Haynes, RA; (2019) 'Without the Captain': Iuliu Maniu and the Romanian Legionary Movement after the death of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. Slavonic and East European Review , 97 (2) pp. 299-341. 10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.97.2.0299.

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Abstract

This article explores relations between interwar Romania's leading democratic politician, Iuliu Maniu, president of the National Peasant Party, and the fascist Romanian Legionary movement (or Iron Guard) following the death of the movement's founder, Codreanu, in 1938. Despite incompatibilities in their respective ideologies, Maniu continued to have close links with the Legion, especially in his native Transylvania, during the period when the movement was under the contested leadership of Horia Sima. Maniu opposed the violence meted out to the legionaries by the royal regime under King Carol II, of which Maniu was the chief adversary. In 1940, Maniu sought to harness legionary energies into saving Transylvania from Hungarian revisionism. To that end, Maniu and the Transylvanian legionaries were even prepared to proclaim Transylvanian autonomy. Following Carol's abdication in September 1940, Maniu was appalled by the anarchy of the National Legionary State and accepted General Antonescu's crushing of the legionary rebellion of January 1941 and restoration of order. Nevertheless, Maniu retained his links with members of the movement, especially in Transylvania, throughout the Second World War. Maniu frequently offered to bring members of the movement under the protection of the National Peasant Party provided they would accept democracy and a pro-Western outlook in foreign policy. This came to fruition in 1944 when a faction of the Legion under Horatiu Comaniciu began collaboration with the National Peasant Party. This convergence, which might have led to a new, Christian Social political party in the post-war era, was brought to an end by the imposition of Communism in Romania.

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