood and Homeland," 417-56;
190. and Antohi, "Romania and the Balkans: From Geocultural Bovarism to Ethnic Ontology."
191. Roger Griffin, "The Palingenetic Political Community: Rethinking the Legitimation of Totalitarian Regimes in Interwar Europe," Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 3, no. 3 (2002): 24-43.
192. Sabin Manuilǎ, "Comandamentele rassiale şi politica de populaţie," România nouǎ 7, no. 17 (26 October 1940): 3.
193. Many of these ideas were also discussed in Manuilǎ "Acţiunea eugenicǎ ca factor de politicǎ de populaţie," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 12, nos. 1-4 (1941): 1-4.
194. Traian Herseni, "Mitul sângelui," Cuvântul 17, no. 41 (23 November 1940): 2.
195. Traian Herseni, "Rasǎ şi destin naţional," Cuvântul 18, no. 91 (16 January 1941): 1.
196. Ibid., 7. The Legionary idea of the healthy and reproductive nation was fully developed during communism. See Gail Kligman, The Politics of Duplicity: Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu's Romania (Berkeley, 1998).
197. Interestingly, both Fǎcǎoaru and Râmneantu lived until the late 1970s and thus witnessed Ceauseşcu's policies of natalism and anti-abortion, to which Râmneanţu, at least, thought he could be of assistance. See Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 240;
198. and Maria Bucur, "Mişcarea eugenistǎ şi rolurile de gen," in Maria Bucur and Mihaela Miroiu, eds., Patriarhat şi emancipare ǐn istoria gândirii politice româneşti (Iaşi, 2002), 139- 42.
199. Iordache Fǎcǎoaru, "Normele eugenice în organizaţiile legionare," Cuvântul 17, no. 69 (21 December 1940): 1.
200. See Arhivele Naoonale ale României, Ministerul Învǎţǎmântului, f. 854/1940.
201. Bucur is mistaken when she assumes that Fǎcǎoaru "held an important government position, controlling the implementation of public health measures." See Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 39. Nor did Fǎcǎoaru become "the ideologue of that regime in matters relating to health, biology, and race purity, using eugenics as the basis for his arguments and programs of action." Ibid. Interestingly, Fǎcǎoaru even expressed reticence about accepting the position in the Ministry of National Education, arguing that he would be more helpful in "science," where he could not be replaced, than at the ministry where many could fulfil his duties. Fǎcǎoaru, "Normele eugenice in organizaoile legionare," 1.
202. Fǎcǎoaru, "Normele eugenice în organizaţiile legionare," 2.
203. Petru Râmneat̂u, "Mǎsuri de politicǎ demograficǎ şi politica demograficǎ totalitarǎ," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 11, nos. 1-2 (1940): 44-45.
204. See also George Stroescu, "Selecţia rasialǎ şi politica populaţiei în noul stat legionary," Buna vestire 4, no. 87 (28 December 1940): 2.
205. P. P. Panaitescu, "Noi suntem de aici," Cuvântul 17, no. 38 (20 November 1940): 1.
206. See Al. Manuilǎ, Originea neamului românesc în interpretarea sa biologicǎ (Bucharest, 1943).
207. See Petru Râmneanţu, "Sânge şi glie," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 14, nos. 11-12 (1943):370-92;
208. and Petru Râmneanţu, "Inrudirea de sânge," Buletin eugenic şi biopolitic 14, nos. 7-8 (1943): 220-37.
209. Ioan V Gruia, "Expunere de motive la decretul lege nr. 2650/1940 privitor la reglementarea situaţei juridice a evreilor din România," Monitorul Official 183 (9 August 1940), reproduced in Martiriul evreilor din Romania, 1940-1944: Documente şi mǎrturii (Bucharest, 1991), 14-21.
210. See also Eugen Dimitrie Petit, Originea etnicǎ (Bucharest, 1941);
211. and Gheorghe Vornica, "Originea etnicǎ sau de sânge," Transilvania 72, no. 8 (1941): 589-91.
212. Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 222;
213. Griffin, "Tunnel Visions and Mysterious Trees," 133.