Contributed and translated by Maxim, best known on Orthodox Reflections for translated Akathists. Links to the original Romanian sources at the bottom.

Executive summary

This article examines the case of Romanian lawyer and political activist Mihai Rapcea and argues that laws intended to combat fascist, Legionary, racist and anti-Semitic propaganda may be applied in ways that threaten political expression, religious practice and access to historical works. For American and Canadian readers, its central question is how a democracy can address extremist advocacy without treating lawful dissent, private reading or religious devotion as evidence of criminal intent.

According to the article, the prosecution concerns social-media posts, the sharing of footage from an Eminescu commemoration involving an allegedly extremist salute, and statements about controversial historical figures. The defence disputes important aspects of the prosecution’s account. The article also describes investigators’ attention to books, Orthodox icons and private digital conversations. These materials, the author argues, raise questions about the distinction between possessing or studying an idea and publicly promoting it.

A second theme is the treatment of cultural memory. The article focuses on Mihai Eminescu, presented as Romania’s national poet, and on writers and religious figures associated with the interwar period or communist imprisonment. It argues that recognition of cultural contributions and suffering should not automatically be equated with endorsement of extremist politics. The Addendum develops this argument through Mircea Vulcănescu’s public service, prosecution and philosophical legacy.

The issues most relevant to a North American audience are the clarity of criminal laws, the presumption of innocence, restrictions imposed before conviction, the use of private material to infer intent, and the independence of expert advice. The article raises these questions within Romania’s legal and historical setting; it does not establish that American or Canadian legal standards apply there.

The article also warns of the danger of applying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism in ways that conflate criticism of the Israeli government or peaceful protests over Gaza with hatred towards Jewish people. For American and Canadian readers, the concern is whether an anti-discrimination framework could be interpreted too broadly and used to restrict legitimate political speech and assembly. This is the author’s concern about its interpretation and enforcement, not a finding that the definition itself prohibits such criticism.

I. The document that turns icons and even Eminescu into evidence against the new political prisoners

Mihai Rapcea’s background and activism

The 24-hour imprisonment and subsequent placement under judicial supervision of lawyer Mihai Rapcea, for offences of opinion, has shocked at least the nationalist section of public opinion. He is a highly prominent figure who has been active in civil society (in around 30 NGOs, by his own estimates) and in various political organisations, ranging from the New Right to the SOS Romania party. He was once involved with MISA, whilst retaining an interest in yoga and Eastern spirituality, philosophy, and a return to Christianity.

Mihai Rapcea has taken part in numerous street demonstrations against corruption, in several editions of the March for Normality, and in protests against pandemic restrictions and the compulsion to obtain a vaccination certificate, as well as against biometric identity documents. He was among the few to take part in peaceful protests against the genocide in Gaza and Romania’s involvement in the war in Ukraine.

Ioan-Aurel Pop (born January 1, 1955) is a prominent Romanian historian, university professor, and former president of the Romanian Academy. As a lawyer, he became known for representing (often pro bono) figures from the nationalist movement or celebrities. He represented Gregorian Bivolaru, Dan Diaconescu, Cezar Avrămuță (‘The Dacian Flag Bearer’), and Dan Voiculescu’s cousin in the famous trial in which he accused the Antena media mogul of informing on his relatives to the Securitate. He also represented the family of the TV actor Toni Tecuceanu, who died during an alleged flu epidemic, in a case against Dr Streinu Cercel.

Lawyer Rapcea was heavily involved in the series of protests following the annulment of the presidential elections in December 2024. He also launched a civic movement called The Wave of Democracy, through which he mobilised around 800 people to file complaints or appeals in court against the Constitutional Court’s annulment of the elections. (This was similar to the initiative launched by a retired judge, which enjoyed temporary success in a magistrates’ court, though the verdict was subsequently overturned.)

His involvement in the right-wing movement goes back a long way, though he has generally followed his own course. He left SOS Romania amid a scandal, against the backdrop of the Șoșoacă couple’s public divorce. He has been predominantly critical of George Simion. He supported Călin Georgescu, but has also recently distanced himself from him, following the call for negotiations with the established parties, the PNL and the PSD. (However, in the interview he gave after his release, he believes that his case is linked to the persecution of Georgescu’s supporters.)

Photo: Mihai Tociu and Mihai Rapcea at a protest in May 2020, when entry to supermarkets was conditional on having one’s forehead temperature scanned with a thermometer. Shop security guards were turned into medical staff tasked with triaging people with Covid.

The search and public reaction

The biggest stir was caused by reports of a search of the property for books by Mihai Eminescu and Octavian Goga, as well as the removal of a small icon depicting a recently canonised saint with a Legionary past. The resulting uproar prompted the Public Prosecutor’s Office to issue a statement insisting that an investigation was underway into “the distribution of Legionary, fascist, racist and xenophobic material”. Unsurprisingly, government-backed online trolls were quick to defend the decision to arrest him, accusing the nationalist camp of spreading misinformation by emphasising that Christian faith or the works of the great classics were being used as grounds for detention.

But even if that were the case, this ‘marginal’ aspect has far greater implications for society and it is only natural that it should be debated with concern, as a dangerous trend. Let us imagine a hypothetical case in which the police announced that they had found a machine gun and a Bible in someone’s possession… And they would even justify the inclusion of the book with a phrase such as: ‘a book containing scenes of violence and used by radicalised fanatics…’ Such a perspective would certainly be seen as a violation of the freedom of religious conscience of all Christians. The book would become a more significant detail than the machine gun in that fictional scenario.

Available evidence and limitations

Unfortunately, we do not have all the information in this case file, which is said to comprise five volumes of transcripts and statements. Furthermore, the documents in the file are not public, except to the extent that the parties involved disclose them. We will therefore have to reconstruct the context, as far as possible, from the data currently available online. Namely: facsimile extracts from the indictment; six pages from the prosecutor’s order setting out the grounds for the arrest (apparently incomplete, from a document said to be 30 pages long); the Public Prosecutor’s Office press release; interviews given by the defendant and his wife containing statements from the investigation; and disclosures made by the lawyers.

Those who have the patience to work through the information gathered in this way will be surprised to discover that the situation is more complex than the news reports on the subject suggest. And that the implications for society are even greater than might initially have been thought.

The prosecution’s charges

The press release issued by the Public Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Bucharest Court of Appeal sets out three counts:

(1) Namely, that in May 2024, Mihai Rapcea allegedly quoted an aphorism by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu in a Facebook post. (A general quote against corruption, which we shall see below, taken from another document by the prosecutor.)

(2) That in January 2026, he allegedly shared a video from a public event commemorating Mihai Eminescu, held at the statue outside the Romanian Athenaeum. On that occasion, someone else allegedly made a gesture interpreted as the Legionary salute.

(3) Finally, that in April 2026, he allegedly praised individuals accused of war crimes and shared a video recording with similar content. (We shall see below that this was an excerpt from an older episode of the ‘Marius Tucă Show’ on Antena 1).

In the interview he gave immediately upon his release from custody (which we shall reproduce and comment on below), Mihai Rapcea also mentions three charges, but one of them relates to his participation in the protest at the Israeli embassy against the massacres in Gaza. This is a particularly serious matter if a European citizen is being persecuted for peaceful protests, which take place in many democratic countries. It does not appear to be an explicit charge, at least not in this communiqué, which nevertheless accuses him, without providing examples or explaining the context, of:

“he publicly and directly promoted hatred on ethnic grounds and ideas, concepts or doctrines specific to extremist nationalism against the Jewish community.”

Although the press release was prompted by the rumours surrounding the involvement of Eminescu’s work in the case, the message to the press does not clarify this aspect in any way. It neither denies nor confirms it. For on page 2, the following vague sentence appears:

“During the house searches and the access to a computer system, evidence was seized consisting of publications, objects of symbolic significance and documents reflecting affinities with Legionary ideology.”

The press release concludes with assurances that the institution respects procedures, rights and the presumption of innocence.

Eminescu, regarded as a precursor to the Legionaries

Lawyer Ingrid Mocanu and others quoted an excerpt from the arrest warrant issued by the prosecutor. I could not find that extract in the set of facsimiles published by Lumea Justiției, but it has not been refuted either. It is of shocking gravity for the development of Romanian society, which claims to be democratic and a member of the European Union:

‘With regard to the presence of several volumes of Mihai Eminescu’s works, it must be noted that the Legionary Movement consistently claimed certain texts from Eminescu’s political writings as its own, particularly those of a nationalist and anti-Semitic nature, presenting him as a precursor to its own ideological concepts and as a source of doctrinal legitimacy.

In this context, the presence in the library of several editions of Eminescu’s works, including the volume Eminescu’s Nationalism, can be assessed in conjunction with the other works identified.”

Even in the darkest years of Romanian Stalinism in the 1950s, owning Mihai Eminescu’s works was not considered grounds for prosecution or an aggravating factor in assessing an accused person’s character, whatever the charges. This was all the more true after the 1964 amnesty for political prisoners and the gradual transition from internationalist communism to national communism under Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Even within communist internationalism, attempts had been made to exploit Eminescu’s prestige by misrepresenting him as a precursor of Marxism. He was invoked solely through the proletarian’s speech in ‘The Emperor and the Proletarian’ (‘Smash the cruel and unjust order that divides the world into the wretched and the rich’…), disregarding the rest of the characters in the poem. The poet’s own tragic life was portrayed as marked by poverty, set against the backdrop of bourgeois society, and characterised by a sensitivity to the plight of the peasants.

Following the transition to national-communism, the emphasis shifted to Eminescu’s patriotism, illustrated above all by the national epic in ‘Third Letter’ or the poem ‘What I Wish for You, Sweet Romania (my land of glory, my land of longing)’… Propaganda did not make use of Doina either (as it was more ‘politically incorrect’), but it could still be found, because, for the first time in that era, Eminescu’s complete works were published.

Not only did the regime not prohibit knowledge of the national poet, but under Nicolae Ceaușescu it even encouraged an unofficial cult, with statues, boulevards and schools named after him in every town, and commemorative festivities held twice a year. A section of the Academy and the Institute of Linguistics was dedicated to literary criticism specialising in a niche discipline: ‘Eminescu studies’.

During the same period, figures from national culture – some of whom had been involved in even more radical political activities – were rehabilitated. Statues and streets were named after Octavian Goga and Tudor Arghezi. Even former prisoners of the communist jails were rehabilitated and allowed to contribute to the communist press. This included the cases of Constantin Noica, Radu Gyr, Petre Țuțea and Alexandru Paleologu, who enjoyed varying degrees of prominence and access to official platforms. This was a sign that even the regime which had punished them as opponents considered that they had served their sentences and could be utilised in society for their erudition.

It was also at this time that works by interwar authors—which had previously appeared only abroad—were published, sometimes for the first time, such as the work of the economist Mihail Manoilescu. The poet Adrian Păunescu (the son of a former Liberal political prisoner who had become an enthusiastic supporter of the regime) was, for example, permitted to travel to Chicago to interview the defector Mircea Eliade, who had also spent his youth in the Legion and had never renounced that period. Unofficially, in a literary context, Marin Preda was also permitted a partial positive re-evaluation of Marshal Ion Antonescu. This was whilst the Legionaries continued to be portrayed as negative characters in the historical films directed by Sergiu Nicolaescu.

A mere police blunder?

Many commentators make the mistake of interpreting this shocking classification of Eminescu amongst the ‘ideological enemies’ in the democracy of 2026 as a mere error, born of ignorance, on the part of overzealous investigative bodies. I fear that this is not the case at all; rather, some state institutions have adopted a radically ‘progressive’ perspective aimed at rewriting the past.

In 1980, the complete works of Mihai Eminescu were published for the first time, and the series had reached volume 9, which included his journalistic writings. It was at this point that Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen intervened with public protests, demanding the censorship of the articles published in the newspaper Timpul at the end of the 19th century. The rabbi addressed the Romanian Academy and demanded that the printing of the volume be halted and that copies already in bookshops be withdrawn, considering them to be anti-Semitic writings that incite racial hatred. At least that is what Wikipedia records, along with protests from a number of intellectuals, including Corneliu Vadim Tudor. Following international pressure, the fate of those volumes remains unclear (some say they were sent to be melted down, others that they had a limited distribution).

The fact is that neither before nor since have Romanians ever perceived Mihai Eminescu as an anti-Semite. And, in fact, the general public has not the faintest idea of his work as a nationalist political thinker and journalist, nor of the context of the era. This is because that period has been erased from the collective memory, including under the national-communist regime and during the decades of transition.

Even the majority of Romanians, who react emotionally to the sight of Eminescu’s portrait being torn down in the plenary session of Parliament, are under the impression that the issue lies with his patriotic poems. The stance of the great classics and the interwar generation is not understood as a highly topical issue, similar to the opposition to mass migration, which is on the agenda of all Western, democratic countries.

The issue under discussion was the reaction of the local population to the large-scale waves of migration of Jews displaced from neighbouring empires – the Tsarist, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires – whose settlement in large numbers in certain towns and villages was causing discontent and debate within society. At the heart of the issue was also international pressure to amend the Constitution so as to grant citizenship to the new arrivals. Opposition to this influx lasted for around a century, from 1848 to 1948, with successive generations of prominent Romanian intellectuals expressing diverse views on the subject.

Public ignorance is virtually universal regarding that chapter of history, given the education system under the totalitarian communist regime for 45 years and subsequently the dismantling of the school system and the dumbing down of the mass media during the 35 years of capitalism. This is why groups with a neo-Marxist agenda can claim a monopoly on rewriting history, barring the public’s access to other perspectives on the past and emphasising only the regrettable episodes in which Romanians appear as intolerant, violent, driven by an irrational hatred towards defenceless minorities upon whom they suddenly pounce during the World War.

I explained this historical background in the episode on the so-called ‘denazification’ operation, from the series in which I critically commented on the censorship laws. There, I also noted that in 2004, when the Wiesel Commission published its report, the text began with the following sentence:

‘The roots of Romanian anti-Semitism are intertwined with the origins of the modern Romanian state and with the emergence of the rich national cultural tradition that accompanied the union of the principalities, independence and the creation of Greater Romania. The anti-Semitism that manifested itself in Romania between the two world wars grew directly from the seeds sown in the major events of the country’s development, which began in the mid-19th century.”

That statement was dismissed as exaggerated or offensive to national culture. It was not taken seriously as a programme to purge the entire culture, not just that of the interwar period. In the meantime, the commission in question has been transformed into a government institute, reporting to the General Secretariat of the Government.

As I outlined in another episode of this series, the institution plays an unusual role within the Romanian state. It is involved in training judicial and police personnel through indoctrination courses. It participates in the writing of history textbooks. Although it is led by individuals who worked in Marxist-Communist propaganda, its verdicts on history are regarded as absolute truth. It is taken as a benchmark by the press for educating and influencing public opinion. It passes its own judgements on citizens who have not been tried in court, branding them as anti-Semitic (as in the case of Eminescu’s writings). It is called upon as a witness or consulted for expert opinion by the state’s law enforcement agencies.

Therefore, when a state magistrate nonchalantly states that some of Mihai Eminescu’s writings are anti-Semitic, we should not be too quick to assume that this is a ‘slip-up’ born of ignorance. Even though the national poet has never been tried or convicted of such a criminal offence in the present day.

In an interview given immediately after his release from custody, lawyer Mihai Rapcea said that, once he had been taken from his home, he was allowed to consult his case file. He was unable to go through it all, having been woken from his sleep at six in the morning by the 20 masked officers and prosecutors who searched his home and subsequently his office and the home of his 80-year-old mother. He was then subjected to an interrogation comprising 35 questions, which he believes were drafted with the aid of artificial intelligence, given the way they were phrased. This is by no means a trivial matter, given that a person is confronted with such an unreliable technique when dealing with large volumes of data, which they cannot memorise, process or master whilst competing with AI.

Rapcea says that his case file comprises five volumes, one of which is said to consist solely of material provided by the Elie Wiesel Institute, which is said to have been used by the prosecutors as a consultant or witness. (Most likely, this also involves the institution that filed the complaint – again, a problematic situation if a party actively involved in the ideological battle is also treated as a neutral adviser, providing the definitions missing from the law.)

It would have been serious enough for a government body to ideologically oversee the population (under the euphemism of ‘monitoring’). Just as the former Securitate used to oversee and compile files on ‘problematic’ individuals. But it is also used as a consultant by the law enforcement agencies, which ought to have their own neutral apparatus for discernment on very vague issues. Such as distinguishing a fictitious dividing line between nationalism and ‘excessive nationalism’, between patriotism and ‘xenophobia’.

As I also noted in my commentary on the indictment against Călin Georgescu, in that political case – which has divided national public opinion – there are entire passages and definitions taken from the Elie Wiesel Institute, as if it were the undisputed voice of the Romanian state on matters of current politics.

The total lack of clear definitions for controversial concepts, such as ‘Legionary ideas’, ‘fascist ideas’ and ‘xenophobia’, was at the heart of President Nicușor Dan’s challenge to the Vexler 2 Act before the Constitutional Court. The challenge was rejected on the grounds that these are ‘well-known concepts’, which may be further clarified by appointed experts. This vagueness leaves room for many abuses, particularly given that magistrates may feel they risk nothing by stretching the definitions in a way that favours those in power, whilst hoping for rapid promotions for high-profile cases in the media.

Punished for protesting against genocide?

Prior to the searches carried out on several individuals involved in this case, Police Commissioner Marius Burduja drew up a report. It contains a statement that is mind-boggling for a free country, yet perfectly in keeping with the atmosphere of a totalitarian state:

“It has been established that numerous live video clips have been posted, in which the individual named Mihai Rapcea speaks on political and social issues, expressing his dissatisfaction with the current political system and the legislation introduced by it, across various areas of application.”

(The excerpt was posted on his Facebook page by co-defendant Mihai Tociu.) It sounds utterly shocking that a citizen should be criticised for expressing dissatisfaction with the current system. It is quite likely that the ‘legislation’ referred to also included the Vexler Act. Apparently, debating laws is permitted only for MPs, not for the citizens they represent.

In the interview above, Mihai Rapcea says he is also accused of taking part in the protest outside the Israeli embassy. He reads from the indictment (at min. 14):

“They have included in this case the rally on 9 October 2024, organised as a lawful protest outside the Israeli embassy. It was claimed that I expressed an explicitly anti-Semitic message inciting hatred. This is despite the fact that the entire order fails to specify what the rally was about. It was the genocide in Gaza. I called for those under investigation and with arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court to be held accountable. Why is this message missing from the text of the order!? Why do you not reproduce my message, if you are including this matter in the order!?”

If this is indeed the case, as the defendant presents it, we are dealing with a serious instance of political repression. The participants in those protests in Romania could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and almost all of them (about four of them) have ended up as defendants in this case, including Stegarul Dac (The Dacian Flag Bearer), who organised a solitary protest there on another occasion.

Here we see explicitly the danger of interpreting the new IHRA definition of ‘anti-Semitism’, which also includes legitimate criticism of the Israeli government. If the authorities actually apply this redefinition, it will result in a major curtailment of citizens’ rights and freedoms.

In the UK’s capital, London, there have been protests on this issue involving half a million participants. There have been millions of protesters on the streets in virtually all European Union countries, the United States and even more in Muslim countries. The rallies in Turkey, attended by hundreds of thousands of people, were also joined by the country’s president, whose nation is a key member of NATO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OuPd5VZA0M

In contrast, Romania organises festive receptions for the President of Israel at the highest level and bans protests, including by several opposition MPs (from the SOS party). The arrest took place on the eve of the visit and was followed by bans on posting online and taking part in public protests. The same sort of measure has been imposed in the past on Stegarul Dac (The Dacian Flag Bearer) and others on trial in cases relating to civic and political activism. In effect, certain voices are being silenced even before they have been found guilty of anything, although the Public Prosecutor’s Office insists that the presumption of innocence is being respected.

The sequence of events

We learn more details from excerpts of the detention order, reproduced in facsimile by the Lumea Justiției website. The document, which differs from the indictment itself, was intended to justify to the judges why the defendant poses a danger to society and must be arrested; it was drawn up by prosecutor Bogdan Rocsin. He invokes, in particular, Emergency Ordinance 31 of 2002, issued during Adrian Năstase’s time in office. This is further confirmation that the general impression that the crackdown began recently with Silviu Vexler’s second law is mistaken.

Engineer Mihai Tociu, also known online for his participation in rallies, set up the Facebook page ‘Eminescu Lives On Through Us’. Apparently, the page was intended to evolve into an NGO that would continue the nationalist tradition of Eminescu’s writings. On 15 January 2026, the defendants took part in a commemoration of Eminescu’s birth, near the statue in the Romanian Athenaeum Park in Bucharest.

Tociu had made a cardboard cut-out model featuring a life-size photograph of Eminescu. The figure had a movable hand, powered by a small motor with a sensor, which raised an arm when it detected someone moving nearby. This is where the prosecution’s and the defence’s accounts diverge. Prosecutors claim that another person (Alexandru Balcu) performed a Legionary-style salute in front of the cardboard figure and accuse Rapcea of distributing the video containing that sequence.

The defence maintains that this was not the case, that the animated figure had its fingers spread apart, more akin to a standard salute and to the yellow hand used by #rezist protesters at anti-corruption rallies. That prop was not found during the search of Tociu’s home, some six months after the incident, having been discarded in the meantime. Rapcea claims that the prosecution does not even have the actual footage, which they had hoped to recover from his mobile phone. And that the case file contains nothing but the account of the events in the film, as given by those who carried out the monitoring, from the Wiesel Institute.

So this charge remains shrouded in uncertainty. It could be a bad joke that was misinterpreted, or anything else.

Vulcănescu and Radu Gyr

On another occasion, in April 2026, Rapcea was accused of:

“publicly promoting the cult of individuals guilty of committing war crimes, by directly praising and presenting Mircea Vulcănescu and Radu Gyr as role models and victims of ideological purges, whilst deliberately disregarding the final convictions handed down against them by court rulings that remain in force” (..).

Apparently, the prosecutor wants Romanians to deny both the significance of the philosopher Vulcănescu and the poet Radu Gyr, and the historical fact that they were victims of ideological purges. (Vulcănescu even died in detention at Aiud, leaving behind the memorable plea: ‘Do not seek revenge for us!’). Or perhaps he would like any reference to them to also include mention of the sentences handed down by the communist courts against them.

Although the mayor of Sector 4, Daniel Băluță, managed – after several years of attempts – to remove the name of Mircea Vulcănescu from the high school, the philosopher’s name still adorns a boulevard in Bucharest. His books have been published, including after the enactment of Adrian Năstase’s ordinance, by Humanitas Publishing House (the last one in 2004). However, Gabriel Liiceanu is not under investigation for promoting ‘fascists’. Radu Gyr is also mentioned in the histories of literature compiled during the communist era by G. Călinescu and Nicolae Manolescu.

Both were the subject of episodes in the series Memorialul durerii (Memorial of Pain), which focused on the suffering they endured, without the investigators ever raiding the home of the respected producer Lucia Hossu Longin. The atmosphere of intimidation currently being spread by the repressive authorities is now urging the public to destroy the books of authors persecuted by the communist regime and to erase an essential page from contemporary history, one that has only just begun to be recounted and is barely known to the masses.

The state that contradicts itself

The establishment of this state monopoly over collective memory began with the work of the Wiesel Commission, which published its report in 2004 and was subsequently transformed into a state institute. The process continued with the formation of the commission led by Vladimir Tismăneanu, which published its own report in 2006. The document declared the communist regime to be ‘illegitimate and criminal’, and this was adopted as the official position of the Romanian state, both through the patronage of President Traian Băsescu and through a vote in Parliament.

Both were anomalous moves, aimed at establishing an unchallengeable state dogma regarding certain episodes of the past, thereby stifling free historical research and the living, personal interpretation of historical significance. The Wiesel Commission was a body in which historians were in the minority, with a significant presence of ethnic activists, diplomats and politicians from Israel and other countries. It was also bizarre that the task of writing the official history of communism was entrusted to a former communist propagandist, who had risen through the ranks of the nomenclature in the Primăverii era and was the son of the head of communist propaganda.

The direction Vladimir Tismăneanu gave to his report was subtle but significant. The research, coordinated by a political scientist whose views have recently taken an increasingly aggressive neo-Marxist turn, blurred the distinction between the different stages of communism in Romania, downplayed the role of minorities in supporting the regime during the early decades, and softened the portrayal of the Romanian people as victims.

Even with these major shortcomings in his report—which was clearly intended to be manipulative—if we compare that report with the language now used by prosecutors, we will realise something shocking. State institutions have been taken over by increasingly radicalised officials, who even deny the position adopted by the Romanian state in its report condemning communism. I shall give further examples.

In the 663 pages of the Tismăneanu Commission’s Final Report, Mircea Vulcănescu is mentioned only once, in passing, in reference to a group of detainees that included his wife. His death at Aiud is completely ignored, as if he were already on a blacklist of those destined to be forgotten for ever.

Radu Gyr, on the other hand, appears several times – as a victim, without those accusatory details which prosecutors now direct at an ordinary citizen. For instance, on page 164:

‘The list of great cultural and scientific figures who suffered persecution or even repression during the communist era is, unfortunately, very long: the philosophers Lucian Blaga, Constantin Noica, Ion Petrovici and Vasile Băncilă; the historians Gh. I Brătianu and PP Panaitescu; the poets Nichifor Crainic, Radu Gyr and Vasile Voiculescu, the mathematician and poet Dan Barbilian, the professor and psychologist Onisifor Ghibu, the geographer Simion Mehedinți, the sociologist Dimitrie Gusti, the lawyers Istrate Micescu, IV Gruia and Gh Strat, the doctors I Simionescu and I Trifu, the professor Aurel Beleș, the economists Victor Slăvescu and M. Manoilescu, the monk and theologian N. Steinhardt, the logician Anton Dumitriu, the sculptor Gh. Anghel, the writers Al. Paleologu, Dinu Pillat and Păstorel Teodoreanu, the actor Constantin Tănase, and the opera singers Dinu Bădescu, Ștefan Tassian and Valentina Crețoiu represent just a few of the thousands of cultural and scientific figures who were brutally removed from their creative work, many of whom endured years of harsh imprisonment, whilst others lost their lives as a result of the savage repression to which they were subjected. What an irreparable loss the communists have inflicted on the country – a veritable cultural genocide!” (The Tismăneanu Commission Report, 2006, p. 164)

I repeat, anything that appears in the Tismăneanu Report is regarded as the official position of the Romanian state. We note that Radu Gyr is included in a list honouring the victims, without being portrayed as a criminal. His fate is lamented as part of a cultural genocide. Two decades on, prosecutors from that same state are threatening ordinary citizens with imprisonment for expressing themselves in the same terms.

Let us go further. In that same 2006 report, the son of the Cominternist Tismăneanu accuses the communist regime of another crime. Namely, that it had set up ‘shock teams’ to purge culture of figures from the past, to whom nothing from their past was forgiven. In other words: exactly what the criminal investigation authorities and journalists from the official press are doing now, as they take part in the lynching of those same interwar figures:

‘The formidable team (given the severity of its verdicts) of party critics was entrusted with the mission of “disinfecting the realm of the printed word”, that is to say, the criminal mission of destroying the evidence of Romanian creativity.

After 1947, for the cultural leaders and the critics of the ‘shock team’, there were no longer any major or minor errors in the past or present of literature, but only errors that could not be overlooked.

The following became useless, indeed undesirable: Octav Dessila, Ionel Teodoreanu, Șerban Cioculescu, Constant Tonegaru, Ion Barbu, George Bacovia, N. Davidescu, Mircea Eliade, Radu Gyr, Cezar Petrescu, Radu Tudoran, Dimitrie Stelaru, Gib Mihăescu, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu and many others.

From January 1948, the name of Tudor Arghezi himself was erased from literature, and his volume One Hundred Poems was withdrawn and confiscated.

This slow moral suffocation through ignorance and ostracism was often physically consummated, as writers too were subjected to the programme for the eradication of political pests.” (The Tismăneanu Report, p. 491)

What else are the repressive authorities, politicians and journalists of today’s system doing when they demand that the names of Vulcănescu, Eliade, Gyr and so on be removed from libraries, street directories and other places? Is this not precisely ‘slow moral suffocation through ignorance and condemnation’? Is it not ‘the erasure of evidence of Romanian creativity’?

In 2006, the same Final Report of the Tismăneanu Commission also accused the communist regime of an injustice committed against figures who have since been rehabilitated – Radu Gyr and Nichifor Crainic:

‘The first signs of a disconcerting shift in the Party’s attitude appeared in 1967, when 60,000 copies of the ‘Anthology of Modern Poetry’, compiled by Nicolae Manolescu, on the grounds that it included right-wing poets who were not to the regime’s liking (Radu Gyr, Nichifor Crainic) or who were living abroad (Horia Stamatu, Ștefan Baciu).

The director of the Literature Publishing House, Ion Bănuță, a former member of the underground resistance who had been imprisoned before 1944, was disciplined and transferred to a magazine. Mihai Șora, head of BPT, was dismissed, and the editor Ion Acsan was also moved to a minor post.” (The Tismăneanu Report, p. 502)

So the current regime is doing the very sort of things it accused the Communists of doing two decades ago. We note that in the report coordinated by Vladimir Tismăneanu, Radu Gyr is not even mentioned as a Legionnaire or a member of the far right, let alone a war criminal. Instead, he is introduced in neutral, if not positive, terms as a dissident: ‘a right-wing poet disliked by the regime’.

Without mentioning that Mihai Șora had also been an underground communist and close to Ana Pauker, the report laments that he suffered for having published Gyr and other interwar figures. Why are the authorities now persecuting citizens who merely speak of these same dissidents, two decades after this indictment of the communist regime was issued!?

Back to the future

We return to the present, to the excerpts from Prosecutor Rocsin’s indictment of Mihai Rapcea in June 2026. I quoted that passage above, which began with the accusation that Rapcea had spoken favourably of Vulcănescu and Radu Gyr. From these two figures, the paragraph suddenly shifted to recounting another online post by the influencer. Here is how the prosecutor illustrates the phrase ‘extremist nationalism’:

“Specifically, by declaring his intention to wear the ‘yellow Star of David’ and by making public accusations that Romania’s judicial institutions are controlled by and act exclusively (‘pander to’) the complaints and petitions of the Jewish community, to the detriment of cases concerning the majority population, the suspect has apparently and blatantly incited resentment and hatred on ethnic grounds”.

Protesters during the pandemic were also criticised for wearing the yellow star, when some claimed they were being discriminated against when entering shops on the basis of their vaccination certificates. This time, it was easy to see that it was a metaphor. One that neither denies nor downplays the Holocaust. On the contrary, it is used as a point of reference, as a symbol of the injustice suffered by a group. (The perception of injustice may be false or real, but the meaning of the metaphor was not derisive.)

So, a lawyer complains that some cases are dealt with more quickly than others. (Again, this may be a false or real perception; in any case, it is subjective.) But it is important to recognise the double standard that investigators create by treating his dissatisfaction as equivalent to hatred. There have been countless protests in the justice system, including those for or against the DNA and the CSM. The functioning of the judicial system has been a hotly debated topic for three decades, during which many criticisms—whether justified or not—have been levelled at the system, without the conclusion that they are motivated by hatred.

Minorities have the right to organise themselves on the basis of ethnic solidarity and often harbour grievances regarding how state institutions operate in relation to them. Some organisations representing ethnic groups have sought compensation from the state, called for changes to legislation, and levelled numerous criticisms. It has never been suggested that they are driven by hatred or resentment towards the majority. Why should a member of the majority not be allowed to express some frustration without this being interpreted as incitement to hatred!?

The shocking quote

A separate charge is that on 20 May 2024, Mihai Rapcea allegedly shared a quote from Corneliu Zelea Codreanu on Facebook. It is the sort of accusation also found in Călin Georgescu’s indictment.

The incriminating quote reads as follows: “Tips, bribes and theft have destroyed the moral health of the Romanian nation”.

This begs the question: what is ‘Legionary’ about this quote!? It is a banal statement condemning corruption. Are we now attributing every current anti-corruption initiative to the Legionary Movement!?

The ban on quoting anything said by individuals who have become undesirable is a bizarre interpretation even of the flawed laws currently in force. This is because the laws in question refer to the prohibition of the public veneration of certain figures. A questionable formulation, with the connotations of religious devotion. If you quote Nicușor Dan, it does not mean you are participating in the cult of Nicușor. It does not mean you agree with everything someone has written, thought or done simply because you reproduce a phrase of theirs. Even the most damning documentaries about Hitler on the History Channel are full of quotes from the dictator in question.

But in the case of sayings that border on platitudes, the situation arises where you can repeat a saying without knowing who first uttered it. Something you hear from someone else, in today’s oral culture. The prosecutor accuses Rapcea of attributing the quote to a Member of Parliament – Codreanu was indeed an MP and his parliamentary speeches are probably recorded in the archives of the Official Gazette.

The report criticises the lawyer for ‘denying any coincidence with the threefold significance of the date 20 May in Legionary historiography’. I haven’t the faintest idea what happened on 20 May! Forgive my ignorance, but until now I had not associated 20 May with anything other than the date of the first elections in 1990, won by the FSN. Here we see the danger of using artificial intelligence in the preparation of indictments. Aided by such tools, prosecutors may end up accusing citizens of malicious intent regarding random dates on the calendar, which supposedly carry Legionary connotations.

Book burning

Particularly shocking are the passages summarising the items seized from the lawyer’s home. Two PDF files are mentioned, containing editions of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu’s books, For the Legionaries and The Nest Leader’s Little Book.

This account complements the testimony given by the lawyer’s wife in an interview with Gabriela Calițescu on Nașul TV. In that interview, mention was made of the investigators’ interest in both Eminescu’s books and items of Christian worship.

https://www.youtube.com/live/i6Xd_WMk7d0?t=4396s

Even the books written by extremist leaders are a matter of legal interpretation. During the Inquisition, there was a list of banned titles. Nowadays, there is no such thing. The law punishes the public dissemination of propaganda material, but does not punish the possession of books. Moreover, many books were published legally after 1990, when there were no restrictions and no law specified a point in time from which citizens were required to burn books or hand them in somewhere, as with firearms.

Many books presumed to be illegal can be found in public, national and university libraries, and are therefore hypothetically accessible to far more people than they would be in a private home. Due to an unexpected loophole in the laws enacted since the 2000s, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu did not fall into the listed categories, such as those implicated in acts of genocide and war crimes. He was only explicitly outlawed by the Vexler Act of 2025. Thus, there was a long period during which books on the subject were published.

Here another problem arises: searches are carried out selectively, based on ideological criteria. For it is reasonable to assume that historians who have written critically about the figure in question – such as Tatiana Niculescu Bran (a former adviser to Klaus Iohannis), whose book on Codreanu was published by Humanitas – possessed the relevant memoirs for the purpose of researching the subject.

Amid this lack of clarity, the effect is precisely to instill fear in the population. The aim is the deliberate destruction of books of any kind that Romanians might possess from the interwar period, or even earlier. This would result in an Orwellian erasure of the past, or that ‘cultural genocide’ of which Tismăneanu spoke.

The icon, the corpus delicti

One of the most shocking paragraphs in the indictment drawn up by the prosecutor lists books and icons amongst the items confiscated for the case:

‘At the de facto residence of the suspect Mihai Rapcea, two volumes by Radu Gyr—a person historically convicted of war crimes—were found, along with an icon and a textile relic from the vestments of Father Ilie Lăcătușu, historically associated with the Legionary Movement, as well as the volume entitled ‘The Great Gurus of India and Father Paisie’, which contains a handwritten dedication in the form of an aphorism attributed to Saint Nicholas Velimirović, a figure linked during the interwar period to Dimitrije Ljotic, the leader of the Serbian fascist movement ‘Zbor’.”

In response to such a shocking accusation, even the Patriarchate’s spokesperson, Father Adrian Agachi, spoke out:

“Saint Ilie Lăcătușu, the Confessor, a saint whose entire relics are preserved, whose miracles are recorded in countless volumes, who suffered for years in Communist prisons and harmed no one, has now become the subject of an indictment!

So, if I understand correctly, does the fact that you have an icon of Saint Ilie Lăcătușu, the Confessor, officially canonised in 2024, in your home constitute a criminal offence? Could you be summoned to appear before the authorities? Or even be convicted? Why? Because you have devotion to a saint recognised as such by the entire Romanian Orthodox Church? What year are we in? 2026 or the autumn of 1950?”

The spokesperson for the Romanian Orthodox Church also offers a word in defence of Saint Nicholas Velimirović (so named by the prosecutor, who considers himself qualified to judge saints):

“Saint Nikolai Velimirovich spent four years of his life as a prisoner in fascist camps: 1941–1945! He even ended up in the dreadful Dachau camp, where only the end of the war saved him from almost certain death!”

“Obviously, the indictment also includes the national poet Mihai Eminescu. This is serious. I have a few volumes of his poetry at home. I’m rushing to brick them into the wall. And from now on, I’ll only quote his verses in a whisper.” (Father Adrian Agachi also said this in his Facebook post.)

Marius Tucă’s programmes, banned?

If the new people’s tribunals are putting saints on trial, there is little more to add. It comes as no surprise that the same prosecutor is accusing Mihai Rapcea of having distributed video clips from the Marius Tucă Show. I assume he is referring to the episodes in which the law that outlawed Marshal Ion Antonescu was discussed. These were debate programmes featuring historians and politicians, including Florin Constantiniu, Gheorghe Buzatu, Alex Mihai Stoenescu, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, Adrian Păunescu and Cristian Tudor Popescu.

Despite all those debates, the historical figure was blacklisted by the ordinance issued at the time by Adrian Năstase. This was then reinforced by Crin Antonescu’s law and subsequent legislation. But why should it become illegal to watch a recording from the 2000s of the public debate on the law!? Do parliamentary debates also become illegal once a law is passed!?

Full of empathy, the prosecutor interrogates the defendant, having picked him up at 6 am, taken him to three locations for searches, and held him for 24 hours in custody and under interrogation. There, he questions him about a post from June 2011 and doubts that he could have been sincere when he says he does not remember its content:

“Furthermore, faced with evidence documenting the dissemination of material glorifying Ion Antonescu, Mircea Vulcănescu or Radu Gyr, the suspect resorts to rudimentary attempts to exonerate himself.

He states that he remembers nothing about the posts dated 1 June 2011, calls his own actions into question, claims not to know what online activity he engaged in on 29 May 2026, and puts forward the implausible hypothesis that he might have shared video clips from the Marius Tucă Show without even having watched them in full.

This justification is purely formal and incompatible with the pattern identified following a rigorous analysis of his activity and, indeed, with the professional rigour expected of a lawyer.”

The same film, on repeat

In December 1989, people chanted “God exists!”, as the most radical form of protest against the atheist regime. On the walls, people wrote “We will die and we will be free…”. And in the 1990s, whilst there were no censorship laws, it seemed to us that we’d ‘had our fill of freedom’.

No one would have imagined that people would be investigated for possessing the writings of Mihai Eminescu, icons and priestly vestments, or books published during that brief period of free expression. Or that you could be questioned for having watched Marius Tucă’s programmes on Antena 1 in the 1990s and 2000s.

I shall conclude with another quote, a longer but revealing one, from the Romanian state’s official position on communism. Namely, from the Final Report of the Commission for the Study of Communism, coordinated by Vladimir Tismăneanu. In 2006, that report criticised the communist state for the way in which it had investigated priests on charges of Legionary activity. Let us read this passage, and try to identify the differences between what the ‘democratic’ state reproached the communist state for and what the ‘hybrid’ regime is doing today:

‘Immediately after the establishment of the Securitate on 30 August 1948, the repressive organs intensified their surveillance of all religious denominations through Service III within Directorate I.

The aim was to infiltrate the Churches with informers, and monasteries became ‘targets’ of particular interest to the Securitate, as they were regarded as potential hideouts for Legionary elements or members of the armed resistance.

Between 1948 and 1953, numerous Orthodox priests, monks and theologians who had expressed hostility towards the regime – whether they had a genuine Legionary past or one that had simply been fabricated – were investigated, arrested and sentenced to long prison terms.

The same accusation of Legionary affiliation was also levelled during the subsequent wave of arrests, which took place after 1950. According to some historians, the lists of priests held in detention between 1959 and 1962 indicate a predominance of apolitical clergy; however, amongst those politically involved, Legionaries were in the majority. It is, however, highly likely that in many cases this label was used to justify the arrest, trial and conviction of individuals who were a thorn in the side of the regime, or simply out of revenge.

Even the spiritual movement ‘Rugul Aprins’ was branded with the infamous label of a Legionary organisation (‘mystical-Legionary association’), and its founders, as well as some of its followers, ended up in the regime’s prisons. Another equally dramatic case is the repression unleashed against the nuns at Vladimirești Monastery.” (The Tismăneanu Commission Report, p. 460)

II. The trial in which Mihai Eminescu was convicted in absentia

In 2010, prosecutors decided to exhume the Ceaușescus from Ghencea Cemetery. Not to retry the judicial farce that took place on Christmas Day, in which the couple had been accused of fantastical charges based on rumours that were later proven false. These included: a genocide resulting in 60,000 deaths in Timișoara and an attempt to flee the country with $1 billion in funds held in overseas accounts. More than 20 years on, the democratic justice system wanted to ensure that the two had indeed died.

In other words, it had taken up the case entirely on the basis of a rumour (one with very limited circulation). It wanted to reassure public opinion (already weighed down by other concerns) that the ‘odious and sinister’ figures were indeed in their graves. And not living the high life in Cuba, risking to haunt our fledgling democracy at some point. The macabre ritual did not culminate in the driving of a stake, but in the collection of DNA samples from relatives (who might have been in for the surprise of discovering they were illegitimate children, but… never mind). The verdict was that it was indeed them and they showed no signs of life.

The trial of lawyer Mihai Rapcea is not far removed from the spirit of that endeavour. On the surface, the justice system is attempting to bring down a group of ‘fascists’ for a prank filmed and posted online. Beyond that, it is attempting to exorcise figures officially outlawed by parliamentarians, such as Zelea Codreanu and Ion Antonescu, whose bodies have long since ceased to be available for a televised exhumation.

But at an even deeper level, it is a trial of Mihai Eminescu, amongst a whole host of cultural figures who have become ‘controversial’ and another group of saints, monks and political prisoners from the communist era. For some of them, sentences handed down by Stalinist tribunals are invoked – no different from the one that executed the Ceaușescus. For others, the prosecutor’s report delivers verdicts outright without them ever having been tried, yet as if it were a matter of common knowledge, accepted as the position of the Romanian state.

This is, therefore, a trial of Romanian culture and spirituality. The stakes involved overshadow whatever may be judged regarding the actions of the four defendants in the ‘Rapcea group’. We have already published an in-depth article on the subject, written in the heat of the moment, about:

The document that turns icons and even Eminescu into evidence against the new political prisoners

That article covered the essentials, but was largely based on the six pages of the arrest warrant drawn up by the prosecutor, which had been leaked to the press. In the meantime, I have found and read the full document, which is some 30 pages longer. In this second part, I shall reproduce further passages from this document, which reinforce the shocking impression left by that excerpt.

Eminescu, on trial

The national poet is classified by Prosecutor Bogdan Rocsin of the Bucharest Court of Appeal as an anti-Semite and a precursor to the Legionnaires. All this is based on information provided by the ‘Elie Wiesel’ Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, which reports to the General Secretariat of the Government. It is, therefore, a position adopted as an established fact by two institutions of the Romanian state, which may be taken as a benchmark from now on.

The excerpts are taken from the text of the ordinance, published in four parts by the journalist George Roncea on his Facebook page. Part I of the document contains multiple references to Eminescu, not just the passage already reproduced in the previous article. It is made clear from the outset that Mihai Eminescu forms part of a broader group within Romanian culture, similar to the Noica–Pillat group in the communist trials. (Which included N. Steinhardt and Al. Paleologu.) His ‘crime’ is that he was admired by another outcast, Zelea Codreanu:

“According to the letter from the ‘Elie Wiesel’ National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, No. 890 of 29 April 2026, in the volume Pentru legionari [For the Legionaries], the principal doctrinal work of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the founder of the Legionary Movement, Eminescu is placed, alongside other intellectuals with publicly anti-Semitic views, such as Vasile Conta, Vasile Alecsandri and Mihail Kogălniceanu, amongst the precursors of Legionary ideology.

Codreanu makes it clear which aspect of Eminescu’s work he values when, in ‘For the Legionaries’, he quotes a passage from the poet’s anti-Semitic writings:

‘If today, when they have neither full civil nor political rights, they have taken control of all trade and all small-scale industry in Moldavia, if today they are spreading alarmingly across the Romanian plains, if today they are nestling in the heartland of the hard-working people of Oltenia, what will it be like tomorrow, when they have equal rights, when they have the opportunity to call themselves Romanians, when they have enshrined in law the formal right that this homeland is theirs just as much as it is ours!’

The importance of Mihai Eminescu to the Legionary Movement is also illustrated by the presentation of excerpts from the article entitled ‘The Relevance of Eminescu’, published by the Legionary ideologue Horia Stamatu in the 10 January 1938 issue of the Legionary official journal Buna vestire:

“[…] The fact that we, the second generation since Eminescu, are putting into practice what the greatest visionary of our nation in the last century thought and said, is neither a personal academic achievement of ours nor a pretext for polemics, but a return to the natural course of history, from which we have strayed for so very long. We, the people of today, had to fulfil this task out of absolute necessity, not because it is us, but because otherwise our nation would have faced destruction. […]”

We note that the symbolic act of tearing up the photograph featuring ten Romanian figures, carried out by MP Silviu Vexler at the parliamentary rostrum, was no accident. We find some of those figures from the photo collage listed amongst examples of anti-Semites, such as Mihail Kogălniceanu, Vasile Alecsandri and Vasile Conta. These figures, in turn, have statues, streets named after them and books in second-hand bookshops, which could become the subject of further purges should a more radicalised generation come along to eradicate evil at its very roots, rather than merely demanding the erasure of the interwar generation’s memory.

Those under investigation were accused of creating a Facebook page called ‘Eminescu Lives On Through Us’, where they published their views. This fact alone is interpreted by the prosecutor as a treacherous tactic, learnt from Zelea Codreanu. This is a trial by intent that could be applied to anyone who were to set up a foundation with this name or hold a book launch at the ‘M. Eminescu’ bookshop.

‘The choice of Eminescu as a cultural pretext and the use of this Eminescu-inspired front are, however, by no means coincidental. This technique finds a precise ideological justification in the propaganda manual For Legionaries, in which Corneliu Zelea Codreanu glorifies Mihai Eminescu, establishing him as a spiritual benchmark not through the prism of his poetic genius, but through the prism of his anti-Semitic journalism.”

The judgement on Eminescu is implicit, and both the prosecutor and the researchers at the Romanian Government’s institute conclude in unison that his work is divided into two parts. An acceptable part, represented by his poetry, which one is, of course, free to read and enjoy. But also a bad part, declared to be anti-Semitic, namely his journalistic work. Admittedly, the poet can no longer face criminal consequences, unlike those who are still alive. But neither can he defend himself for what he wrote in the newspaper Timpul towards the end of the 19th century, when it is read through the lens of the militant intransigence of 2026.

The question inevitably arises: what should happen to that reprehensible part of Eminescu’s work? Given that it has been classified as such by the state courts, that decide who goes to prison for many years for anti-Semitism… Will it be burnt, removed from libraries, or will only the pages deemed incompatible with the 21st century be torn out?

In the same case, Mihai Rapcea is accused of having publicly quoted Zelea Codreanu on the subject of bribery, which destroys the moral fibre of the nation. Logically, literary critics who have included Eminescu’s ‘anti-Semitic’ passages in their books are also guilty of the same offence. We will also have to get rid of the volumes by G. Călinescu, Eugen Lovinescu, Garabet Ibrăileanu, and anyone else who has ever examined Eminescu’s complete works, including his ‘politically incorrect’ journalistic writings.

I have even asked myself: if Eminescu is officially declared a ‘precursor of the Legionary Movement’, why are the defendants still accused of spreading Legionary ideas? Why aren’t they called ‘neo-Eminescian ideas’? Because his ideological followers would, of course, have been nothing more than belated imitators. The cultural judiciary is already searching for the seeds of ideas, the thought that precedes the deeds.

The film ‘Reconstitution’

The Vexler II Act has increased the sentence to 10 years for forming an organisation of an extremist, fascist, etc. nature. The definition from Adrian Năstase’s 2001 ordinance has been retained, when the penalties were lower. An absurd definition, according to which any group of three or more people is deemed an organisation. Reading between the lines of the detention order (which is an ancillary document to the indictment itself), one senses that the prosecutor was striving to place the defendants precisely within this category, in order to secure the harshest possible sentence. It showed that two of them had spoken on the phone, that they had interacted on Facebook, that one had decided to film another, and that two had shared the footage…

Which leaves you with a terrifying impression, as you realise what those people are risking, how a monstrous state machinery is set in motion by mere words, and how those abnormal laws can be used for intimidation. The practical effect is not hard to imagine: if patriotism is equated with extremism, it becomes impossible to organise a national resistance against the forces seeking to undermine states, nations and European civilisation.

Otherwise, if you look beyond this grim core, the case file also has an unintentional humour to it. The prosecutor introduces all those references to writers and saints, the entire impressive list of ‘suspicious’ books found during the search (which we shall see below), as if they were merely details intended to illustrate the political concerns and inclinations of the defendant, Rapcea. Everything that strikes us as shocking – the comments regarding certain icons of national culture – is merely there as an afterthought, on the sidelines of a bizarre incident. I explained what this was all about in the first article; I’ll briefly recapitulate.

Mihai Tociu is alleged to have created a Facebook page and a handmade device bearing the image of Eminescu. Attached to the photo was a little yellow hand, like those used in the #rezist protests for justice and against corruption. The hand would rise whenever someone walked past, thanks to a motion sensor and a small toy motor. On 15 January, they gathered at the statue outside the Athenaeum and held a commemorative event.

Mihai Rapcea was speaking and filming whilst another person was reportedly saluting the photograph in a manner which prosecutors say resembles the ‘Legionary salute’. Rapcea and ‘Stegarul Dac’ (The Dacian Flag Bearer) are accused of sharing the footage online.

The clip itself can no longer be viewed publicly, but the court order contains a link to a clip from earlier. The photograph looks like a caricature, not a life-size portrait cut out of cardboard, as I had imagined in my first article. In itself, the whole business strikes me as a bad joke. I don’t understand why a bunch of adults would waste their time on this little skit, which does nothing to honour the poet’s memory. But then again, I don’t understand abstract art either, and I can live with that. Furthermore, we don’t know if there were any speeches; perhaps it was a more elaborate performance.

The problem lies elsewhere. That a whole army of police officers, prosecutors, special forces, judges, court clerks and investigators are mobilised to investigate and take action on the basis of that bad joke. Drug traffickers, organ traffickers, pimps and major embezzlers are left alone because the justice system is busy analysing nonsense like this.

Reading the prosecutor’s report, you get the impression you’re skimming through the madhouse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, except here there’s a Legionary nest hidden within a literary circle. Even more strikingly, it resembles the plot of Lucian Pintilie’s film Reconstitution, which was banned in the 1980s. In it, a Communist prosecutor (played by the great actor George Constantin) investigates a trivial brawl between two hooligans, but has been tasked by the party with also filming a moralising short film. The brawlers are no longer in their original frame of mind, so they aren’t credible on camera. But the makeshift director insists so much on re-enacting the scene that it all ends tragically, with one of them dying during the re-enactment.

Entire pages are devoted to a lavishly detailed account of the exchange of gestures between the man and the caricatured portrait of Eminescu in the park. With a comical attention to ensuring the details fit the vague definition in the law: whether he raised his hand to 45 degrees, whether his fingers were close together or spread apart, whether he said anything at that moment. It’s as if these were pages from Harry Potter, where, if you do and say something at a certain time, according to the magic manual, some terrible thing happens.

Romania, now a ‘collective entity’

The investigator also includes among the charges the greeting that Eminescu used, according to the recollections of his contemporaries: ‘Long live the nation!’. (To which, it is said, he would reply: ‘Up with it!’.)

‘This structural dynamic is reinforced by the inscription “Long live the nation” applied directly to the palm of the mechanical device. Although the phrase represents the traditional greeting historically attributed to Mihai Eminescu in an era preceding the emergence of fascism, Nazism or Legionaryism, its symbolic association with the rigid raising of the arm at a 45-degree angle creates a striking parallel with the ritual specific to Nazism, where the identical physical movement of the arm was obligatorily accompanied by the acclamation ‘Sieg Heil’ (Long live Victory).’

The lawyer is accused of using the widely recognised nickname ‘The Captain’ for Codreanu, a name recorded in all history books. And of ‘glorifying Eminescu’ for the wrong reasons:

‘In a perfect doctrinal symmetry, Mihai Rapcea – who, in his online posts, does not hesitate to address Codreanu or refer to him as “the Captain” – resorts to exactly the same kind of subversive rhetoric. He glorifies the national poet on his social media platforms, explicitly invoking the way in which Eminescu addressed the ‘Jewish question’ in his journalistic writings, with the obvious aim of conferring cultural and historical legitimacy on his own anti-Semitic statements.

Consequently, the deliberate combination of holding the arm at a 45-degree angle with a slogan glorifying a collective entity (the nation) exposes a deliberate, hybrid technique for transposing the mechanisms of fascist propaganda under the guise of a cultural tribute.”

Thus, it is not only the glorification of Eminescu on the internet that has become problematic, now that he has been condemned as an anti-Semite. But the country itself—which pays the salaries of all magistrates, police officers and government researchers—has been reduced, in parentheses, to a mere ‘collective entity’, equated with a term from the Nazi salute.

In the second part of the document, we are told how the nation has become problematic and a matter of interest to those investigating criminal offences.

‘Thus, whilst “nationalism” constitutes an ideology and a political stance naturally derived from the concept of the nation – the law not criminalising any manifestation of nationalism – its “extremist” nature comes into play when such manifestations take on a “frenzied, exacerbated, exaggerated, radical or paroxysmal” character’. The Court has unequivocally held that the criminal provision targets exclusively that ‘extremist nationalism, based on a totalitarian ideology, such as fascism, Nazism or National Socialism […] or Legionaryism’.

Consequently, complex legal proceedings are set in motion to determine in court whether nationalism was moderate (and therefore tolerable) or exalted, exaggerated, paroxysmal, radical (and therefore punishable by imprisonment). But in the future, when internet monitoring is handled automatically by artificial intelligence algorithms, how will they distinguish between the psychological types found in human diversity? For not all people happen to be phlegmatic, jocular or indifferent. There are also those who are impassioned, with ‘exaggerated’ displays of patriotism… How will their nationalism be squeezed into the Procrustean bed of the lukewarm citizen?

The seriousness with which this silly little greeting is judged – even attributing meanings to it that one would be hard-pressed to guess – stands in contrast to another case that caused quite a stir. In 2005, a young man exhibited a pink pony with a swastika on its rump at an exhibition organised abroad by the ICR. It caused a scandal at home. But the cultural elite rushed to the defence of the cringe-worthy exhibit as an act of contemporary art. Editorials were published in Observatorul Cultural and other outlets, in which well-known intellectuals chided the press for being stuck in the past, at the level of Grigorescu’s The Ox Cart. Back then, it was a ‘progressive’ artist who was met with understanding. Now, because it is an ‘extremist’, his claim that he was attempting a misunderstood or surrealist artistic act is dismissed.

Just as President Nicușor Dan himself noted that the Vexler Act is flawed due to the lack of precise legal definitions, the prosecutor reminds us that these shortcomings in the censorship laws grant a privilege to those tasked with judging them:

“Consequently, ‘it falls to the judicial authorities to assess, in each individual case, depending on the circumstances of each case, whether the expressions fall within the objective scope of the unified concept of extremist nationalism’”

The investigation of artificial intelligence conversations

Part 3 of the investigation report contains some of the most important and astonishing information. This is where we find the list of books discovered during the search. (We will list them at the end, as there are too many.) But it was not just the books that interested the investigators. They also looked at mobile phones, laptops, WhatsApp chat histories, telephone calls and more besides. In Part 4, we find a passage that leaves one perplexed:

‘Also during the examination of the laptop, an analysis of the “ChatGPT” application via the account linked to the email address (…) enabled the extraction of a conversation history of particular relevance to the case. From the content of these virtual dialogues, it emerged that the suspect, Mihai Rapcea, had successively adapted and reworked the classic and established image of the poet Mihai Eminescu (..).’

We are transported into a dystopian universe, where the thought police rummage through your ChatGPT conversation archives to find incriminating evidence. Even today’s absurd laws punish the public dissemination of certain ideas. Yet the authorities carry out house searches to find specific books and ideas kept solely for your own use. This is so that, through them, they can convince the judges that an ambiguous phrase or an open-to-interpretation gesture carried the connotations they themselves assume.

Let us consider that, for the very young, artificial intelligence has become a conversation partner, regarded as a virtual friend or mentor. Some use it as a substitute for a psychologist, confiding in it. There are children growing up far from their parents who are more likely to ask the all-knowing AI than an adult family member or a teacher. After a while, you find that the Thought Police are combing through the conversations held in the most intimate setting with such a virtual confidant.

The communist secret police were a long way from such capabilities and methods back when they used to plant microphones in ashtrays, blackmail informers or send agents to follow dissidents in the street.

The context becomes all the more worrying given that, in the first part of the document, the same investigator had also drawn up a political profile of the defendant, Rapcea. Ironically, when describing fascism, he had told us that it was a regime in which political rivals were hunted down:

“[…] According to historical accounts, Italian-style fascism established a totalitarian regime based on nationalism and the supremacy of the state, which manifested itself through militarism, expansionism, but also through the violent repression of the opposition and the suppression of rival political parties with the aid of a secret police. (…)”

A few paragraphs further on, we learn that Mihai Rapcea espoused the “global conspiracy theory of the Great Replacement” and was active in several suspect parties:

“Identified as a founding member of the New Right movement, his ideological trajectory has consistently been within the radical sphere, holding over the years key positions such as that of general secretary of the National Anti-Totalitarian Party ‘Renaissance of Romania’, leadership roles within the Bucharest branch of the S.O.S. Romania, and, subsequently, as a candidate in the parliamentary elections for the Romanian People’s Patriots Party.”

So we were told that nationalism becomes a criminal offence when it is radical, and now we learn that there are several radical parties. I’ve never heard of the Anti-Totalitarian Party, but it’s hilarious that it’s listed amongst the extremist ones. S.O.S. Romania and the Patriots’ Party are legally registered and have had members in the Romanian Parliament. How can anyone be blamed for having been involved with them or for having stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in some elections?

A property scandal

After the judicial supervision was lifted, lawyer Mihai Rapcea made revelations explaining why he and the other defendant in the case, Mihai Tociu, had become a target for the Wiesel Institute, which prosecutors regard as a denouncer, a witness and the benchmark for establishing the truth.

The two won a court case blocking the transfer of the Dacia Palace to the institute for the purpose of establishing the Holocaust Museum. Situated in Bucharest’s Old Town, near the National Bank of Romania, the palace is one of the city’s most beautiful buildings, as well as a symbolic landmark. It once housed the editorial offices of the newspaper Timpul, where Mihai Eminescu wrote the articles for which the institute and the prosecutors have now labelled him an anti-Semite and a precursor to the Legionaries.

In 2013, the Bucharest City Council had valued the building at 14 million euros and had prepared it to house a major art museum, to accommodate the collection it already possesses, which has long been stored in unsuitable conditions. (The Museum of Romanian History has also been unfinished for some three decades, incomplete, with several sections closed.)

In 2016, the General Council voted to reallocate the building for a different purpose, namely to house the Holocaust Museum, which already has a memorial open to the public not far away.

Rapcea and Tociu challenged that decision in court, winning the case definitively in 2019. Subsequently, Mayor Gabriela Firea (PSD) tabled a proposal five times in succession to allocate the palace to the Holocaust Museum. On each occasion, the proposal was rejected by a vote of the councillors at the time.

The banned library

The books found during the search are listed in Part 3 of the investigation report. As there are too many, I shall not present them as a mere list, but will attempt to organise them into three categories. Because the impression is that there is a method to all this madness. Millions of people cannot be investigated simultaneously, but they can be intimidated through the trials of public figures that receive sufficient media coverage. The effect (whether calculated or unintended) is not hard to guess: people will conclude that it is risky to keep books by certain writers in their homes and will start destroying them of their own accord.

The erasure of collective memory, necessary for a future and relentless rewriting of the past, reminded me of the brainwashing process in the Pitești Experiment. (This was also mentioned in the indictment, as a reproach for an alleged conspiracy theory regarding the organisers’ origins.) Depersonalisation began with a form of self-criticism, known as ‘unmasking’, through which the prisoner confessed to all ideological or theological ‘crimes of thought’, and any plotting against the Party.

This was followed by successive renunciations of one’s own family and one’s most deeply held religious beliefs, with the prisoner being forced to fabricate all manner of defamatory stories about their parents and blasphemies against sacred things. In this way, a mental rupture was achieved, severing any anchor of identity belonging to the ‘old man’—be it family, the Christian faith, national identity or political convictions. In Pitești, this transformation of personality was carried out violently, under torture. In the rest of communist society, it took place slowly, through propaganda – which, under capitalism, is still even more credible and voraciously sought after – in the form of vulgar entertainment, films and indoctrination programmes on television.

If we try to group the books and objects that were meticulously catalogued at Mihai Rapcea’s home, we see that they fall into a few distinct categories. Some are classic works, published even during the communist era. But the majority are of the sort that could not have been published at the time, part of the collective memory restored after 1989, which remains largely unknown. These include, therefore:

• excerpts from the works of classical authors
• memoirs from communist prisons
• religious literature
• historiography
• books on the far right.

Whether good or bad, these books span centuries of our history and spirituality. Their removal, however, would erase the very evidence of anti-communist resistance or the formative period of national thought, from the ‘Pașoptists’ onwards. In legal terms, this amounts to the destruction of evidence of communist genocide. Here are some of the recorded corpora delicti:

Classics

• Poetic Works and Poetic Works 1880–1883, by Mihai Eminescu
• Eminescu’s Nationalism, by D. Murărașu
• Eminescu and India, by Amita Bhose

Religious books and icons

The report notes the seizure of certain Christian religious objects during the search and justifies its selection as follows:

“It is also worth noting the presence of works on Orthodox spirituality associated with figures held in high regard within national-Christian circles, such as Return to Christ by Ioan Ianolide, The Life of Father Arsenie Papacioc, Spiritual Sermons by the Venerable Sophrony of Mount Athos, as well as the presence of an icon depicting Ilie Lăcătușu, accompanied by a piece of fabric which the owner stated originated from his vestments. Also relevant in this context is the dedication found in the volume The Great Gurus of India and Father Paisie, which reproduces an aphorism attributed to Saint Nicholas Velimirović.”

• Return to Christ, by Ioan Ianolide (a former political prisoner)
• Spiritual Sermons, by the Venerable Sophrony of Mount Athos
• The Life of Father Arsenie Papacioc, by Sorin Aepetri
• The Great Gurus of India and Father Paisie, by Dionysios Farasiotis
• The Truth about the Talmud and Judaism, by Soma Salzberger
• Symbols of Sacred Knowledge, by René Guénon
• The Confessor, by Fluor Strejnicul
• Jewish Illusions and Realities, by N. Steinhardt (a former political prisoner) and Em. Neuman
• The Jewish Question, by Eliezer Frankel
• Magic and Superstition among the Jews, by Joshua Trachtenberg
• The Masonic Magician, by Philippa Faulks and Robert L.D. Cooper

Memories of communism

Here, the prosecutor makes a special note that these are the recollections of imprisonment by former Legionnaires (including the father of the artist Tudor Gheorghe):

“Another section of the library consists of memoirs written by former members or sympathisers of the Legionary Movement or by individuals associated with the anti-communist nationalist milieu, including Ioan Ianolide, Ilie Tudor, Ioan Gavrilă Ogoranu and George Manu. These works recount the authors’ experiences during their political imprisonment and help to foster a favourable view of the Legionary Movement and its members.”

• The Archives of Totalitarianism and The Totalitarian Phenomenon, published under the auspices of the Romanian Academy
• The Fir Trees Break, but They Do Not Bend, by Ioan Gavrilă Ogoranu (mountain fighter)
• The Red Holocaust, by Florin Mătrescu (political prisoner)
• George Manu: A Monograph, by Gheorghe Jijie,
• The Season of Shadows, by Radu Gyr (political prisoner)
• Ballads, by Radu Gyr
• Romanian Architects and Political Imprisonment 1944–1964, by Vlad Mitric-Ciupe
• If the H Hour Comes, Who Can We Count On?, by Aristide Ionescu (political prisoner)
• Under Four Regimes Across All Continents, by Alexandru Budișteanu,
• I Too Fought in the East, by Gheorghe Netejaru

Historiography

• With Friends Like These (God Save Me from My Friends!), by Larry L. Watts
• The International Status of Palestine, by Al. Adrian Botez
• The Truth About Kings – Writings from Anti-Monarchist Romanian Literature, by Virgiliu Ene

It is astonishing that amongst the books seized or merely noted in the minutes are mainstream historiographical works, some even anti-Legionary, as well as books on Jewish history and spirituality written by Jews themselves. Apparently, schoolchildren are required to pore over the History of the Jews textbook, but adults are not permitted to take an interest in the subject. The prosecutor gives the following reasoning:

‘Although these works have different content and origins, their inclusion alongside Legionary literature and revisionist volumes concerning the Holocaust highlights a consistent interest in themes relating to Jewish identity and the relations between the Jewish community and society.’

On the far right

• For the Legionaries, The Nest Leader’s Little Book, Present by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
• A Year with the Captain by Ilie Tudor
• The Hospital by Nicolae C. Paulescu
• The Holocaust: The Diabolical Fairy Tale, by Vasile Zărnescu
• The Mysticism of Prayer and the Revolver, by Tatiana Niculescu Bran
• The Legionary Movement in Romanați, by Tiberiu Domozină
• Priests with the Cross Before Their Names, by Ion Coja
• Hitler and the Secret Societies, by Philippe Valode

Fiction and miscellaneous works

• Echelon, by Josh Conviser
• The Devils (The Americans Are Coming, Paris by Night and Renouncing Satan), by Ion Coja
• the magazine Lumea

“At the same time, volumes such as Hitler and the Secret Societies, The Masonic Magician and Echelon were identified, which indicate an interest in conspiracy-theory topics, although their mere presence, taken in isolation, does not allow conclusions to be drawn regarding the owner’s ideological orientation.

At the same time, the library also contains numerous works that are irrelevant from the perspective of promoting extremist ideologies, including works by René Guénon, Amita Bhose and Larry L. Watts, publications by the Romanian Academy, as well as other volumes of a historical, literary or religious nature.”

The persecution of book collectors, at a time when the vast majority no longer read, has something surreal about it. So much so that you wonder whether these people even know there’s such a thing as the ‘internet’…. Where you can find millions of books, texts and films on just about anything… At one time, television channels would report on terrorist attacks posted by ISIS or Al-Qaeda on their websites. I’ve always wondered how journalists found out that yet another beheading had been posted on their site…

Historical broadcasts and parliamentary speeches

However, somewhere in the second half of the report, Rapcea is also accused of sharing a clip from the Marius Tucă Show on Antena 1, from 2001. At the time, Adrian Năstase’s ordinance was being debated. Senator George Pruteanu quoted two positive remarks about Antonescu from two renowned Liberal historians: the American Larry Watts and the Romanian Vlad Georgescu, a contributor to Radio Free Europe, a station funded by the CIA during the communist era. Nor can these pro-American views be brought to the attention of today’s public.

In the same document, he is also criticised for having quoted from a speech by an obscure Member of Parliament, Miron Chichișan, from 1997, when (as the prosecutor laments) the restrictive law did not yet exist. Does this mean that all parliamentary speeches and the works of historians predating the censorship laws must be deleted!? Is the Official Gazette to be destroyed as well?

But the politician’s view is not even extremist; it is simply a criticism of King Michael. So the investigating body is demanding negative views of some and positive or neutral views of others. Why would criticism of the former king be illegal!? Surely the investigator is unaware that King Michael denied Romania’s contribution to the Holocaust in interviews given in the West, which would render him unfit to hold office. And the streets and parks bearing his name would need to be renamed.

The dispute over Mircea Vulcănescu’s commemoration

There are also widespread criticisms regarding the glorification of certain interwar intellectuals who were imprisoned by the communists: Mircea Vulcănescu and Radu Gyr. Recently, the court decided to reject the renaming of Mircea Vulcănescu Street in Bucharest. And, by implication, to regard his conviction as a political one, thereby clearing him of the stain of being a war criminal. Even G4media has dropped that headline. Belatedly – instead of having defended him more firmly whilst he was head of the Romanian Academy – the distinguished historian Ioan Aurel Pop has written a lengthy editorial praising the decision. Entitled ‘Mircea Vulcănescu’s Justice’.

ADDENDUM:

The Justice of Mircea Vulcănescu

I am delighted to hear that a court in Romania has ruled in favour of Mircea Vulcănescu, who was called to the stand, even though he was unable to defend himself. This great intellectual was murdered by the communists in Aiud prison at the age of 48, in 1952. Let us examine the circumstances that have led to Mircea Vulcănescu being accused once again, now, after almost three-quarters of a century.

Culture, censorship and historical judgement

Typically, dictatorial regimes make the purging of culture of non-conformist elements and of figures with differing opinions one of their first acts of authority, resorting to methods such as the toppling of statues, the renaming of streets, the banning of books and their public burning. This approach is tempting even for certain democratic intellectuals who accept pluralism of opinion only in theory. Unfortunately, these actions concern not only the present but also the past. Veritable wars are being waged against history through posthumous cultural denunciations. And today, with the rise of neo-Marxists, ‘progressives’, adherents of ‘cancel culture’ and the ‘woke’, the act of denying figures from the past who held views different from those of today is increasingly common in certain extremist circles.

Thus, Aristotle (who had claimed that a slave is ‘a talking tool’), Shakespeare (for ‘glorifying violence’, for his portrayal in The Merchant of Venice, etc.), Cervantes (for appropriating public property or for condoning the slave trade), Christopher Columbus (for killing indigenous people in Cuba), many American presidents (slave-owners and murderers of Native Americans), and the recently deceased Pope Benedict XVI (for joining the Hitler Youth and enlisting in the German army during the Second World War). Not even Nelson Mandela was spared because, in an interview, he held up Fidel Castro as a model of respect for human rights and because he argued that the State of Israel should return the ‘annexed’ territories (the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights) to the Arabs.

Some of those mentioned, and many others, were clearly in the wrong; others were only in the wrong in the minds of some of us, having in fact merely expressed their own views or the moral concepts of the eras in which they lived. ‘To err is human’ and only ‘to persist in error is diabolical’. Even the mistakes of great creators and prominent figures are not always grounds for them to suffer damnatio memoriae.

Assessing conduct and creative work

There have been many influential figures who acted reprehensibly, figures who placed themselves in the service of forces condemned by history. Most have paid for their actions, but these actions must be weighed up in each individual case with great discernment. Other figures have participated in public life because they had to make a living, support their families or prevent the situation from getting worse. We, as human beings, do not choose the eras in which we live. During the years of the Second World War and in the period leading up to it, it was very difficult, even for the most enlightened minds, to assess which danger was greater: the Nazi threat or the Stalinist (Communist) one. Many Romanians hoped that an alliance with Germany would spare Romania from the horrors of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, which had called for the break-up of our country, founded in 1918, and which had killed millions of people on the territory of the USSR, including a great many Jews. History has ensured that fascist regimes of all kinds—the architects of the Holocaust and other atrocities—have been condemned by human justice and by history.

We Romanians found ourselves in the part of the world dominated by communist regimes. Great writers, visual artists, composers and performers lived and created during the far-right dictatorships. Not all of them were perfect, nor were they resistance fighters or heroes, but they left behind valuable works, bearing generous messages for the future. Those who did not truly become war criminals deserve the fate of any distinguished intellectual: recognition, appreciation and the promotion of their works and personalities.

Many analysts say that posterity values great creators for their work, not for their lives (which may be full of mistakes). Life is gone; it was fleeting, whilst the work remains.

On the other hand, it is not ethical for the two aspects – life and work – to be completely separated. They are intertwined in many ways, but the link between them is not decisive. There are creators with reprehensible personal lives, yet whose works are admirable. There are also creators who quickly renounced their reprehensible ideas and went on to lead their lives within democratic frameworks. Consequently, specific situations are highly complex, and each case must be analysed separately.

Vulcănescu’s historical position

Mircea Vulcănescu found himself in such a position: he was a second-ranking official in the state apparatus of interwar Romania and during Ion Antonescu’s government. The victory of the United Nations – specifically, in Romania’s case, the Soviet Union – brought him to the dock, along with all the senior officials and politicians of the interwar period and the years 1940–1944. Largely due to ignorance, a tendency to judge the past through the lens of present-day concepts, the tendency to treat different situations as a single bloc, and even malice, the ‘case’ of Mircea Vulcănescu resurfaces from time to time in the attention of a section of public opinion.

Convictions and judicial proceedings

The ‘decisions’ of 1946 and 1948 by the Bucharest Court of Appeal and, respectively, the High Court of Cassation, by which Mircea Vulcănescu was sentenced to eight years’ hard labour, were taken on the basis of a law punishing war criminals. The trial was a collective one and took place under the banner of Stalinist-inspired ‘people’s justice’. The whole process unfolded against a backdrop of the judicial system’s complete subservience to the Soviet occupier and in the presence of Soviet troops. In those years, all Romanian intellectuals who had held positions within the state apparatus during the interwar period and the years of the Second World War were labelled ‘bourgeois’, ‘fascists’, ‘Hitlerites’, ‘enemies of the people’, ‘enemies of the USSR’, and so on. Our protagonist was accused of ‘military service for Hitlerism’, of allowing German armies to enter the country, and of declaring and continuing the war against the USSR. However, in none of these situations (which became the grounds for the charges) did Mircea Vulcănescu have any decision-making power or responsibility. Consequently, the convictions handed down at that time, under a Soviet regime of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, should be deemed null and void from the outset and dealt with on a case-by-case basis, through a re-examination of each individual case file. In 2016, the Bucharest Court of Appeal did not uphold Mircea Vulcănescu’s 1948 conviction, citing ‘breaches of legal principles’ and ‘unfair proceedings’ in the justice system during those post-war years.

Civil service and the allegations of anti-Semitism

But let us revisit the facts of that era. We know for certain that the civil servant Mircea Vulcănescu was not a member of any political party. We also know that Vulcănescu, in his capacity as Director-General of Borders, refused in 1936 to grant the philosopher Nae Ionescu’s request for exemption from customs duties on a car. The reason for the refusal was professional ethics. In his capacity as Director of the Public Debt Office, Vulcănescu refused to vote in favour of King Carol II’s Constitution in 1938. This reintroduced the death penalty, a principle rejected by the theologian and philosopher Mircea Vulcănescu. Consequently, on the day of the vote on the Constitution, he informed his superior, the Minister of Finance Mircea Cancicov, that he refused to vote for the new Constitution. At the same time, he tendered his resignation from the post of Director of the Public Debt Office. As his resignation was rejected by Carol II, Mircea Vulcănescu remained in office.

He was accused of anti-Semitism for acts committed whilst serving as Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Finance during the Antonescu government—a post he had accepted with reluctance, as he would have preferred to fight on the front lines against the Soviet Union. It is clear that the ethics of the ‘historicism of resignation’ (as he himself formulated it) and Mircea Vulcănescu’s exemplary conduct as a civil servant prior to 1941 cannot rule out the practices for which he is accused of anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, it is precisely the ethics of the historicism of resignation and precisely Mircea Vulcănescu’s exemplary conduct as a civil servant prior to 1941 that call for a careful examination of the practices for which he is accused of anti-Semitism. This is necessary in order to clearly establish the political responsibility of Mircea Vulcănescu as a civil servant. As a distinguished theologian and philosopher, Mircea Vulcănescu was not an anti-Semite.

As Gabriel Andreescu notes in his article (‘How much ideology, how much knowledge in the case of Mircea Vulcănescu?’, in ‘Observatorul Cultural’, 21 July 2017), the successive courts failed to find him personally responsible: “Fortunately, the files held by the CNSAS now give us access to the twists and turns of this trial, enabling us to make informed judgements. About half a year after the investigation began, on 19 September 1946, the prosecutor assigned to the Bucharest Court of Appeal determined that there was nothing to substantiate the charges against the accused.” Mircea Vulcănescu’s participation in the meetings of the Council of Ministers, in his capacity as Under-Secretary of State, does not constitute a criminal offence, since: “Neither the declaration of war, nor its continuation, nor the Government’s general policy, nor the deportations are shown to have been decided by any Council of Ministers in which the accused took part”. Mircea Vulcănescu’s intervention “on behalf of the Jewish population, so that they might regain the right to carry out […] their professional activities, which had been taken away from them by previous racial laws” can be considered even less grounds for incrimination. As regards the allegations concerning economic matters, “on the contrary, all his actions were precisely the opposite of those sanctioned by these texts; the accused competently and tenaciously defended the Romanian interests entrusted to him, against any attempts at subjugation to foreign powers (CNSAS Archive, Alexandru Marcu and others, DP 000232, vol. 15, pp. 253–255)”.

Despite this decision to close the case, and although no appeal had been lodged within the statutory time limit, the Bucharest Court of Appeal reopened the proceedings. A number of prominent figures, including Dimitrie Gusti, Eugen Bălan, Vasile Băncilă, Eugen Cristescu and Henry H. Stahl, then gave evidence in Mircea Vulcănescu’s favour.

The charges brought against Mircea Vulcănescu in relation to the Jewish question are, in particular, indirect, in that they relate to the fact that he endorsed, through his presence as well as through his statements, a series of political decisions directed against the Jewish population. In March 1941, he spoke out on the issue of the expropriation of Jewish property: he commented on the criteria for identifying someone as ‘Jewish’; he expressed views on the measures for the ‘Romanianisation of the economy’; and he made statements regarding the taxes that Jews were required to pay in lieu of military service. It should be noted that none of these matters constituted decisions taken by the civil servant Mircea Vulcănescu, but were merely—largely technical—interventions in matters decided beyond his explicit remit. Mircea Vulcănescu spoke out following decisions that had already been taken and which he could not block, or he carried out these decisions. The question remains of his endorsement through his presence, with all the implications that this entails, and of the implementation of these measures, in his capacity within the Ministry of the Economy.

Jean Ancel, one of the historians of the Romanian Holocaust – who, incidentally, was critical of the activities of the figure in question within the Antonescu government – notes: ‘It must be said that Vulcănescu was in no way anti-Semitic’.

Philosophical contributions

Mircea Vulcănescu is regarded as the philosopher and economist of the Bucharest School of Sociology, being deeply rooted in the European philosophical landscape. He made essential contributions to the ‘Romanian dimension of existence’, introducing new concepts such as ‘theophanic personalism’, ‘patterns of thought’, ‘active temptations’ and the ‘typical reactions’ of the Romanian cultural community. He always drew upon ‘Christian metaphysics’, studied 17th- and 18th-century English moral philosophy, Kant’s ethics and Freud’s philosophy. The influence of his work was felt within the European philosophical landscape.

It is worth highlighting Mircea Vulcănescu’s contribution to the formulation of an ethical model which he termed ‘historicism of resignation’. Essentially, this was a model of values and behaviour aimed at young people, particularly those of his own generation. Historicism of resignation entailed young people’s resolve ‘to heed the call of the times, renouncing themselves and their self-realisation, if necessary, in order to be truly of service to others’. Broadly speaking, this was Vulcănescu’s philosophy of life. That is to say, an intramundane asceticism with an Orthodox flavour, which might have brought about change from within—thanks to his personal and exceptional example—in the traditional practices of the peripheral states founded by politicians and their cliques.

The administrative monasticism envisaged by Vulcănescu stood in stark contrast to Max Weber’s worldly asceticism, which proved effective in the metropolitan states founded by the military.

The historicism of resignation was entirely different from the ‘activism of despair’, the ethos of most young people in the interwar period, as Vulcănescu observed. They sought fashionable beliefs, herd mentality and a leader to whom they could blindly submit. The ethos of historicism of resignation, the quest for originality, the rejection of the ideologies of the time and, last but not least, the individualism inherent in this ethos are all factors that may well have enhanced the philosopher Mircea Vulcănescu’s resilience in the face of the anti-Semitism of the era. In conclusion, Mircea Vulcănescu is a prominent figure in 20th-century Romanian culture.

Concluding argument on cultural remembrance

Mircea Vulcănescu lived and acted within a discriminatory society in which anti-Semitism was categorically practised. The philosopher became part of the machinery of that society and participated indirectly; he witnessed the making of abhorrent decisions, condemned by history. But we do not choose the eras in which we live. Mircea Vulcănescu did not, on his own initiative, directly take decisions that could be classified as what the law terms ‘crimes of genocide against humanity’ and ‘war crimes’. He was never convicted by the ‘People’s Tribunal’ nor was he branded a ‘war criminal’. The figure in question was not a member of any fascist or Legionary-type organisation. Consequently, Mircea Vulcănescu remains a shining figure in Romania’s cultural heritage, and his name ought not to be subject to any form of censorship. Let us rejoice that at least one Romanian court, after so many years, has done him a little justice! I say ‘a little’, because the teachers at a school in Bucharest, frightened by threats in the public sphere and fearful of being accused of anti-Semitism themselves, recently relinquished the honour of having their institution named ‘Mircea Vulcănescu’. Fortunately, the bust of Mircea Vulcănescu next to St Stephen’s Church in Bucharest still stands! How sad it is that we must be grateful for the permission to be fair!

Ioan-Aurel Pop (born January 1, 1955) is a prominent Romanian historian, university professor, and former president of the Romanian Academy

The Official Tismăneanu Report of the Condemnation of Communism can be entirely read online HERE

SOURCES:

https://evadare.ro/politica/documentul-care-transforma-icoanele-si-pe-eminescu-in-corp-delict-pentru-noii-detinuti-politic/

https://evadare.ro/politica/procesul-in-care-mihai-eminescu-a-fost-condamnat-in-lipsa/

https://gazetadecluj.ro/dreptatea-lui-mircea-vulcanescu/

https://www.iiccmer.ro/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/RAPORT-FINAL_-CADCR.pdf