Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (; born Corneliu Codreanu, according to his birth certificate; 13 September 1899 – 30 November 1938) was a Romanian politician of the far right, the founder and charismatic leader of the Iron Guard or ''The Legion of the Archangel Michael'' (also known as the ''Legionary Movement''), an ultranationalist and violently antisemitic organization active throughout most of the interwar period. Generally seen as the main variety of local fascism, and noted for its mystical and Romanian Orthodox-inspired revolutionary message, it gained prominence on the Romanian political stage, coming into conflict with the political establishment and the democratic forces, and often resorting to terrorism. The Legionnaires traditionally referred to Codreanu as ''Căpitanul'' ("The Captain"), and he held absolute authority over the organization until his death.

Codreanu, who began his career in the wake of World War I as an anticommunist and antisemitic agitator associated with A. C. Cuza and Constantin Pancu, was a co-founder of the National-Christian Defense League and assassin of the Iași Police prefect Constantin Manciu. Codreanu left Cuza to found a succession of movements on the far right, rallying around him a growing segment of the country's intelligentsia and peasant population, and inciting pogroms in various parts of Greater Romania. Several times outlawed by successive Romanian cabinets, his Legion assumed different names and survived in the underground, during which time Codreanu formally delegated leadership to Gheorghe Cantacuzino-Grănicerul. Following Codreanu's instructions, the Legion carried out assassinations of politicians it viewed as corrupt, including Premier Ion G. Duca and his former associate Mihai Stelescu. Simultaneously, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu advocated Romania's adherence to a military and political alliance with Nazi Germany.

During the 1937 suffrage, his party registered its strongest showing, placing third and winning 15.8% of the vote. It was blocked out of power by King Carol II, who invited the rival fascists and fourth-place finishers of the National Christian Party to form a short-lived government, succeeded by the National Renaissance Front royal dictatorship. The rivalry between Codreanu and, on the other side, Carol and moderate politicians like Nicolae Iorga ended with Codreanu's imprisonment at Jilava and eventual assassination at the hands of the Gendarmerie. He was succeeded as leader by Horia Sima. In 1940, under the National Legionary State proclaimed by the Iron Guard, his killing served as the basis for violent retribution.

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's views influenced the modern far-right. Groups claiming him as a forerunner include Noua Dreaptă and other Romanian successors of the Iron Guard, the International Third Position, and various neofascist organizations in Italy and other parts of Europe.

Biography

Early life

Corneliu Codreanu was born in Huși to Ion Zelea Codreanu and Elizabeth (née Brunner) on 13 September 1899. His father, a German teacher and himself a declared "Romanian nationalist", would later become a political figure within his son's movement. A native of Bukovina in Austria-Hungary, Ion had originally been known as ''Zelinski''; his wife was of partial German heritage.Hugh Seton-Watson, ''The East European Revolution'', Frederick A. Prager, New York, 1961, p.206 Statements according to which Ion Zelea Codreanu was originally a Slav of Ukrainian or Polish originJelavich, pp.204–205; Emil Cioran, a philosopher who, early in his life, had been attracted to the Iron Guard, stated in a later interview that he believed Corneliu Zelea Codreanu to be "in fact, Slavic, more of a Ukrainian hetman type" (Cioran, ''Convorbiri cu Cioran'', Humanitas, Bucharest, 1993, in Ornea, p.198) Ilarion Țiu
"Relațiile regimului autoritar al lui Carol al II-lea cu opoziția. Studiu de caz: arestarea conducerii Mișcării Legionare"
i
''Revista Erasmus''
14/2003-2005, at the University of Bucharest Faculty of History; retrieved February 13, 2008 contrast with the Romanian chauvinism he embraced for the rest of his life; Codreanu the elder associated with antisemitic figures such as University of Iași professor A. C. Cuza. Just prior to Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's 1938 trial, his ethnic origins were the subject of an anti-Legionary propagandistic campaign organized by the authorities, who distributed copies of a variant of his genealogy which alleged that he was of mixed ancestry, being the descendant of not just Ukrainians, Germans, and Romanians, but also Czechs and Russians, and that several of their ancestors were delinquents. Historian Ilarion Țiu describes this as an attempt to offend and libel Codreanu.

Too young for conscription in 1916, when Romania entered World War I on the Entente side, Codreanu nonetheless tried his best to enlist and fight in the subsequent campaign. His education at the military school in Bacău (where he was a colleague of Petre Pandrea, the future left-wing activist) ended in the same year as Romania's direct implication in the war. In 1919, after moving to Iași, Codreanu found communism as his new enemy, after he had witnessed the impact of Bolshevik agitation in Moldavia, and especially after Romania lost her main ally in the October Revolution, forcing her to sign the 1918 Treaty of Bucharest; also, the newly founded Comintern was violently opposed to Romania's interwar borders (''see Greater Romania'').

While the Bolshevik presence decreased overall following the repression of Socialist Party riots in Bucharest (December 1918), it remained or was perceived as relatively strong in Iași and other Moldavian cities and towns. In this context, the easternmost region of Bessarabia, which united with Romania in 1918, was believed by Codreanu and others to be especially prone to Bolshevik influence.Barbu, p.196 Codreanu learned antisemitism from his father, but connected it with anticommunism, in the belief that Jews were, among other things, the primordial agents of the Soviet Union (''see Jewish Bolshevism'').

Codreanu's hero from his childhood until the end of his life was Stephen the Great.Bucur, Maria "Romania" pages 57–78 from ''Women, Gender and Fascism in Europe, 1919–1945'' edited by Kevin Passmore, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003 page 68. A vast legend was created around the womanizing Stephen's sexual powers, who had demonstrated his greatness as a man and ruler by fathering hundreds, if not thousands of children by women from all social ranks, an aspect of Stephen's life which the Romanian historian Maria Bucur observed "was never held against him, but rather used anecdotally as evidence of his greatness". Despite his vehement insistence in public of the importance of upholding traditional Eastern Orthodox values, the charismatic Codreanu, who was considered to be very attractive by many women, often followed his role model Stephen the Great with regard to them. One awestruck female follower wrote: "The Captain odreanucame from a world of Good, a Prince of the Lights ... a medieval knight, a martyr and a hero." Codreanu's female followers consistently praised him as an intensely romantic, noble "white knight" figure who had come to save Romania.

GCN and National-Christian Defense League

Codreanu studied law in Iași, where he began his political career. Like his father, he became close to A. C. Cuza. Codreanu's fear of Bolshevik insurrection led to his efforts to address industrial workers himself. At the time, Cuza was preaching that the Jewish population was a manifest threat to Romanians, claimed that Jews were threatening the purity of Romanian young women, and began campaigning in favour of racial segregation.

Historian Adrian Cioroianu defined the early Codreanu as a "quasi-demagogue agitator".Cioroianu, p.16 According to Cioroianu, Codreanu loved Romania with "fanaticism", which implied that he saw the country as "idyllicized nddifferent from the real one of his times". British scholar Christopher Catherwood also referred to Codreanu as "an obsessive anti-Semite and religious fanatic". Historian Zeev Barbu proposed that "Cuza was Codreanu's mentor .. but nothing that Codreanu learned from him was strikingly new. Cuza served mainly as a catalyst for his nationalism and antisemitism." As he himself later acknowledged, the young activist was also deeply influenced by the physiologist and antisemitic ideologue Nicolae Paulescu, who was involved with Cuza's movement.

In late 1919, Codreanu joined the short-lived Garda Conștiinței Naționale (GCN, "Guard of National Conscience"), a group formed by the electrician Constantin Pancu. Pancu had an enormous influence on Codreanu.

Pancu's movement, whose original membership did not exceed 40,Barbu, p.197 attempted to revive loyalism within the proletariat (while offering an alternative to communism by advocating increased labor rights).Veiga, p.49-50 As much as other reactionary groups, it won the tacit support of General Alexandru Averescu and his increasingly popular People's Party (of which Cuza became an affiliate); Averescu's ascension to power in 1920 engendered a new period of social troubles in the larger urban areas (''see Labor movement in Romania'').

The GCN, in which Codreanu thought he could see the nucleus of nationalist trade unions, became active in crushing strike actions. Their activities did not fail in attracting attention, especially after students who obeyed Codreanu, grouped in the Association of Christian Students, started demanding a Jewish quota for higher education — this gathered popularity for the GCN, and it led to a drastic increase in the frequency and intensity of assaults on all its opponents. In response, Codreanu was expelled from the University of Iași. Although allowed to return when Cuza and others intervened for him (refusing to respect the decision of the University Senate), he was never presented with a diploma after his graduation.

While studying in Berlin and Jena in 1922, Codreanu took a critical attitude towards the Weimar Republic, and began praising the March on Rome and Italian fascism as major achievements; he decided to cut his stay short after learning of the large Romanian student protests in December, prompted by the intention of the government to grant the complete emancipation of Jews (''see History of the Jews in Romania'').

When protests organized by Codreanu were met with lack of interest from the new National Liberal government, he and Cuza founded (4 March 1923) a Christian nationalist organization called the National-Christian Defense League. They were joined in 1925 by Ion Moța, translator of the antisemitic hoax known as ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' and future ideologue of the Legion. Codreanu was subsequently tasked with organizing the League at a national level, and became especially preoccupied with its youth ventures.

With the granting of full rights of citizenship to persons of Jewish descent under the Constitution of 1923, the League raided the Iași ghetto, led a group which petitioned the government in Bucharest (being received with indifference), and ultimately decided to assassinate Premier Ion I. C. Brătianu and other members of government. Codreanu also drafted the first of his several death lists, which contained the names of politicians who, he believed, had betrayed Romania. It included Gheorghe Gh. Mârzescu, who held several offices in Brătianu's executive, and who promoted the emancipation of Jews. In October 1923, Codreanu was betrayed by one of his associates, arrested, and put on trial. He and the other plotters were soon acquitted, as Romanian legislation did not allow for prosecution of conspiracies that had not been assigned a definite date. Before the jury ended deliberation, Ion Moța shot the traitor and was given a prison sentence himself.

Manciu's killing

Codreanu clashed with Cuza over the League's structure: he demanded that it develop a paramilitary and revolutionary character, while Cuza was hostile to the idea. In November, while in Văcărești prison in Bucharest, Codreanu had planned for the creation of a youth organization within the League, which he aimed to call ''The Legion of the Archangel Michael''. This was said to be in honour of an Orthodox icon that adorned the walls of the prison church, or, more specifically, linked to Codreanu's reported claim of having been visited by the Archangel himself. A more personal problem also divided Codreanu and Cuza, namely that Cuza's son had an affair with Codreanu's sister that left her pregnant.Yavetz, Zvi "An Eyewitness Note: Reflections on the Rumanian Iron Guard" pages 597–610 from ''Journal of Contemporary History'', Volume 26, Issue 4, September 1991 page 601. The couple had broken up with the younger Cuza refused his girlfriend's demand that he marry her now that she was bearing his child. Though the scandal was hushed up, the fact that his sister was having an illegitimate child was deeply humiliating for Codreanu as he liked to present his family as model members of the Orthodox church and he sought unsuccessfully to have Cuza pressure his son to marry his sister.

Back in Iași, Codreanu created his own system of allegiance within the League, starting with the ''Frăția de Cruce'' ("Brotherhood of the Cross", named after a variant of blood brotherhood which requires sermon with a cross). It gathered on 6 May 1924, in the countryside around Iași, starting work on the building of a student centre. This meeting was violently broken up by the authorities on orders from Romanian Police prefect Constantin Manciu. Codreanu and several others were allegedly beaten and tormented for several days, until Cuza's intervention on their behalf proved effective.

After an interval of retreating from any political activity, Codreanu took revenge on Manciu, assassinating him and severely wounding some other policemen on 24 October, in the Iași Tribunal building (where Manciu had been called to answer accusations, after one of Codreanu's comrades had filed a complaint).Scurtu, p.41 Forensics showed that Manciu was not facing his killer at the moment of his death, which prompted Codreanu to indicate that he considered himself to be acting in self-defence based solely on Manciu's earlier actions. Codreanu gave himself up immediately after firing his gun, and awaited trial in custody. The police force of Iași was unpopular with the public due to widespread corruption, and many locals saw the murder of Manciu as a heroic act by Codreanu.Crampton, Richard ''Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century-And After'', London: Routledge, 1997 page 114. In the meantime, the issue was brought up in the Parliament of Romania by the Peasant Party's Paul Bujor, who first made a proposal to review legislation dealing with political violence and sedition; it won the approval of the governing National Liberal Party, which, on December 19, passed the ''Mârzescu Law'' (named after its proponent, Mârzescu, who had been appointed Minister of Justice). Its most notable, if indirect, effect was the banning of the Communist Party. In October and November debates between members of Parliament became heated, and Cuza's group was singled out as morally responsible for the murder: Petre Andrei stated that "Mr. Cuza aimed and Codreanu fired", to which Cuza replied by claiming his innocence, while theorizing that Manciu's brutality was a justifiable cause for violent retaliation.

Although Codreanu was purposely tried as far away from Iași as Turnu Severin, the authorities were unable to find a neutral jury. On the day he was acquitted, members of the jury, who deliberated for five minutes in all, showed up wearing badges with League symbols and swastikas (the symbol in use by Cuza's League). After a triumphal return and an ostentatious wedding to Elena Ilinoiu, Codreanu clashed with Cuza for a second time and decided to defuse tensions by taking leave in France.

Codreanu's wedding to Elena Ilinoiu in June 1925 in Focșani was the major social event in Romania that year; it was celebrated in lavish, pseudo-royal style and attended by thousands, attracting enormous media attention. After the wedding, Codreanu and his bride were followed by 3,000 ox-carts in a four-mile long procession of "ecstatically happy" peasants. One of Codreanu's followers wrote at the time that Romanians loved royal spectacles, especially royal weddings, but since Crown Prince Carol had eloped first to marry a commoner in 1918 in a private wedding followed by a royal wedding in Greece, Codreanu's wedding was the best substitute for the royal wedding that the Romanian people wanted to see.Bucur, Maria "Romania" pages 57–78 from ''Women, Gender and Fascism in Europe, 1919–1945'' edited by Kevin Passmore, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003 page 74. Codreanu's wedding was meant to change his image from the romantic, restless, Byronic hero image he had held until then to a more "settled" image of a married man, and thus allay concerns held by more conservative Romanians about his social radicalism. Before leaving Romania for Grenoble, Codreanu was the victim of an assassination attempt — Moța, just returned from prison, was given another short sentence after he led the reprisals.

Creation of the Legion of the Archangel Michael

Codreanu returned from Grenoble to take part in the 1926 elections, and ran as a candidate for the town of Focșani. He lost, and, although it had had a considerable success, the League disbanded in the same year. Codreanu gathered former members of the League who had spent time in prison, and put into practice his dream of forming the Legion (November 1927, just days after the fall of a new Averescu cabinet, which had continued to support now-rival Cuza). Codreanu claimed to have had a vision of the Archangel Michael who told him he had been chosen by God to be Romania's saviour. From the beginning, a commitment to the values of the Eastern Orthodox Church was core to the message of the Legion, and Codreanu's alleged vision was a centrepiece of his message.

Based on the ''Frăția de Cruce'', Codreanu designed the Legion as a selective and autarkic group, paying allegiance to him and no other, and soon expanded it into a replicating network of political cells called "ne