The Nation as Object: Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania

Author(s): Marius Turda

Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 66, No. 3 (Fall, 2007), pp. 413-441
Published by: The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies
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The Nation as Object:
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania

Marius Turda

Introduction: Biopolitics and National Politics

In 1926, the Romanian social hygienist and eugenicist Iuliu Moldovan

a book Maria Bucur described as "amanifesto that
published Biopolitica,
called for a total eugenic state based on biological principles?an entirely
new way of in Romania."1
organizing politics By introducing biopolitics
into Romanian Moldovan was not a char
public discourse, just adopting
versatile modernist term, he was also it with a
acteristically investing
national mission: to direct narratives of historical expe
specific disparate
rience and cultural traditions toward the idea of improving the racial
of the nation.2 The nation was as a
qualities portrayed living organism,
to laws and embodying great physical
functioning according biological
qualities, symbols of innate virtues transmitted from generation to gener
ation. Equally important, the relationship between nation and state was
turned into a specific scientific form of knowledge, one based on
biology.
Biopolitics thus operated through investigations of biological processes
regulating the triadic relationship between individual, nation, and state.3

was funded Marie also like to thank

by the
Research for this article Curie Fellowship. Iwould
Robert Pyrah, Matt Feldman, and the anonymous referees at Slavic Review for their con
structive comments and I am indebted to Mioara and
suggestions. deeply Georgescu
Dr. Sanda Hondor from Biblioteca Documentara de Istoria Medicinii a Institutului de
S?n?tate Publica, Bucharest; Nicolae Leasevici from Institutul de Antropologie Fr. I. Rainer,
Bucharest; and Ioana Patriche and R?zvan P?r?ianu for me locate articles and
helping
books.
1. Iuliu Moldovan, Biopolitica 1926). See also Maria Bucur, and Mod
(Cluj, Eugenics
ernization in Interwar Romania 2002), 83. Many of Moldovan's ideas
(Pittsburgh, biopolitical
resurfaced in articles and books he published in the 1940s. for example,
See, I. Moldovan,
Statut etnic (Sibiu, 1943) and Moldovan, Introducere ?n etnobiologie si biopolitica (Sibiu,
1944).
2. The first discussion of biopolitics was in 1911 in the modernist
attempted journal
reference to policies of public health, and social welfare. This
TheNewAgein reproduction,
article established a connection between these and the state, which was
strong policies
seen as the institution of implementing those See G. W. Harris, "Bio
only capable policies.
Politics," The New Age 10, no. 9 (28 December 1911): 197. Another trend was to insist on
the fusion between science and materialist in order to the func
political sociology explain
of the state as a One such was first
tioning biological organism. interpretation suggested
Bio-Politics: An Essay in the and Politics
by Morley Roberts, Physiology, Pathology of the Social and
Somatic Organism (London, 1938). For an early conceptualization of this direction, see Al
bert Somit, "Biopolitics," British Journal ofPolitical Science 2, no. 2 (1972): 209-38; for more
recent see Ira H. Carmen, The Newest Genetica99,
developments, "Biopolitics: Synthesis?"
nos. 2/3 (1997): 173-84.
3. It was in this sense that Michel Foucault the term in the late
largely employed
1970s, in connection with his of governmentality. See Michel Foucault, Naissance de
theory
la biopolitique: Cours au Coll?ge de France (1977-1978) (Paris, 2004); and Maarten Simons,
as Investment: Notes on and Educational Philoso
"Learning Governmentality Biopolitics,"
phy and Theory 38, no. 4 (2006): 523-40. An enlarged definition was
proposed by Edward
Ross Dickinson, to whom should include "medical from re
according biopolitics practices
of personal to state health and institutions;
gimes hygiene organized public campaigns

Slavic Review 66, no. 3 (Fall 2007)

 414 Slavic Review

Ultimately, Moldovan insisted, biopolitics should become national poli

tics. How was this transformation
possible?
During the interwar period, biological concepts became necessary
components of national identity.4 In addition, racial anthropol
eugenics,
ogy, and serology received official endorsement from governments and
political regimes throughout Europe.5 Accompanying this transformation
of the national an was the elevation
body into object of political adoration
of biopolitics as the emblematic of modern theories of national
symbol
identity; indeed, the fusion between the need for biological identification
and the quest for national rejuvenation contributed to the transformation
of biopolitics into national politics.
Yet in most scholarship dealing with interwar Romania, has
biopolitics
not received the attention it deserves. The emphasis is either on literary
and religious constructions of national or on cultural and
identity politics
generational conflict.6 According to this interpretation, in the
participants
debate about the nation appropriated themes that were created by succes
sive generations of poets, are a few notable
linguists, and historians.7 There
exceptions, including Maria Bucur's above-mentioned study of the history
of Romanian eugenics, Radu Ioanid's examination of the politics of the

social welfare
programs; racial sciences, from physical to the various racial
anthropology
theories; eugenics and the science of heredity; scientific and
demography, management
occupational health; and the related disciplines and
practices such as psychiatry and psy
See Edward Ross Dickinson, Fascism, Some Reflections
chology." "Biopolitics, Democracy:
on Our Discourse about Central European 37, no. 1 (2004): 3-4.
'Modernity,'" History
4. Bauman, and Ambivalence (Ithaca, 1991); Ann Laura Stoler,
Zygmunt Modernity
Race and the Education s
of Desire: Foucault History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things
(London, 1995); Tzvetan Todorov, Hope and Memory: Lessons from the Twentieth Century
(Princeton, 2004) ;and Roger Griffin, Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under
Mussolini and Hitler (London, 2007).
5. Margit Sz?ll?si-Janze, ed., Science in the Third Reich (Oxford, 2001); and Marius
Turda and Paul
J. Weindling, eds., "Blood and Homeland": Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in
Central and
Southeast Europe, 1900-1940 (Budapest, 2006).
6. Much of the recent literature dealing with nationalism in interwar Romania is in
debted to Benedict Anderson's influential of the nation as a cultural,
conceptualization
artifact. See Benedict Anderson, Communities: on the
imagined Imagined Reflections Origin
and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1986). According to Anderson, the idea of race does
not an role in shaping nationalist imagination. For a different view, see
play important
"The Hour Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (Lon
Nancy Leys Stepan, of Eugenics":
don, 1991) ;Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in
and Marius The Idea in Central
Colonial Rule (Berkeley, 2002); Turda, of National Superiority
Europe, 1880-1918 (New York, 2005).
7. See Katherine "National and National Character in Interwar Ro
Verdery, Ideology
mania," and Keith Hitchins, "Orthodoxism: Polemics over and Religion in In
Ethnicity
terwar Romania," both in Ivo Banac and Katherine eds., National Character and
Verdery,
National in Interwar Eastern Europe (New Haven, 1995), 103-33 and 135-56;
Ideology
Katherine National under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceaus
Verdery, Ideology
escus Romania 1991); Sorin Alexandrescu, Paradoxul rom?n (Bucharest, 1998);
(Berkeley,
Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building and Ethnic
1918-1930 (Ithaca, 1995); and Irina Livezeanu, "Generational Politics and the
Struggle,
of Culture: Lucian Blaga between Tradition and Modernism," Austrian History
Philosophy
Yearbook^ (2002): 207-37.
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 415

Iron Guard, as well as Viorel Achim 's and Michael Wedekind's investiga
tions of Romanian ethnopolitics during the 1930s and 1940s.8
Romanian and literary critics did, however, make use of
philosophers
racial typologies and racial arguments in their definitions of the nation,
and it is essential that their presence in the cultural and political debates
of the interwar period be acknowledged.9 Complementing literary defini
tions of national identity, Romanian eugenicists and anthropologists fo
cused on physical such as crania and various arti
objects, archaeological
facts. By conducting technical experiments, such as cataloguing and
classifying the blood groups within the they hoped to create
population,
what they considered to be scientific knowledge about the nation. In
other words, and racial aimed at a na
eugenics anthropology creating
tional ontology, wherein the nation as was deemed paramount.
object
These physical representations of the nation allowed eugenicists and an
thropologists to engage in allegedly objective incursions into the ethnic
fabric of society, contrasting their interpretations of national identity with
those viewed as more texts.
subjective, particularly literary
In this article, I will look at Romanian anthropological and serologi
cal research during the interwar period and examine how it shaped
visions of an idealized Romanian At the
biopolitical Volksgemeinschaft.10
time, the physical contours of the nation the attention of spe
captured
cialists and lay commentators alike, from skeptical believers in the histor
ical destiny of the nation to those obsessed with national essence and
specificity. In this context, anthropological and serological research pro
vided scientific to the that there was a racial nu
legitimacy assumption
cleus within the Romanian nation that the natural and social environment
could not obliterate; this racial nucleus was what
anthropology and serol
ogy identified as "Romanian."

8. Radu Ioanid, "The Sacralised Politics of the Romanian Iron Guard," Totalitarian
Movements Political
and Religions 5, no. 3 (2004): 419-53; Viorel Achim, "Romanian
German Collaboration in The Case of Sabin Manuil?," in Ingo Haar and
Ethnopolitics:
Michael Fahlbusch, eds., German Scholars and Ethnic 1919-1945 (New York, 2005),
Cleasing,
139-54; and Michael Wedekind, "Wissenschaftsmilieus und Ethnopolitik im Rum?nien
der 1930/40er in J?rgen Reulecke, Ehmer, und Ursula Ferdinand, eds., Her
Jahre," Josef
zum 80. Rainer Mackensens (Wiesbaden,
ausforderung "Bev?lkerung": Festschrift Geburtstag
2007).
9. See H.Sanielevici, "De ce rasa e poporul rom?n," in H. Sanielevici, lit
Noiprobl?me
erare, politice, sociale (Bucharest, 1927), 127-36; H. Sanielevici, "Rasa, limba ?i cultura
b??tina?ilor Daciei," in H. Sanielevici, Literatura si suinta (Bucharest, 1930), 17-46; Ion Pil
l?t, Rassengeist und v?lkische Tradition in der neuen rum?nischen 1939);
Dichtung (Jena,
C. R?dulescu-Motru, "Rassa, cultura si nafionalitatea in filozofia istoriei," sti
Arhivapentru
in?a si reforma social? 4, no. 1 (1922): 18-34; and Garabet Ibr?ileanu, "Caracterul specific
?n literatura," (Bucharest, 1977), 92-94.
Operen
10. Unfortunately, space limitations do not me to deal here with Saxon racial
permit
research in the interwar Austrian racial research in the Banat
Transylvania during period,
during the 1930s, or Hungarian serology in northern
Transylvania after 1940. Hence racial
research in this article is referred to as "Romanian," as it deals with Romanian re
only
searchers. For the Austrian research in the Banat, see Maria Teschler-Nicola, "'Volks
deutsche' and Racial in Interwar Vienna: The 'Marienfeld in
Anthropology Project,'"
Turda and Weindling, eds., "Blood and Homeland, "55-82.
416 Slavic Review

After World War I, Romania's territory nearly doubled. It included the

ethnically diverse regions of Transylvania, Bessarabia, and northern
Bukovina, thus prompting the Romanian state to engage in an unparal
leled process of nationalization and centralization.11 Not surprisingly, ad
dressing Romania's ethnic diversity became central to pro
biopolitical
grams elaborated during the interwar period. Both anthropology and
serology devoted considerable attention to the ethnic map of Romania, in
general, and Transylvania, in particular. Not only was this region notori
ously multiethnic; Romanian nationalists traditionally viewed it as the
cradle of the Romanian nation despite its long inclusion in the Kingdom
of Hungary.12 "Anthropologically, Transylvania represents the center not
the periphery of the Romanian nation," the Romanian geographer N. Al.
R?dulescu asserted in a memorandum submitted in 1941 to the German
Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA).13 Indeed, the interwar period saw
the growth of a large body of Romanian racial writings dealing with Tran
sylvania and its ethnic communities.14
forms of national to back up the
Harnessing biological belonging
scientific evidence and was character
provided by serology anthropology
istic of racial politics in interwar Europe. In Romania, however, allegories
of race and blood?especially insofar as they represented an intensifi
cation of national loyalties?were particularly appealing. In interwar Ro
mania, it was nationalism rather than scientific commitment that deter
mined the position one took on the of racial anthropology and
question
serology.

11. The institutional and difficulties state af

political experienced by the Romanian
ter 1918 have been the subject of much
analysis. In addition to classic works such as Henry
L. Roberts, Rumania: Problems
Political an State (New Haven, 1951); Kenneth
of Agrarian
ed., Social Change in Romania, 1860-1940: A Debate on
Development in a European Na
Jowitt,
tion (Berkeley, 1978); and Daniel Chirot, ed., The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe
(Berkeley, 1989) ;see Keith Hitchins, Rumania, 1866-1947(Oxford, ;
1994) John R. Lampe
and Mark Mazower, eds., and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century
Ideologies
Southeastern Europe 2004); and John R. Lampe, Balkans into Southeastern
(Budapest, Europe:
A Century of War and Transition Eng., 2006).
(Basingstoke,
12. The an extensive Such animated interest notwith
subject generated scholarship.
critical evaluations are rare. See Katherine Three
standing, Verdery, Transylvanian Villagers:
Centuries Economic, and Ethnic 1983); L?szl? P?ter, ed., Histo
of Political, Change (Berkeley,
rians and the History (Boulder, Colo., 1992); Keith Hitchins, A Nation
of Transylvania
The Romanian National Movement in Transylvania, 1860-1914 (Bucharest, 1999);
Affirmed:
and L?szl? K?rti, The Remote Borderland: in the Hungarian (New
Transylvania Imagination
York, 2001).
13. N. Al. R?dulescu, Beweise f?r das Alter und die Ureinwohn
"Anthropologische
erschaft der Rum?nen in (1941), Central State Archive file Reich
Siebenb?rgen" Prague,
sprotektor
in Boehmen und Maehren, No. 114, Office RuSHA, Box 1, p. 12. I would like
to thank Michal Sim?nek for drawing attention to this document. See also N. Al.
my
R?dulescu, rasiala si antropogeografia (Bucharest, 1941).
Antropologie
14. Although the main focus here is on racial research dealing with Transylvania, it
should not be assumed that other (and ethnic were not to con
regions groups) subject
stant attention. See, for example, I. Botez, Contribuai la studiul taliei si al
anthropological
de nord si Bucovina and Olga C. Necrasov, Etude an
indicelui cephalic inMoldova (Ia?i, 1938),
de laMoldavie et de la Bessarabie (Bucharest, 1941).
thropologique septentrionales
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 417

New Paradigms in Racial Sciences

the interwar period, racial terminology was fluid and undermined

During
Race was both a an
by divergent interpretations. physical entity?one
described it as the "sum-total of characteris
thropologist somatological
tics"?and a cultural artifact, the result of specific historical conditions.15
As there was no consensus about what constituted race; neither did an
agree on how many races Attempts to
thropologists populated Europe.
work this problem are detectable in the effort to standardize
through
racial cartography. Here, three models for prominence. The
competed
first was proposed by the French naturalist and anthropologist Joseph
Deniker, who identified six primary races: Northern, Eastern, Ibero
Insular, Western or Cenevole, Littoral or Atlanto-Mediterranean, and
or Dinaric; four subraces:
Adriatic along with sub-Northern, Vistulian,
Northwestern, and sub-Adriatic.16 Another model was outlined by the
American racial cartographer William Z. Ripley, who insisted that there
were races: Teutonic, and Mediter
only three European Alpine (Celtic),
ranean.17 The German racial anthropologist Hans F. K. G?nther sug
that there were five races: Nordic, Western, Dinaric,
gested European
Eastern, and Baltic.18 All three authors considered the cephalic index to
be a reliable instrument for classification, meaning that cranial capacity
was what differentiated races: some were dolichocephalic (long-headed),
Northern and Ibero-Insular races; others were
mainly brachycephalic
(short-headed), like Eastern, Western, and Dinaric races; and some races
were
mesocephalic (medium-headed).19 The more a race
possessed
and characteristics, the more it claimed a
dolichocephalic brachycephalic
superior position within the hierarchy of European races.20
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, however, the utility of cra
nial research for racial purposes was viewed with
increasing suspicion.21

15. J. Deniker, The Races ofMan: An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnography (London,
1900), 8. For a discussion of the relationship between the concept of race and physical an
see Paul "De la notion de race en Revue d'anthro
thropology, Topinard, anthropologie,"
pologie 8, no. 2 (1879): 589-660.
16. Deniker, Races ofMan, 325-35.
17. William Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study (New York, 1899).
18. Hans F. K. G?nther, Rassenkunde Europas, 2d ed. (Munich, 1926). See also Arnos
Morris-Reich, "Race, Ideas, and Ideals: A Comparison of Franz Boas and Hans F. K. G?n
ther," History of European Ideas 32, no. 3 (September 2006): 313-32.
19. In 1842, the Swedish anatomist Anders Retzius (1796-1860) first used the ratio
of width to to between and crania, thus
length distinguish dolichocephalic brachycephalic
a For a discussion
establishing craniological comparative study of racial groups. of differ
ent traditions of race, see Anders sur V?tat actuel de l'eth
anthropological Retzius, Coup d'oeil
au vue de la crane osseux
nologie point de forme du (Geneva, 1860).
20. For a description, see Carlos C. Closson, "The Hierarchy of
European Races,"
American Journal of Sociology 3, no. 3 (1897): 314-27. For how ideas of racial classification
were used in different institutional contexts, see Frederik Barth, Andre Robert
Gingrich,
Parkin, and Sydel Silverman, One Discipline, Four Ways: British, German, French, and American

Anthropology (Chicago, 2005).

See the M. Morant,
by G.
21. "A Classification of Eu
critique provided Preliminary
ropean Races Based on Cranial Measurements," Biometrika 20, nos. 3-4 (1928): 301
418 Slavic Review

This was a symptom of the growing dissatisfaction with the con

suspicion
cept of race, in As one form of racial research was
general.22 slowly falling
into disrepute, new ones were rapidly making progress. was one
Serology
of these. The innovative work by physiologists, and
immunologists,
pathologists, like Karl Landsteiner?who discovered human blood
groups (A, B, O) around 1900?and Ludwik Hirszfeld?who confirmed
that the percentage of blood groups in a varied to
population according
racial origin?not only helped the emergence of as a
serology discipline
preoccupied with deciphering the chemical properties of blood groups
for the benefit of improving medical assistance (such as blood transfu
sions and the discovery of new vaccines), but also brought the fascination
with blood into the mainstream of anthropological research.23 The idea
of "biochemical races," as Hirszfeld called them, provided racial anthro
pologists with a new method for classifying races
by
more accurate, bio
chemical means rather than by using highly contested anthropom?trie
characteristics. Equally important, serology also demonstrated that blood
groups were inherited to Mendelian laws of thus con
according heredity,
race a attribute to internal or ex
ferring upon distinguishing impervious
ternal influences.24 As the Italian haematologist Leone Lattes declared in
his 1923 Uindividualit? del sangue: "The fact of belonging to a definite
blood group is a fixed character of every human being, and can be altered
neither the of time nor intercurrent diseases."25 Since cranial
by lapse by
measurements had proved of definitive answers to
incapable providing
historical questions about racial identity, national ideologues hoped that
serology could offer the scientific certainty needed to legitimize theories
of biological uniqueness.

75. See also Benoit Massin, "From Vichow to Fischer: and 'Modern
Physical Anthropology
Race Theories' inWilhelmine in George W. ed., Volksgeist as Method
Germany," Stockingjr.,
and Ethic: on Boasian and the German Tradition (Madison,
Essays Ethnography Anthropological
1996), 79-154.
22. See Paul J. Weindling, "Central Europe Confronts Racial Hygiene: Friedrich
Iltis and as Critics of Racial in Turda
Hertz, Hugo Ignaz Zollschan
" Hygiene," and Wein

dling, eds., "Blood and Homeland, 263-80.

23. For a general discussion of
serology and blood groups, see Paul Steffan, Handbuch
der Blutgruppenkunde (Munich, 1931); P. P. Geneza culturii: Priviri critice
Negulescu, formelor
asupra factorilor ei determinant (Bucharest, 1934); Fritz Schiff and William C. Boyd, Blood
Technic: A Manual for Clinicians, and Students and
Grouping Serologists, Anthropologists, of Legal
Military Medicine (New York, 1942); Arthur Ernest Mourant, The ABO Blood Groups: Com
Tables and Maps of World Distribution (Oxford, 1958); Kathleen E. Boorman and
prehensive
Barbara E. Dodd, An Introduction to Blood Practical
Group Serology: Theory, Techniques, Appli
cations, 2d ed. (London, 1961); William H. Schneider, "Chance and Social in the
Setting
Application of the Discovery of Blood Groups," Bulletin of theHistory ofMedicine 57 (1983):
545-62; and Pauline M. H. Mazumdar, "Blood and Soil: The Serology of the Aryan Racial
State," Bulletin of theHistory ofMedicine 64 (1990): 187-219.
24. L. Hirschfeld [Hirszfeld] and H. Hirschfeld, Differences between the
"Serological
Blood of Different Races," The Lancet 197, no. 2 (18 October 1919): 675-79. The Romanian
of Hirschfeld 's research in 1922. See C. Velluda, "Dr. L. Hirschfeld
presentation appeared
?i Dna Dr. Hirschfeld, Incerc?ri de a medodelor ?n problema
aplicaciune serologice
raselor," medical3, no. 12 (1922): 367-68.
Clujul
in Biology
of the Blood
25. Leone Lattes, and in Clinical and Forensic Medi
Individuality
cine (1st Italian ed., 1923; London, 1932), 43.
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 419

As symbols of national race and blood transcended sci

belonging,
ence; within a new nationalist one the
they operated register, unifying
physiognomy of the nation and its resurrected spirituality.26 Subscribing
to this axiom, anthropological and serological research redefined the
body of the nation according to the scientific standards of the age,
whereby the physical and spiritual qualities of the nation were placed un
state agencies
der close inspection by both and individuals entrusted with
the role of protecting them.

Romanian Racial Anthropology

Romanian were
rather late in producing a racial narrative
anthropologists
for territories that had the focus of other
been national an
competing
before World War I. It was the French
thropologies anthropologist
Pittard who conducted one of the first racial in Ro
Eug?ne investigations
mania.27 In "Recherches sur les Roumains de
anthropologiques Transyl
vanie" (1919) and, especially, in Etude sur l'indice c?phalique en Roumanie
(1927) Pittard argued that Romanians from the Old Kingdom were
while those from Bukovina and were
dolichocephalic, Transylvania
thus suggesting that the Romanian nation was
brachycephalic, composed
of different racial types.28 A similar argument was advanced
by the direc
tor of the Institute of Anatomy in Cluj, the physician and anatomist Vic
tor In a series of articles in the 1920s, Papilian
Papilian. published hoped
to demonstrate the existence of "special cephalometric characteristics"
among the Romanians in Transylvania. He concluded that the cranial
characteristics of Romanians from Transylvania differed from those of
both Romanians in the Old Kingdom and Hungarians in Transylvania.
Compared with the latter groups, the former were "hyperbrachycephalic"
(round or broad-headed) and to a differ
"mesocephalic": they belonged
ent racial substratum.29

26. For the role "blood" has in since the

played shaping European imagination
Middle see Uli Blood and Nation: The European Aesthetics
Ages, Linke, of Race (Philadelphia,
1999).
27. See, for example, Eug?ne Pittard, de la Roumanie: Nouvelles
"Anthropologie
recherches sur le Skoptzy," Bulletin de la Soci?t? Roumaine des Sciences 22, nos.
(1913): 4-5
298-328; Pittard, Anthropologie de la Roumanie: Les de la Dobrudja
Peuple Sporadiques
(Bucharest, 1913); and Pittard, de la Roumanie: Documents
Anthropologie somatologiques pour
l'?tude des Tsiganes (Bucharest, 1915).
28. Eug?ne Pittard, "Recherches sur les Roumains de Transyl
anthropologiques
vanie," Revue anthropologique 29, nos. 3-4 (1919): 57-76; andPittard, together with
Alexandru Donici, Etude sur l'indice en Roumanie avec un essai de
c?phalique repartition g?o
de ce caract?re (Bucharest, 1927). See also Eug?ne Pittard, Les Peuples des Balkans:
graphique
Esquisses (Paris, 1916); and Pittard, La Roumanie (Paris, 1917). Pittard exer
anthropologique
cised a influence on Francise I. Rainer, the first director of the Institute of Anthro
lasting
in Romania. See Francise Rainer, dans trois villages roumains
pology Enqu?tes anthropologiques
des Carpathes (Bucharest, 1937).
29. Victor "Studiulindicelui cranian vertical
?i transverse-vertical pe crani
Papilian,
ile de romani ?i maghiari," Clujul medical 1, no. 9
(1920): 763-77; Papilian, "Cercet?ri

antropologice asupra rom?nilor ardeleni," Clujul medical 2, no. 11 (1921): 335-39; and Pa
"Nouvelles recherches sur la t?te des Roumains de Transylvanie,"
pilian, anthropologiques
 420 Slavic Review

Given the use of the tandem in these

dolichocephalic-brachycephalic
anthropological writings dealing with ethnic groups in Transylvania?
particularly the alleged racial divide between Romanians from the Old
Kingdom and those from the newly united provinces, as well as between
Romanians and Hungarians?the conclusions reached re
by cranial
search contravened the general rhetoric of Romanian nationalism, which
insisted on national unity and ethnic homogeneity.
In fact, anthropological like those expressed
theories, by Pittard and
Papilian, encouraged researchers to believe in the existence of a specific
Romanian racial type, one that they located in Transylvania. One such sup
porter was the sociologist and anthropologist Ion Chelcea, who analyzed
the crania collection existing in the Museum of Natural History in Vienna
assembled by the Austrian anthropologist Augustin Weisbach in the second
half of the nineteenth century.30 Methodologically, Chelcea followed the
craniological principles outlined by the German anthropologist Rudolf
Martin in his 1914 Lehrbuch der individual cranial
Anthropologie, especially
measurements breadth, diameter, and so on).31 Based on these
(length,
principles, Chelcea grouped Romanian crania into six racial types: Roman
Mediterranean (or Ibero-Mediterranean), Nordic, Kurgan, Dinaric, Da
r?an, and Avar-Turanic. Practically, however, he followed the Romanian
nationalist tradition and thus pointed to the existence of a "Dar?an racial
was to be found
type," which especially among the inhabitants of the
Apuseni (Western) Mountains in Transylvania.32
Chelcea's anthropological reflections suggest that although he was
persuaded by Pittard's arguments about Romania's racial diversity?for
he found it perfectly possible to differentiate between Romanian crania
from Transylvania and the rest of Romania?his description of "Dar?an"
cranial characteristics bears more than a passing resemblance to Pittard's
anthropological writings. The graphic illustration of this resemblance not
indicates a direct influence, it is also a testament to the way in which
only
racial anthropology turned nationalist in Romania and became increas
ingly obsessed with racial specificity.
Substantiating Chelcea's claim about the existence of a distinct Ro
manian racial type was the idea of racial permanence?an idea that served
as a medium for various cultural constructions of the national past during
the interwar period. For instance, an oft-voiced Ro
image underpinning
manian nationalist tradition was the notion that the territories constituting
Greater Romania had frequently been invaded (from the Romans of
to the Magyars of the Middle and the Jews of modern
antiquity Ages

Revue anthropologique 33, nos. 9-10 (1923): 337-41. Although Bucur notes that Papilian
used "notions of hereditary determinism in evolution to define the of [his]
parameters
own scientific she does not any evidence to the
discipline, anthropology," provide support
claim. See Bucur, and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 70.
Eugenics
30. Ion Chelcea, de cranii rom?ne?ti din Ardeal (Cercetare antropol?gica),"
"Tipuri
Academia Romana: Memoriile Secfiunii ?tiin?fice 10, no. 3 (1934/35): 341-68.
31. Rudolf Martin, Lehrbuch der in systematischer Darstellung mit besonderer
Anthropologie
der anthropologischen Methoden (Jena, 1914).
Ber?cksichtigung
32. Chelcea, de cranii," 360-62.
"Tipuri
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 421

times).33 This idea was neither new nor Romanian: the coun
specifically
tries of central and southeast Europe (especially the Balkans) have been re
out as ethnic
peatedly singled extremely heterogeneous regions.34 Yet this
troubled history only confirmed what Romanian nationalists overtly pro
claimed with respect to the national past: only a race superior in its quali
ties could have survived centuries of dislocation and foreign domination.
What constituted that race was the subject of heated debates, as commen
tators could not agree whether it was Roman, Dacian-Roman, Dacian, or
Dacian-Roman-Slavic. For Chelcea, itwas the "Dacian racial type" that the
Romanians deemed theirs and that gave them the right to rule over terri
tories where descendants from that race either now lived or had lived.35
This racial expression of national seen as
identity may be challenging
the scientific credentials claimed by anthropology; yet itmay also be seen
to be a of national metamorphosis. Sorin Antohi
defining specific process
describes this process as "ethnic universal
ontology," whereby categories
are and transformed traditions.36 We may see
appropriated by nationalist
the emergence of this "ethnic ontology" in the topical resemblance be
tween the writings of such different authors as the historian Vasile P?rvan,
the poet Lucian Blaga, and the philosopher Mircea Vulc?nescu.37 As these
writers the of a Romanian national essence and
overtly employed image
obsessively to integrate it into the discussion of national culture in
sought
Romania, it is to see the way in which the very concept of race be
possible
came absorbed into the nationalist rhetoric of inclusion and exclusion,
epitomizing the encounter between individuals different
representing
ethnic groups and cultures.
Such a transformation of the national culture in Romania favored the
emergence of an tradition to yet distinct
anthropological complementary
from that set out by western European scholars, like Eug?ne Pittard,
Weisbach, or Viktor Lebzelter.38 Iordache F?c?oaru, a racial
Augustin

33. For the classical version of this narrative, see Nicolae Histoire des Roumains
Iorga,
et de leur civilisation (Paris, 1920).
34. See, for example, Jovan La P?ninsule humaine (Paris,
Cvijic, Balkanique: G?ographie
1918); and Christian Promitzer, "Vermessene 'Rassenkundliche'
K?rper: Grenzziehungen
im s?d?stlichen in Karl Raser, Gramshammer-Hohl, and Robert Pich
Europa," Dagmar
ler, eds., Europa und die Grenzen im Kopf 2004), 357-85.
(Klagenfurt,
35. N. Densu?ianu, Dada (Bucharest, 1913); A. Donici, "Crania
prehist?rica Scythica:
Contribution ? l'?tude anthropologique du crane scythe et essai relatif ?
l'origine g?o
graphique des scythes," Academia Romana: Memoriile Secfiunii 10, no. 3
?tiin?ifice
(1934/1935): 289-329; and N. Lahovary, "Istoria ?i o nou? metoda de determinare a
raselor," Arhivapentru stiinf? si reforma social? 7, nos. 1-2 (1937): 122-73.
36. Sorin Antohi, "Romania and the Balkans: From Geocultural Bovarism to Ethnic

Ontology," Tr@nsit online Revue) 21 (2002), available at

(Europ?ische http://www.iwm
=
.at/index.php?option com_content&:task=view&:id=235&Itemid=411 (last consulted
25 May 2007).
37. See Vasile Dada: An Outline
P?rvan, of the Early Civilizations of the Carpatho
Danubian Countries 1928); Lucian "R?volta fondului nostru
(Cambridge, Eng., Blaga,
nelatin," in Iordan Chimet, ed., Dreptul la memorie 1993), 3:41-43; and Mircea
(Cluj,
Vulc?nescu, Dimensiunea rom?neasc? a existenfei (Bucharest, 1991).
38. See, for example, the anthropological framework suggested by Viktor Lebzelter,
"La R?partition des Types Raciaux Romano-M?diterran?ens en Roumanie,"
L'Anthropologie
 422 Slavic Review

eugenicist affiliated with the Institute of Hygiene and Social Hygiene in

in Bucharest, was one author who con
Cluj and the Institute of Statistics
tributed to the crystallization of this tradition.39 F?c?oaru em
significantly
braced the study of Romanian racial history with unabashed nationalist
fervor. A new national a committed racial
politics required anthropology,
and F?c?oaru openly stated: "In our national politics, anthropology has
the role of clarifying some of the most issues our
important concerning
over the territory we possess and over the territories we do
political rights
not In proffering this assumption, F?c?oaru made clear refer
possess."40
ence to a new direction in Romanian national Whereas
politics. Papilian
and Chelcea a restrained interest in connecting racial anthro
expressed
to biopolitics, F?c?oaru in constructing a Roman
pology openly engaged
ian racial ontology, including all territories where Romanians could be
found.41

That was devoted

F?c?oaru to a Romanian
developing biopolitical
program becomes evident when one turns to his racial studies.42 When
he declared in 1937 that the final goal of racial anthropology was to

45, nos. 1-2

(1935): 65-69. Despite his critical attitude toward Lebzelter and others, when
it came to racial and composition, Iordache F?c?oaru had to on the
explaining variety rely
racial taxonomies western He thus six cri
produced by European anthropologists. accepted
teria for racial classification: the cephalic index, the facial index, the nasal index,
height,
and and hair color. Based on these criteria, F?c?oaru then identified four
eye principal
races: Dinaric, Mediterranean, and five secondary
and Nordic; races in Ro
Alpine, living
mania: Dalic, Oriental, West-Asian, and Indian. The was first
East-European, study pub
lished as "Criteriile pentru diagnoz? rasial?," Buletin eugenic si biopolitic 6, nos. 10-11-12

(1935) :341-68; and later as a brochure in the collection edited by the Institute of Hygiene
and Social Hygiene in Cluj. See I. F?c?oaru, Criteriile pentru diagnoz? rasial? (Cluj, 1936).
39. Contrary to what Bucur assumes, F?c?oaru did not study in Berlin and did not re
ceive a PhD in sociology. See Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 37. In
later in the book she corrects this by saying that F?c?oaru "had com
terestingly, partly
his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Munich in 1929." Bucur, and
pleted Eugenics
Modernization in Interwar Romania, 112. In fact, F?c?oaru received his PhD (cum laude)
from the Faculty of Philosophy at the of Munich in 1931. He studied
University pedagogy
with Fisher, with Theodor Mollison, and racial hygiene with Fritz Lenz.
Aloys anthropology
See Studenten-Kartei: F?c?oaru Jordache, O-Np-SS 31, Archiv der Ludwig-Universit?t
M?nchen and the Archive of Ministry of Health, Bucharest, F?c?oaru Iordache, Personal
File, No. 10.489. I would like to thank Michael Wedekind for drawing my attention to
F?c?oaru 's student files and to Alexandru Dumitriu in Bucharest for his in locating
help
F?c?oaru 's personal files.
40. Iordache F?c?oaru, ca ctiinf? Buletin si
"Socialantropologia pragmatista," eugenic
biopolitic9, nos. 9-10 (1938): 358.
was "Rom?nii dintre
41. A similar
perspective
advocated by Petru R?mneanfu,
Morava ?i Timoc ?i continuitatea lor etnic eu al rom?nilor din Banat ?i din Tim
spapului
ocul bulgar," Buletin eugenic si biopolitic 12, nos. 1-4 (1941): 40-62; and E. Petrovici,
"Rom?nii dintre Morava ?i Timoc," Transilvania 72, no. 3 (1941): 201-11. For a discussion
of Romanian irredentism in the 1940s, see Rebecca Ann Haynes, "'A New Greater Roma
nia?' Romanian Claims to the Serbian Banat," Central Europe 3, no. 2 (2005): 99-120.
42. See the articles F?c?oaru in Germany during the 1930s, such
especially published
as I. F?c?oaru, "Die und das Studium des Menschen in
'Ganzheitsanthropologie'
Rum?nien," Rassenkunde 6, no. 2 (1937): 248-50; and F?c?oaru, zum
Zeitschrift f?r "Beitrag
Studium der wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Bew?hrung der Rassen," Zeitschrift f?r
Rassenkunde9, no. 1 (1939): 26-39.
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 423

determine the 'Wight to leadership of those who are superior'?namely those

to races deemed not only insinuated that the Ro
belonging superior?he
manians were destined to rule over other ethnic minorities, but that the
racial variation within the Romanian national body justified Romanians
from certain areas over those from other areas as well.43 F?c?oaru
ruling
developed this synopsis of "ethnic hierarchy" in one of his most contro
versial articles, which focuses on three main ideas: racial composition,
racial hierarchy, and Romania's racial diversity. All three ideas derive from
the interrelationship between race, blood, and spiritual achievements.44
First, in order to determine the racial composition of the main Euro
pean nations, F?c?oaru claimed to have synthesized the foremost racial
theories of his time, and indeed he used no less than twenty-five racial
terms in his he the value" of
study.45 Next, surveyed "biological European
races, specifically the "integral, physical and spiritual, genotypic and phe
of an individual or a nation, a race or an ethnic
notypic value group." He
divided them biologically into "over-endowed races," "medium-endowed
races," and "under-endowed races." According to this racial
profile,
Swedes were at the top of the chart; Romanians were in sixth place, while
one of the last on
Hungarians occupied places.46 Finally, F?c?oaru focused
the "biological value of the Romanian population" inhabiting the histori
cal regions constituting Romania: namely, Bukovina, the Banat, Transyl
vania, Cri?ana-Maramure? (the "western provinces"); Moldavia, Bessara
bia, Transnistria (the "eastern provinces"); and Oltenia, Muntenia, and
Dobrudja (the "southern provinces"). Both rural and urban populations
(male and female) were examined, and F?c?oaru employed four norms to
assess the "bio-racial level" of these samples of the population: economic
efficiency, social mobility, military propensity, and spiritual develop
ment.47 As expected, the conclusions reflect F?c?oaru's nationalist com
mitment. Thus, the "western provinces (Bukovina, Transylvania, and the
Banat) are at the level; the eastern (Moldavia,
highest biological provinces
and Transnistria) an intermediary
Bessarabia, occupy place, while the

43. I. F?c?oaru, Structura rasial? a rurale din Romania (Bucharest, 1940), 16

populafiei
in the
(emphasis original).
44. I. F?c?oaru, "Valoarea biorasial? a nafiunilor ?i a provinciilor rom?ne?ti
europene
(O prima ?ncercare de ierarhizare ?tnica)," Buletin eugenic si biopolitic 14, nos. 9-10 (1943) :
278-310.
45. Thus, for were of the racial
example, Bulgarians composed following compo
nents: Mediterranean, 41 24 15
percent; Dinaric-Alpine, percent; Alpine, percent;
Paleoasiatic-Mongoloid, 12 percent; and Nordic,
8 percent. Germans were
of
composed
Nordic, 50 percent; 20 percent; Dinaric, 15 percent; 6 percent;
Alpine, East-European,
Oriental, 5 percent; Mediterranean, 2 percent; 1 percent, and Mongoloid, 1 per
Lapoid,
cent. Romanians were of Alpine, 29 percent; Mediterranean, 19 percent;
composed
Nordic, 14 percent; 12 percent; Dinaric, 11 percent; Atlantid, 10 percent;
East-European,
Oriental, 3 percent; and Dalic, 2 percent. were of
Hungarians composed East-European,
35 percent; Dalic, 20 percent; 20 percent; 15 percent,
Caucasian-Mongoloid, Alpine,
Nordic, 5 percent, 4 percent; and Mediterranean, 1 percent. F?c?oaru, "Val
Mongoloid,
oarea biorasial?," 280-81. The lesser known "Dalic" and "Atlantid" races are subdivisions
of the Nordic race.
46. F?c?oaru, "Valoarea biorasial?," 283.
47. Ibid., 292.
424 Slavic Review

southern (Oltenia, Muntenia, and Dobrudja) are last." The rest

provinces
of his commentary suggests the same and simplistic vision:
stereotypical
racial qualities are to be found among urban, educated, and
superior
wealthy social classes.48
How different were Papilian's, Chelcea's, and F?c?oaru 's descriptions
of Romanian racial characteristics from other theories of the nation pro
the interwar these authors made ex
posed during period? Undoubtedly,
cessive use of racial and anthropological terminology, but in fact they
communicated in anthropological what others in Romania were
concepts
to express in poetic or terms.49 Ultimately, what
attempting philosophical
from these is an unconditional vener
emerged anthropological analyses
ation for Manichean and stereotypical of the nation. Be
interpretations
cause the Romanians were of different races, there must also
composed
be a racial engine of superior origin within the nation, and Papilian, Chel
cea, and F?c?oaru located it among the Romanians of Transylvania.50 This
narrative of national the difficulties that in
belonging clearly expressed
terwar nationalists encountered when to define the "Roman
attempting
ian nation."51 But this ambiguity about what constituted the nation
these nationalists to disseminate racial ideas, for as Ann Stoler has
helped
noted, "racisms gain their strategic force, not from the fixity of their es
sentialism, but from the internal malleability assigned to the changing
feature of racial essence."52

Romanian Racial Serology

One issue, in particular, troubled those involved in this type of anthropo
research: versus racial differences. was
logical physical similarity Serology
called on to solve this conundrum. Based on the special properties of
blood to identify biological relationships
groups, serologists attempted
between individuals of the same and different ethnic groups, in order to
demonstrate the preservation of biological characteristics whose physical
distinctiveness have been obliterated over time but whose heredi
might
never
tary uniqueness disappeared.
The Director of the National Institute of Statistics in Bucharest, the
statistician and demographer Sabin Manuil?, and Gheorghe Popovici,
a at the Faculty of Medicine in Cluj, were among the first Ro
professor
manian scientists to the new theories of serology.53 In his 1924
publicize

48.Ibid., 306-7.
49.For a literary and philosophical idea of race, see Lucian rasa ca
Blaga, "Despre
stil," G?ndirea 14, no. 2 (1935): 69-73. See also Marin Simionescu-R?mniceanu, Contribuai
la o id?ologie pol?tica specific
rom?neasc? (Bucharest, 1939).
50. See Iordache F?c?oaru, "Amestecul rasial ?i etnic ?n Romania," Buletin si
eugenic

biopolitic9, nos. 9-10 (1938): 276-87.

51. See Constantin R?dulescu-Motru, rasial rom?nese indicele cephalic,"
"Tipul dup?
in C. R?dulescu-Motru, rom?n (Bucharest, 1999), 150-66.
Psihologiapoporului
52. Stoler, Carnal and Imperial Power, 144.
Knowledge
53. S. Manuil? and G. Popoviciu, "Recherches sur les races roumaine et hongroise en

Roumanie rendus des s?ances de la Soci?t? de Biologie 90,

par risoh?magglutination," Comptes
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 425

article, Manuil? saluted the

introduction of a new tool:
anthropological
isohemagglutination, namely that the red blood of one indi
corpuscles
vidual mix with the blood serum of another individual from the same spe
cies but not from a different one.54 He also offered a distilled version of
Hirszfeld's on the index of race" and its permanence
theory "biological
to the laws of Manuil? discovered that
according heredity. Subsequently,
the "biological index" of the Romanians was 2.20; that of
by comparison,
the Serbs and Bulgarians was 2.29; and of the Greeks 2.25. Manuil?
unified these indexes under a name?"Southeast in
generic European
dex"?arguing that his research proved that, although these nations
not have from the same race,
might originated they must have been
closely connected. Not were Romanians, Serbs, Bulgarians, and
only
Greeks related, were also in their racial constitution: "There
they unique
exists no other people whose index so that of the
closely approximates
southeast European peoples," Manuil? concluded.55
Manuil?'s article gave rise to a considerable discussion about serology
in Romania. Popovici was the first to
respond.56 Methodologically,
was also a follower of the serological methods
Popovici proposed by Emil
von and Hirszfeld. to Manuil?, however,
D?ngern Contrary Popovici
aimed at more than just outlining a theoretical framework; he addition
ally engaged with two contentious the viability of "race" as a sci
topics:
entific concept and the racial origins of the ethnic groups in Greater Ro
mania, especially in Transylvania. From the outset, the
Popovici rejected
methodological importance of "race" in defining national "In the
identity.
Balkans," he noted, "race cannot national differences and should
explain
be used for this purpose as a last resort."57 With the advent of serol
only
ogy, anthropology was endowed with a new method, described as "more
objective, more and more subtle"; a method that could
precise, identify
those "profound and less alterable differences in blood structure that
were undetected research."58 therefore served sev
previously by Serology
eral functions. On the one hand, it demonstrated that within the same
"race" there were different races,"
"serological thereby unequivocally
rejecting the idea of racial Yet on the other hand,
homogeneity. serology
confirmed that blood characteristics were transmitted to
according
Mendelian laws of heredity, unconditioned natural or social envi
by
ronment. the results obtained in Thessaloniki
Corroborating by Hirszfeld
with those of Oskar and Verz?r in and
Weszeczky Frigyes Hungary,
Manuil? in Romania, added his own contribution to the dis
Popovici

no. 1 (1924) :542-43; and S. Manuil?, "Recherches sur les races en

s?ro-anthropologiques
Roumanie par la m?thode de rendus des s?ances de la Soci?t?
l'isoh?magglutination," Comptes
deBiologie90, no. 2 (1924): 1071-73.
54. Sabin Manuil?, "Cercet?ri cu la rasse, unei
biologice privire prin aplicarea
metode noua," Convorbiri literare 56 (1924): 694-98.
55. Ibid., 696.
56. "Diferente ?i asem?n?ri ?n structura de rasa a
Gheorghe Popovici, biol?gica
popoarelor Rom?niei," Cultural (1924): 224-34.
57. Ibid., 224.
58. Ibid., 224-25.
426 Slavic Review

cussion on the "biological index of the Romanians."59 He thus analyzed

12,000 individuals from different social backgrounds (such as soldiers, pa
tients in hospitals, schoolchildren, and villagers), as well as different eth
nic origins, including Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, Roma, Jews, and
Russians. Based on this research, reached a conclusion that dif
Popovici
fered from Manuil?'s: the index of the Romanians" was 2.01,
"biological
them "between of the Balkans and those of Russia"; that
situating peoples
of the Hungarians from for instance, was 1.7, "close to that
Transylvania,
of their brothers from the Hungarian plain."60
With respect to dissimilar racial composition within the same envi
ronment, both Manuil? and Popovici noted that the racial index varied
to the geographical distribution of ethnic groups. Popovici,
according
however, this at the center of his argument. The Ro
placed assumption
manians from the mountainous of Transylvania, he claimed, dif
regions
fered in their blood properties from Romanians inWalachia or Dobrudja:
as a rule, the more a was to the of the
general exposed region migrations
Middle the lower it was in the European group A (and the higher in
Ages,
B). This geographical variation within one ethnic group
group specific
was further tested by concentrating on ethnically mixed subregions in
where Romanian, and German were
Transylvania, Hungarian, villages
situated next to each other. to the serological
According Popovici,
characteristics of each group reflected their ethnic affiliation, which was
not influenced and historical of other eth
by the geographical proximity
nic groups. could ultimately indicate?Popovici reaffirmed?
Serology
whether or not common racial elements found in different ethnic groups
could be explained their similar Based on this assumption,
by origin.
concluded that the plausible explanation for why Romanians
Popovici
and Hungarians in the same areas in Transylvania had approxi
living
similar biological indexes was that they might have had the same
mately
racial ancestor: an "autochthonous race" whose existence pre
namely,
dated the arrival of the Hungarians in the Carpathian basin.61
to Popovici's efforts to distance himself from any nationalist
Contrary
of serological data, his argumentation did in fact favor Ro
interpretation
manian of historical in as such, it had
paradigms continuity Transylvania;
a resonance for nationalists attracted to biological theories of
particular
To discourage any nationalist and increase the
belonging. appropriation
of his research results, made use of tech
credibility Popovici systematic
like comparative in the application of serological theories.
niques analysis
In another article, he managed to maintain a scientific fa?ade for his sero
without the theories of racial origins
logical arguments, reproducing
within nationalist circles. Agreeing with Manuil?'s conclusions
emerging
without his about the "Southeast Euro
(although embracing speculation

59. Oskar ?ber die gruppenweise H?magglutination

Weszeczky, "Untersuchungen
beim Menschen," Biochemische 107 (1920): 159-71; and F. Verz?r and O. Wes
Zeitschrift
mittels Biochemische
zeczky, "Rassenbiologische Untersuchungen Isoh?magglutininen,"
Zeitschrift 16 (1921/1922): 33-39.
60. "Diferente ?i aseman?ri," 226.
Popovici,
61. Ibid., 227-34.
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 427

pean index"), final observation was twofold: first, he argued

Popovici's
that "the Romanians from Transylvania present blood groups in the same
as other from the Balkans"; second, he
proportions peoples postulated
that the "serological structure" of the Romanians from the Old Kingdom,
Bessarabia, and Bukovina positioned them between the European and the
Asian-African type.62
The on bio
impact of Manuil?'s and Popovici's serological research
theories
in Romania was immediate, for both were connected to
political
Iuliu Moldovan, the director of the Institute of Hygiene and Social
Hygiene in Cluj, who, in turn, was the mentor of the main Romanian
eugenicists and racial anthropologists in the interwar period, including
F?c?oaru and Petru R?mneanfu.63 Racial narratives and typologies of eth
nic groups in Romania were and within this circle
negotiated popularized
of friends and colleagues.64 The biologization of national en
belonging
visaged by eugenicists made it possible for racial anthropology to intersect
with These were the disciplines that endeavored to transform
serology.
the Romanian national in line with a new program.
body biopolitical

A Rejuvenated National Body

A dominant principle underlay Romanian the interwar
biopolitics during
period: the ideal of Greater Romania. The nationalist of a
myth territory
occupied by all Romanians (and only by them) involved the fusion of
various overlapping Romantic notions?the unity between and
language
territory; the glorification of the Dacian empire; the sanctity of the nation.
Nevertheless, as a formula for national cohesion, the content of an

62. Georges "Recherches sur les races en Roumanie," Revue

Popoviciu, s?rologiques
anthropologique 35, nos. 4-5-6 (1925): 152-64.
63. In the first volume of Buletin si
eugenic biopolitic edited by Moldovan and published
in 1927, the legal physician and lecturer at the Law in Oradea, Mihai Kernbach,
Academy
a short on blood in which he evaluated the importance of
published commentary groups
for and surveyed new vistas of research
serology anthropology opened up by the discovery
of the agglutinating of blood. See M. Kernbach, Buletin eu
properties "Grupuri sangvine,"
genic si biopolitic 1, no. 3 (1927): 102-6. Other researchers interested in
serological
re
search were Francise Rainer, Maria Horia Dumitrescu, Alexandru Manuil?, and Maria
Ve?temeanu. See Francise Rainer, "Exista cordage ?ntre grupele umane ?i cele
sanguine
lalte caract?re in Omagiu lui Constantin Kirifescu (Bucharest,
antropologice?" 1937),
696-701; Mar?a Horia Dumitrescu, "Cercet?ri asupra ?n Romania,"
grupelor sanguine
Romania med?cala 12, no. 10 (1934): 141-42, 144; and Alexandru Manuil? and Maria
Ve?temeanu, "Constat?ri cu la metodei teren,"
privire aplicarea sero-antropologice pe
Buletin eugenic si
biopolitic 14, nos. 3-4 (1943): 121-25.
64. A is the collaboration between F?c?oaru and R?mneanfu occa
good example
sioned by the Seventeenth International Congress of Anthropology held in 1937 in
Bucharest. See P. R?mneantu and I. F?c?oaru, "The Blood and the
Groups Pigmentation
of the Iris in the from P. R?mneantu and I. F?c?oaru, "The
Population Transylvania";
Blood and the Facial
Index in the from I. F?c?oaru and
Groups Population Transylvania";
P. R?mneantu, "Das Verh?ltnis, zwischen Rassen und bei der
Blutgruppen Siebenb?rgis
chen I. F?c?oaru and P. R?mneanfu, "Der L?ngen-Breitenindex und die
Bev?lkerung";
Blutgruppen bei der Siebenb?rgischen all in XVIIe International
Bev?lkerung," Congr?s
et (Bucharest, 1939), 323-25, 333-37, 337-39,
d'Anthropologie d'Arch?ologie Pr?historique
and 339-42.
 428 Slavic Review

idealized Greater Romania was Indeed, it

continually changing. although
was a nationalist the interwar Ro
always totalizing ideology, during period
manian nationalists could?and did?understand it as an expression of
the doctrine of the homogeneous ethnic state, one upon racial
predicated
affiliation.65 From this interpretation follows the ideological importance
of the key arguments advanced by contemporary anthropological and
research: the over the racial of ethnic minori
serological dispute origins
ties and the struggle over the racial core of the Romanian nation (claimed
to be located in the mountains of Transylvania).
R?mneanfu, another eugenicist and racial anthropologist from Tran
was instrumental in the and of serolog
sylvania, development application
ical research to the study of ethnic minorities in interwar Romania. In
1935, R?mneanju with Petru David) one of the most
(together published
articulated combinations of anthropological theories of race with nation
alism and serology.66 This article can be divided into two parts: the first
deals with historical narratives, including arguments about the Romanian
continuity in Transylvania and various theories concerning the origins of
the Szeklers; the second a synthesis of serological theories, fol
comprises
lowed by their application to ethnic groups in Transylvania.
For R?mneantu, Romanian in Transylvania necessitated no
continuity
additional confirmation. he moved to a discus
Accordingly, immediately
sion of the origins of the Szeklers, engaging with two theories: the first as
sumed that the Szeklers were of Hun the second that
origin; suggested
were instead Hungarian colonists. R?mneantu favored neither the
they
ory. Instead, he maintained that only the process of isohemagglutination
could solve the historical conundrum regarding ethnic groups in Transyl
vania, for "blood is the real, perhaps the unique, source that has remained
untouched by the vicissitudes of time and that will elucidate the Szeklers'
true ethnic
origin."67
Two serological theories backed up R?mneantu's assertion: Hirsz
feld's "biochemical race index" and Siegmund Wellisch's "blood specific
gene index." Applied to the ethnic groups of southeast Transylvania,
these theories were meant to establish the "Romanians'
serological
index" and then that were, to
racial-biological identify villages according
R?mneanfu, just "summarily Szeklerized" (namely those villages where
the "Romanians' racial-biological index" was easily detectable). Yet serol
ogy was also employed to locate the biological "index" specific to the

65. That this was not confined to Romania, but a common fea
something exclusively
case
by the
ture of racial nationalism in the Balkans is eloquently demonstrated of Yu
See Rory
Yeomans, "Of 'Yugoslav Barbarians' and Croatian Gentlemen Scholars:
goslavia.
Nationalist and Racial Anthropology in Interwar Yugoslavia," in Turda and Wein
Ideology
eds., "Blood and Homeland, "83-122.
dling,
66. Petru R?mneantu (in collaboration Petru David),
with "Cercet?ri asupra originii
a a
etnice popula?iei din sud-estul pe baza
Transilvaniei compozi?iei serologice s?ngelui,"
no. 1 (1935): See also Pierre eth
Buletin eugenic si
biopolitic 6, 36-75. R?mneantu, "Origine
nique des Sz?klers de Transylvanie," Revue de Transylvanie 2, no. 1 (1935/1936): 45-59;
and I. F?c?oaru, "Compozitia
rasial? la romani, s?cui ?i unguri," Buletin eugenic si biopolitic 1,
nos. 4-5 (1937): 124-42.
67. R?mneantu, "Cercet?ri etnice a 40.
asupra originii populatiei,"
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 429

Szeklers. With to the first assumption, R?mneanfu confirmed

respect
Manuil?'s research results and considered that the racial index of Ro
manians from southeast of Transylvania varied between 2.60 and 1.76,
with the average situated between 2.20 and 2.00, similar to that of
Romanians from other parts of Transylvania and the Old Kingdom of
Romania, lower than that of Romanians from the Apuseni
though
Mountains, who were considered the "least racially contaminated."
When conducting the same serological research in Szekler villages (in
the counties of Ciuc/Csik, Odorhei/Udvarhely, and Trei-Scaune/
H?romsz?k), however, R?mneantu discovered that, in general, the racial
index of the Szeklers in that region varied between 3.07 and 1.56. He
was caused
hastened to
explain that such variance by the mixed ethnic
of the studied, for?R?mneantu continued?when con
origin groups
on inhabited exclusively by Szeklers, the resulting
centrating villages
racial index was 2.11, near the average of the racial index of the Roma
nians: "This mathematical and biological measurement, the result of an
number of proves beyond a doubt that the eth
unprecedented analyses,
nic origin of those named Szeklers is identical with that of the Romani
ans."68 To prove that his serological research was indisputably confirmed
by facts and comparative analyses, R?mneantu briefly reflected upon the
racial indexes of the Saxons and the Roma population: he found no dif
ference between the racial index of the first group and their counter
parts from Germany; similarly, the racial index of the latter group
confirmed their origins in India.
To discuss the ethnic origins of Romanians, Hungarians, and Szek
lers in Transylvania based on the "race index" was to
only mistakenly
treat a topic of paramount with a
importance slightly outdated method
R?mneanfu As a result, he decided?"in order to be com
ology, argued.
pletely well informed"?to augment his serological results by imple
menting Wellisch's "blood specific gene index," namely by considering
the gene distribution (p, q, and r) corresponding to the three "bio
chemical races" (A, B, and O). This new was
serological configuration
then graphically represented using Oswald Streng's "race-triangle,"
considered the latest synthesis in racial serology (see figure 1). More
over, R?mneantu that a similar process of "Szeklerization" oc
argued
curred to the Saxons of that region, whose "race index" suggested their
authentic ethnic origin. "Because we could not establish a
biological in
dex specific to the Szeklers, as it does not exist," R?mneanfu concluded
that this ethnic group has the same "ethnic-anthropological origin
as the
Romanians."69
A similar was who returned to
interpretationproposed by Popovici,
these topics in a series of articles in the late 1930s and revised
published
some of the he had made in the 1920s (for ex
serological assumptions
ample, he deemed Hirszfeld's "biological index of race" redundant in the
wake of the new serological research) and that "the blood
accepted

68. Ibid., 56.

69. Ibid., 64-65.
430 Slavic Review

?foa6e/yr t/J/faer/&?/&

?/fO'?//JnO?/X

\ A/myres

\ #<ssrc;
\ZSas?ra?sef

Carao*

Figure 1. "Blood Types by Racial Groups." From Pierre R?mneantu, "Origine

ethnique des Sz?klers de Transylvanie,'' Revue de Transylvanie 2, no. 1 (1935/
1936): 56.

"
properties of the race (isohemagglutination) confirmed that the Szeklers
were "almost identical with the Romanians in the same
living place."70
The Hungarians from Transylvania also possessed a of
high proportion
the "European value p" (or group A), an occurrence that was explained
by the fact that the Hungarians mixed with Romanians and Germans,
whose level of p was also documented.71
high
Unsurprisingly, Popovici's conclusions resembled F?c?oaru's and
R?mneanfu's racial nationalism: the Hungarians in Transylvania were

"biologically closer" to Romanians than to Hungarians in Hungary. Yet

nationalist ethos carried him even further. As a on the elu
Popovici's gloss
sive theme of racial purity and illustrative of the nationalist obsession with
racial essence, Popovici argued: "The Romanians of the mountainous
center of Transylvania as well as the and the Szeklers of this
Hungarians
possess a racial that one finds in a few
region European purity only

70. G. Popoviciu and I. Birau, "Nouvelles contributions a l'?tude des isoh?magglu

tinines en Roumanie," Revue nos. 4-6 (1936): 181-83; and G. Popovi
anthropologique46,
ciu, "Comparaison entre les groupes des Roumains et ceux des autres de
sanguins peuples
la Roumanie," Revue 46, nos. 4-6 (1936): 184-89.
anthropologique
71. Popoviciu and Birau, "Nouvelles contributions," 182-83.
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 431

mountainous of Europe. The proportions of p and q appear here

regions
at the same levels as in the Alpine and Nordic races."72
Popovici's nationalist interpretation of serology was fully revealed in
an article he in 1938 in Revue de Transylvanie?^ He commenced
published
his analysis thus: "Lately the problem of the racial origin of nations is of
ten posed. Romania's adversaries attempt to prove that the Romanians
their frontiers and that the new provinces are inhabited
possess unjustly
that are either non-Romanian or Roman
by populations only recently
ized. This erroneous argument is especially made about Transylvania."74
Next Popovici returned to one of his early serological convictions and dis
carded the importance of race in defining nationality, explaining that the
race" became extinct the wars of the
original "Hungarian virtually during
Middle Indeed, a few enclaves of the "pure" Hungarian race are
Ages.
across the but contemporary Hungarians (living
spread Hungarian plain,
as well as in were Romani
in Budapest Transylvania) simply assimilated
ans, Slavs, and Germans. Nationality, religion, and the language of a par
ticular group could not explain its racial origin.75 Not surprisingly then,
to "The of Romania are?as a rule?
according Popovici, Hungarians
Magyarized Romanians."76
In many ways, this nationalization
of serology reflected the political at
of authoritarian in the late 1930s. as the
mosphere emerging regimes Just
debates over national and territorial occasioned
symbolism disintegration
an
exchange of views on the essential traits of the Romanian national
character, discussions about a new racial biopolitics prompted reflections
on Romania's to fascist
national future. Similar Italy and Nazi Germany,
various forms of radical politics that emerged in Romania during the early
1940s endorsed the idea of a totalitarian state, seen to be the epitome of
Romanian ethnic supremacy. And like racial ideologues elsewhere, Ro
manian eugenicists and racial anthropologists adopted and championed
principles of ethnic reengineering and social segregation.77

72. entre les groupes 181-89. See also Georges

Popoviciu, "Comparaison sanguins,"
"Les races en Roumanie," in XVIIe Congr?s International
Popoviciu, sanguines d'Anthropolo
et 309-16.
gie d'Arch?ologie Pr?historique,
73. George "Le probl?me des populations de la Roumanie vu a la lumi?re
Popovici,
des recherches sur les races le Revue de 4, nos. 1-2 (1938):
d'apr?s sang," Transylvanie
14-27.
74. Ibid., 14.
75. Ibid.,15. R?mneanfu a similar "The application of the sero
proposed argument:
in the is one of the most achievements for an
logical investigations populations important
In this way, based on the variations fixed limits of the classical blood
thropology. among
we are able to determine to which nation nucleus.
groups, belongs every population
We are convinced that the distribution of the blood groups gives better indication about
the extension of an 'ethnie,' than the the culture, and the customs." In Peter
language,
Ramneantzu, "The Classical Blood Groups and the M, N and M, N in the Na
Properties
tions from in XVIIe International et Pr?his
Transylvania," Congr?s d'Anthropologie d'Arch?ologie
torique, 325.
76. Popovici, "Le probl?me des populations de la Roumanie," 24. See also R?dulescu,

"Anthropologische Beweise," 12.

77. According to Maria Bucur, "The relationship between Romanian and the
eugenics
of the Antonescu with to its treatment of 'undesirable'
policies regime, especially regard
432 Slavic Review

However, this conspicuous imitation, which proved perfectly suited to

integrating the biopolitical modernism of Romanian fascism within the
European context, should not obfuscate the specific cultural environ
ment and circumstances permeating the narratives of national
political
this Not was Romania a country
identity produced during period. only
with a number of ethnic minorities (28 to 30 percent of the
significant
but its own dream of territorial was short-lived.
population), expansion
(In 1940, Romania lost northern Bukovina and Bessarabia, northern
Transylvania, and southern to the Soviet Union, Hungary, and
Dobrudja
then, Romania's entry into the war
Bulgaria, respectively). Unsurprisingly,
in the subsequent year was portrayed as a external
"holy war" against foes
and hostile historical circumstances: war a new context for the
provided
"palingenetic myth" of national renewal; through combat and sacrifice,
Romania could regain not only its territories but, equally important, its
aura of a nation."78
"mystical superior
Within this new political context, racial anthropology and serology
the fervent intention to the history and racial origin
professed redesign
of ethnic minorities living in Romania.79 Such processes of racial
became in 1940s Europe, most in Nazi
appropriation popular tellingly
research in central and southeast the war in Romania,
Europe.80 During
this transgression of ethnic boundaries was a concern due to
pressing
the problem of defining the body of the nation in a period in which po
litical revisionism reached its pinnacle?not only through scientific

unclear." and Modernization in

minorities?the Jews and Roma?remains Bucur, Eugenics
Interwar Romania, 224. Scholars with the Holocaust in Romania, like Radu Ioanid,
dealing
and Dennis Dele tant, have documented clear connections,
Jean Ancel, Lya Benjamin,
in Romania: ofJews and Gypsies
however. See Radu Ioanid, The Holocaust The Destruction under
the Antonescu 1940-1944 (Chicago, 2000); Jean Ancel, "The German-Romanian
Regime,
Relationship and the Final Solution," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 19, no. 2 (2005):
252-75; "Bazele doctrinare ale antisemitismului antonescian," in Viorel
Lya Benjamin,
Achim and Constantin Iordachi, eds., Romania si Transnistria: Problema Holocaustului: Per
istorice si (Bucharest, 2004), 237-51; Lya Benjamin, ed., Evreii din Roma
spective comparative
nia intre 1940-1944, vol. 1, Legislaba antievreiasc? (Bucharest, 1993) ;and Dennis Deletant,
Hitler's Ion Antonescu and His Regime, Romania 1940-1944
(Basingstoke, Eng.,
Forgotten Ally:
2006). Moreover, archival documents indicate the importance bestowed on R?mneantu 's
work on the racial of the Csangos the leaders of the Csango communi
origins by religious
ties in Moldova in their to assure General Antonescu of their to the
attempts loyalty
Romanian state. See, for the informative note sent on 1 1943 to Serviciul
example, April
de Informal (SSI), "In entice a ?i a rom?nilor
Special jurul problemei originei ceang?ilor
catolici din Moldova," Arhivele Statului Bucure?ti, Pre?edinfia Consiliului de Mini?tri,
note was occa
f. 63/1942 (I am grateful to Chris Davis for locating this document). The
sioned the publication of Petru M. P?l's article, "Glasul in Originea, a en
by s?ngelui," strong
dorsement of Ramneanju's racial theories about the Csangos.
78. Nicolae Ro?u, Dial?ctica naponalismului (Bucharest, 1936), 18.
79. See Arens Meinholf, "Die Moldauer im Rahmen der
Ungarn (Tschangos)
zwischen 1940 and 1944: Eine vornational
rum?nisch-ungarisch-deutschen Beziehungen
strukturierte ethnische totalit?rer
im Spannungsfeld in Mari
Gruppe Volkstumspolitik,"
ana Hausleitner and Harald Roth, eds., Der Einfluss von Faschismus und Nationalsozialismus
in Ostmittel- und S?dosteuropa 265-315.
auf Minderheiten (Munich, 2006),
80. See Michael Turns Eastwards: A Study of Ostforschung in the Third
Burleigh, Germany
Reich (Cambridge, Eng., 1988).
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 433

and literary exercises, but in the very substance of national

practices
In a report after his research in Bessarabia in 1942,
politics.81 published
F?c?oaru established this point in reference to the "racial structure of
the Romanians" from this region: "Racial researches about our co
nationals living outside the borders of the country have both scientific
and biopolitical importance."82
this wartime evolution of serology, R?mneanfu indi
Exemplifying
cated how the three main blood groups?A, B, and O?were distributed
within each nation.83 In a series of articles published in the 1940s, R?m
neanfu discussed the "sero-races of Transylvania" following the tradi
tional, nationalist pattern: the Romanians were the oldest in
population
Transylvania, the result of the Roman conquest and Dacian endurance;
the Hungarians came to Europe from Asia in the ninth century and
in the eleventh century; the Szeklers were either
conquered Transylvania
descendants of the Huns or related to the (but they were cer
Bulgarians
tainly Magyarized before the Hungarians arrived in the Carpathian
basin); and the Germans (Saxons in the center of Transylvania; Swabians
in the Banat and the Partium) settled gradually between the twelfth
and the eighteenth centuries. The Wellisch index for these groups
was as follows: that of the Romanians was between 1.16 and 1.31; the Hun
garians between 1.17 and
the Szeklers between
1.19; 1.22 and 1.35; finally,
the Germans (both groups) between 1.23 and 1.41.84 Based on these
concluded: is thus an in
figures, R?mneantu "Serological study important
strument of history and, at the same time, an admirable way to research
anthroposocial phenomena. By knowing the serological properties of dif
ferent nations, we realize that their individuality is not dependent on ex
ternal circumstances but on hereditary characteristics."85
A further of how racial research was instrumental in the cre
example
ation of the Romanian is R?mneanfu's considerable re
biopolitical utopia
search on the Catholic communities in Moldova known as the
Csangos.

81. This exercise in racial continued after the war, especially in the period
mapping
between 1945 and 1947 when some of the territories that Romania lost in 1940, like north
ern were into the Romanian state. See Peter R?mneantzu, The
Transylvania, reintegrated
Grounds and the Vitality
Biological of the Transilvanian Rumanians (Cluj, 1946).
82. I. F?c?oaru, Contribute la studiul a rom?nilor din Rep?blica
compoziiiei morfologice
Moldoveneasc? (Bucharest, 1944), 4. See also Iordache F?c?oaru, "Cercet?ri antropologice
in sate din Transnistria" 1943) available on microfilm, Holo
patru (unpublished paper,
caust Memorial Museum Institute, f. 2242, 1, RG-31.004, reel 4 (I would like to thank
op.
Radu Ioanid and Carl for their help in this F?c?oaru and
Modig obtaining manuscript).
his wife, to a group of Romanian research teams
Tilly, belonged assigned by the Roman
ian Social Institute and Central Institute of Statistics to the social, economic, cul
complete
tural, and racial evaluations of the Romanian
population in Transnistria. See Anton Ga
Rom?nii de la est de
lopenfia, Bug, 2 vols. (Bucharest, 2006).
83. Petru R?mneanfu, "Distribuya de la populaba din Transilvania,"
grupelor s?nge
Buletin si biopolitic\2, nos. 9-12 (1941): 137-59; and P. R?mneanfu and V. Lusirea,
eugenic
"Contribufii noi la studiul seroetnic al populafiei din Romania," Ardealul medical^, no. 12
(1942): 503-11.
84. R?mneanfu, "Distribuya de 152-56.
grupelor s?nge,"
85. Ibid., 158.
 434 Slavic Review

Figure 2. "Racial Biological Indexes." From P. R?mneantu, "Grupele de s?nge la

Ciang?ii din Moldova," Buletin eugenic ?i biopolitic 14, nos. 1-2 (1943): 64.

theories on the
Two historiographie origin of the Csangos predominated
in the interwar period, especially within Hungarian historiography: the
were either a group that became from the
Csangos separated Magyar
tribes as they headed towards the Pannonian or were Mag
plain, they
Cumans. R?mneantu contested both theories; he developed a
yarized
fully articulated racial interpretation of the Csangos in keeping with
the main tenets of Romanian nationalism (see figure 2).86 Based on the
1941 census (a census that considered race to be a category of identifi
cation) R?mneantu asserted that there were 8,523 in
only Csangos
Moldova, a group that was characterized their use of Romanian and
by
their Catholicism.87 R?mneantu, however, explicitly discarded the central
argument of Csango self-identification, namely that their Catholicism

86. P. R?mneantu, de la Ciang?ii din Moldova," Buletin eugenic si

"Grupele s?nge
biopolitic 14, nos. 1-2 (1943): 51-65.
87. Ibid., 52.
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 435

conflicted with their being Romanian. "A priori," he declared, "I rejected
the fact that Csango and Catholic are identical notions."88 Accordingly,
R?mneantu divided the Csangos into four categories: 1) Orthodox Ro
manians Romanian; 2) Catholic Romanians speaking Roman
speaking
ian; 3) Catholic Romanians speaking Hungarian; and finally, 4) Catholic
Hungarians speaking Hungarian. All four groups, however, had similar
"blood groups and genes."89
R?mneanfu's Romanian ethnic utopia also favored the emergence of
a new model of once certain blood groups had been
biological identity:
defined as Romanian national the only possible ex
representing identity,
for their occurrence in other ethnic groups was that these
planation
groups were, in fact, "Romanians" who had been exposed to cultural and
linguistic environments different from that of other Romanians. This view
the Szeklers and the Csangos as "racially Romanian," since both
portrayed
groups to the same "autochthonous" race described
belong by Popovici;
can be
their contradictory national identification explained by centuries
of Magyarization. Serology, R?mneanfu believed, helped rectify historical
conundrums about the ethnic mixing in Transylvania while also drasti
cally revising fundamental assumptions about the national origin of the
non-Romanians.

The ethnic of the Csangos reached a critical stage in

appropriation
1944, when R?mneanfu published Die Abstammung der Tschangos, arguably
the most radical reconstruction of the national past of a minority ethnic
group in modern Romania.90 The first part of the book con
attempted
centrates on historical narratives about the Csangos. the works
Enlisting
of religious missionaries, linguists, and historians, R?mneanfu to
sought
establish the verisimilitude of his interpretation as com
by constructing
a of the Csangos as As evidence, he
prehensive description possible.
brought forward extensive investigations into the geographical distribu
tion and demographic structure of the Csangos: he amassed historical
records, identified the Csango villages in Moldova, and offered plausible
explanations for their ethnonym. In many respects, R?mneanfu was a
meticulous researcher who accompanied his historical and linguistic ar
guments with evidence from medieval chronicles, and his speculations
with confirmation from contemporary historiography.91 He was also un
reservedly nationalistic.
Consider the issue of religion, for instance. No scholar before R?m
neanfu had questioned the fact that the Csangos were Catholic. Disman
tling the synonymy between "Catholic" and of the most
"Csango"?one
contentious of the claims first put forward in his 1943 article?served as
the introduction to R?mneanfu's discussion of racial serology. His em
on Catholicism not being an aspect of the racial of the
phasis identity

88. Ibid., 54. This highly nationalistic of historical sources was also
interpretation ap
to Catholic Romanians in Moldova, whom R?mneantu declared to be "Catholicized
plied
Orthodox Romanians."
89. R?mneantu, de la Ciang?ii," 60-63.
"Grupele s?nge
90. Petru R?mneantu, Die Abstammung der Tschangos (Sibiu, 1944).
91. Ibid., 7-29.
436 Slavic Review

was invested with national and it is not difficult to

Csangos significance,
see within this issue, the line drawn between
why: unsettling traditionally
autochthonous Orthodoxy and foreign Catholicism was treated as a fun
damental distinction between racially different as it was for
nations?just
other apostles of Orthodoxy in interwar Romania.92
The second part of R?mneanfu's book concentrates on the
impor
tance of research for national affiliation. After first discussing
serological
the "individuality of blood" and summarizing the main arguments about
the hereditary properties of blood, R?mneanfu examined the "ethnic
meaning of blood groups." The outline provided here repeats the racial
arguments that R?mneanfu had been articulating since the early 1930s. In
direct reference to the R?mneanfu did, however, amend the
Csangos,
racial typology introduced in 1943, whereby the Csangos were now nomi
nally divided into "Romanians by blood" and "Hungarians re
by blood,"
A section on racial that char
spectively.93 morphology catalogued physical
acteristics such as height, hair color, and nasal index completed his
examination. to R?mneanfu, the the
According ambiguity concerning
ethnic of the had finally been resolved: were
origin Csangos racially, they
Romanians.94
The ethnic in Die Abstammung der Tschangos sur
engineering
proposed
passed previous representations of the relationship between the Roman
ian majority and ethnic minorities in Romania. The racial mythology
R?mneanfu advocated was indeed radical; yet it was well within
integrated
a nationalist culture that became in Romania after 1940: a cul
prevalent
ture composed of clusters of biopolitical ideas and practices. R?mneanfu
could thus advance the new program of national regeneration by invok
revisionism, for as well as national ne
ing political (Hungarian example)
cessities (the "holy war" for the reunification of lost territories).95

"Racial Commandments" and Totalitarian Biopolitics

In order to comprehend the relationship between anthropology, serol
ogy, and one must racial studies, not only in their
biopolitics, investigate
most technical formulations (charts, diagrams, mathematical equations,
and so on), but also in the popularly reiterated images that traversed in
terwar sociology and history, among other fields of In many con
study.96

92. Most in the 1938 manifesto statului etnocratic" pro

prominently "Programul
and Orthodox Nichifor Crainic. See Nichifor Orto
posed by the poet philosopher Crainic,
doxie si etnocratie. Cu o anex?: Programul statului etnocratic (Bucharest, 1938), 284.
-
93. R?mneanfu, Die Abstammung der Tschangos, 43 48.
94. Csango themselves R?mneanfu's racial narrative not
priests adopted (although
his negation of Csango Catholicism). See Iosif P. Pal, Origtnea catolicilor din Moldova si
fran
ciscana lor, p?storii lor de veacuri (Roman, 1941). Later this view was integrated into the stan
dard Romanian discourse on the communism. See Dumitru
Csangos developed during
Martinas^ The Origins of the Csangos (1985; reprint, Ia?i, 1999).
95. Petru R?mneanfu, "Probleme ale Transilvaniei," Transilvania 74,
etno-biopolitice
no. 5 (1943): 325-48.
96. In 1934, the Romanian Petre P. Negulescu a
philosopher provided comprehen
sive into biological theories of belonging. with cul
investigation Preoccupied deciphering
tural mechanisms that could influence the formation of national identity, Negulescu also
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 437

temporary responses to this problem, sociologists and historians often

imagined national metamorphoses centered upon racial content.97
In the closing section of this article, I shall look at some specific racial
arguments that further reveal the intimate links between racial anthro
serology, and theories of national identity. Racial eugenicists such
pology,
as F?c?oaru and R?mneanfu stand not as exceptions but as representa
tives of a general intellectual and political process that I see as the biolo
gization of national belonging. This process should be clarified, for it is
to note that Romanian was within the
important biopolitics integrated
of "ethnic and modernism so
logic ontology" paradigmatic convincingly
described and Roger Griffin.98 In its broader sense (to include
by Antohi
racial nationalism and antisemitism), the biologization of national be
was not merely a of racism or a
longing primitive simplification pseudo
scientific distortion of eugenics; it was a defensive response to forms of
collective and individual fragmentation brought about by the cultural,
political, social, and economic transformations of European modernity
during the interwar period.99
If ideas of national rebirth provided the framework for the biologiza
tion of national as it the interwar
belonging developed during period,
racist fantasies also proved to those who wished to see Ro
inspirational
mania complete its ethnic revolution. Sabin Manuil? outlined his version
of the Romanian racial biopolitics thus: "The goal of our population pol
icy should be to gather all Romanians in one place and to eliminate from
our all minorities tendencies." Manuil?
body manifesting centrifugal
based this biopolitical program on "racial commandments,"
including
pro-natalism; "the programmatic solution to the Jewish question"; "effi
cient solutions to combat the danger of Gypsy racial influence"; and
measures," such as sterilization of those consid
finally "practical eugenic
ered dysgenic. Deploring the fact that the country that gave the world the
term biopolitics lacked a proper institution dedicated to racial
policy,
Manuil? a Council for the Protection of
suggested creating "Superior
Race," which would address racial issues scientifically and in accord with
the political governance of the new regime.100

reflected on the between racial and national essence. He

relationship serology skeptically
concluded that "Not even
through the analysis of blood can we?at least not yet?estab
lish the existence of a 'national See P. P. Negulescu, Geneza formelor culturii:
specificity.'"
Priviri critice asupra factorilor ei determinant (Bucharest, 1934), 375.
97. See, for example, Ion Foti, Concep?a eroic? a rasei (Bucharest, 1936); and Alexan
dru Randa, Rasism rom?nese (Bucharest, 1941).
98. Roger Griffin, "Tunnel Visions and Mysterious Trees:
Modernist of Na
Projects
tional and Racial 1880-1939," in Turda and Weindling, eds., "Blood and
Regeneration,
Homeland, "417-56; and Antohi, "Romania and the Balkans: From Geocultural Bovarism
to Ethnic
Ontology."
99. Roger Griffin, "The Political the Legitima
Palingenetic Community: Rethinking
tion of Totalitarian in Interwar Totalitarian Movements and Political Reli
Regimes Europe,"
gions 3, no. 3 (2002): 24-43. "
100. Sabin Manuil?, "Comandamentele rassiale ?i poli tica de populate, Romania
nou? 7, no. 17 (26 October 1940): 3. Many of these ideas were also discussed in Manuil?
"Acfiunea ca factor de politic? de populate," Buletin si biopolitic 12, nos.
eugenic? eugenic
1-4 (1941): 1-4.
438 Slavic Review

In a series of articles dedicated to totalitarian the sociolo

biopolitics,
gist Traian Herseni also stressed the relationship between eugenics and
racial nationalism. In "Mitul s?ngelui" (The myth of blood), for instance,
Herseni expressed his adherence to eugenics, both the Nazi
glorifying
revolution and the need for racial palingenesis in Romania. "A race," he
observed, "can be kept in existence, purified, increased, and improved by
means, hence the and of a racial,
hereditary possibility necessity eugenic
policy." Nazi Germany was, in Herseni's opinion, the perfect racial state,
one whose racial and eugenic further the traditional
policies amplified
aura of cultural the German nation: "With
superiority characterizing
the help of eugenics, a nation controls its destiny. It can systematically
improve its qualities and reach the highest stages of accomplishment
and human creativity: Hitler's genius consists of a clear vision of this
possibility."101
nurtured such ideas, it should come as no that, when
Having surprise
on measures in
meditating potential discriminatory against minorities
Romania (Jews and Roma especially), Herseni's language became overtly
racist. By 1941, Herseni's ideas for introducing biopolitical laws in Roma
nia as the basis for national regeneration, including social segregation
and deportation, were "The racial of the Ro
fully developed: purification
manian nation is a matter of life and death. It cannot be neglected, post
or half-solved." The scientific was
poned, language supplied by eugenics
thus fused with a racist vocabulary, which in turn echoed Romanian anti
semitism: "Without doubt the decay of the Romanian nation is to be at
tributed to inferior racial elements our ethnic group; to the
infiltrating
ancient, Dacian-Roman blood being contaminated by Phanariot and
Gypsy blood, and recently by Jewish blood."102
New biological elites, Herseni announced, a
"Legionary super-nation,"
not social and political institutions, would be the state's main vehicle for
the of This would entail a new national moral
spreading gospel eugenics.
ity, physical fitness, and the instruction of larger masses of Romanians. Eu
in both its and forms, was at the center of Herseni's
genics, positive negative
biopolitical program:
Once the evaluation and social selection based on racial qualities has been
achieved, the most difficult action?but also the most efficient through its
qualitative and long-lasting results?must follow: eugenics, which is the
improvement of the race through heredity. We need eugenic laws and eu
genic practices. Reproduction cannot be leftunsupervised. The science of
heredity (genetics) clearly demonstrates that human societies have at
their disposal infallible means for physical and psychological improve
ment?but for this to happen there can be no random reproduction (and
thus the transmission of hereditary defects) ;and those possessing quali
ties cannot be left without offspring. Those dysgenic should be banned
from inferior races should be from
reproduction; completely separated
the [Romanian] ethnic group. Sterilization of certain categories of indi

101. Traian Herseni, "Mitul s?ngelui," Cuv?ntul 17, no. 41 (23 November 1940): 2.
102. Traian Herseni, "Rasa ?i destin national," Cuv?ntul 18, no. 91 (16 January
1941): 1.
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 439

viduals should not be considered an affront to human dignity: it is a eulogy

to and in
beauty, morality, perfection, general.103

The biologization of national belonging advocated by eugenics and

racial anthropology thus became a form of associ
political identity clearly
ated with the form of fascist national revolution prophesized by the Iron
Guard. Some, like F?c?oaru, that: of se
argued "Regulations [hereditary]
lection and eugenic ideas, in general, are outlined in the testament of our
[Corneliu Zelea Codreanu]. We have a to fulfill it
captain duty faithfully.
Otherwise, the nation will be depleted of its best biological roots. The
protection of our most precious possession,
our
biological patrimony,
should become a state commandment."104 On 14 October 1940, F?c?oaru
was director of the Department of Higher Education in the
appointed
Ministry of National Education by the Legionary government.105 In this
new he devised a based on
position, biopolitical plan primarily controlling
marriage. "Eugenic regulations concerning marriage should at first be
to he declared, as were those who
applied exclusively legionaries," they
understood that "the nation is above the individual." Then the "eugenic
legislation" will be applied to "the entire nation." To promote such a
transformation, F?c?oaru suggested establishing Offices for Pre-Nuptial
Consultations, where couples could be examined and receive health
certificates. Initially, such certificates would be compulsory only for le
gionaries, and for the rest of the population. F?c?oaru
optional Ultimately,
declared, the "Legionary state should extend such practices to the army
and other professional categories."106
Other authors, like R?mneanfu, outlined the need for a Romanian
"totalitarian based on the offered
demography" examples by Germany
and Italy. According to R?mneanfu, the "political and spiritual revolu
tions" initiated by Nazism and fascism allowed both states to succeed in
a totalitarian attitude" and values,"
"creating "restoring spiritual together

103. 7. The idea of

the healthy and reproductive nation was
Ibid., Legionary fully de
veloped during communism. See Gail Kligman, The Politics of Duplicity: Controlling Repro
duction in Ceausescus Romania 1998). both F?c?oaru and R?m
(Berkeley, Interestingly,
neanfu lived until the late 1970s and thus witnessed Ceausescu's of natalism and
policies
anti-abortion, to which R?mneanfu, at least, he could be of assistance. See Bucur,
thought
Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 240; and Maria Bucur, "Miscarea eugenist?
?i rolurile de gen," in Maria Bucur and Mihaela Miroiu, eds., Patriarhat si emancipare in is
toria g?ndirii rom?nesti (Ia?i, 2002), 139-42.
politice
104. Iordache F?c?oaru, "N?rmele ?n organizafiile Cuv?ntul 17,
eugenice legionare,"
no. 69 (21 December 1940): 1.
105. See Arhivele Nationale ale Rom?niei, Ministerul Inv?f?mantului, f. 854/1940.
Bucur is mistaken when she assumes that F?c?oaru "held an
important government posi
tion, controlling the implementation of public health measures." See Bucur, and
Eugenics
Modernization in Interwar Romania, 39. Nor did F?c?oaru become "the ofthat re
ideologue
in matters to health, and race as the basis for
gime relating biology, purity, using eugenics
his arguments and programs of action." Ibid. F?c?oaru even reti
Interestingly, expressed
cence about the position in the of National Education, that he
accepting Ministry arguing
would be more in "science," where he could not be than at the ministry
helpful replaced,
where many could fulfil his duties. F?c?oaru, "N?rmele ?n organizafiile le
eugenice
1.
gionare,"
106. F?c?oaru, "N?rmele ?n organizafiile 2.
eugenice legionare,"
440 Slavic Review

with "the faith of the citizens in the future of the nation" and "the insti
tution of the family."107 In the 1940s it thus became to see the
possible
fascination with race as a glorification of the national revival that was most
exemplarily carried out by the Legionary movement. As the historian P. P.
Panaitescu declared: "We are not only the sons of the earth, but we
belong
to a great race, a race that is in us, the Dacian race. The Le
perpetuated
gionary movement, which has awakened the deepest echoes of our na
tional being, has also raised 'Dacian' blood to a place of honor."108 The to
talitarian biopolitics that F?c?oaru and R?mneanfu located in the eugenic
transformation of the individual and the family was relocated by
Panaitescu in a historical "call" from Romania's Dacian past, as the nation
was now to
expected fully embrace immortal categories of identity.109
The "blood and soil" rhetoric formulate a new
helped biopolitical
program, one whose purpose was to prepare the "chosen race" (the Ro
manians) , at the expense of ethnic minorities, for the onset of a racial
utopia: the Romanian ethnic state.110 loan V. Gruia, professor of law at the
University of Bucharest and minister of justice, confirmed this in 1940 on
the occasion of the introduction of antisemitic racial laws in Romania:
"We consider Romanian blood as a fundamental element in the founding
of the nation."111

In interwar Romania, was upon racial characteristics

emphasis placed
and their connection to mechanisms of national identification
specific
and classification. were also associated with all the other processes
They
intrinsic to discussions about national such as national
identity, particu
larity, historical destiny, ethnic assimilation, and racial supremacy. More
over, to engage in discussions about national essence and racial character
during the interwar period was to focus on physical descriptions and, con
on the nation as a an in
sequently, physical entity?as object?existing
and through its exchanges with other nations and races.
For
this reason, toward the end of the 1930s, Romanian anthropology
and more resembled a program than a scientific
serology closely political
agenda. In the dialogue between science and politics, the same motiva

107. Petru R?mneafu, "M?suri de ?i pol?tica to tali -

pol?tica demogr?fica demogr?fica
tar?," Buletin eugenic si biopolitic 11, nos. 1-2 (1940): 44-45. See also George Stroescu, "Se
lecfia rasial? ?i politica ?n noul stat Buna vestir? 4, no. 87 (28 De
populatiei legionary,"
cember 1940): 2.
108. P. P. Panaitescu, "Noi suntem de aici," Cuv?ntul 17, no. 38 (20 November
1940): 1.
109. See AI. Manuil?, neamului rom?nese ?n interpretarea sa (Bucha
Originea biol?gica
rest, 1943).
110. See Petru R?mneantu, "S?nge ?i glie," Buletin eugenic si
biopolitic 14, nos. 11-12
(1943) :370-92; and Petru R?mneanfu, "Inrudirea de s?nge," Buletin si biopolitic 14,
eugenic
nos. 7-8 (1943): 220-37.
111. loan V. Gruia, de motive la decretul nr. 2650/1940 la re
"Expunere lege privitor
situajiei a evreilor din Romania," Monitorul 183 (9
glementarea juridice Official August
1940), in Martiriul evreilor din Romania, 1940-1944: Documente si m?rturii
reproduced
(Bucharest, 1991), 14-21. See also Eugen Dimitrie Petit, Originea ?tnica (Bucharest, 1941);
and Gheorghe Vornica, etnic? sau de Transilvania 72, no. 8 (1941):
"Originea s?nge,"
589-91.
Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania 441

tions that universalized racial anthropology also nationalized it; the same
developments that made craniometry, serology, and other anthropom?t
rie experiments fundamental to
anthropology also gave rise to their being
championed within the contested field of national identification.
Debates over the nature of national in interwar Romania can
identity
never be addressed, if attention concentrates on
adequately only literary
arguments about the national essence. To be sure, anthropological and
serological definitions of national belonging do not make other debates
on the nation less important, but they do indicate that the origins of eu
of such as those described in
genic programs biopolitical rejuvenation,
this article, are to be not only in of de
sought "critiques parliamentary
mocracy and liberal politics" (as Maria Bucur has argued) but more im
in the attempt to achieve a new national
portantly body amid alleged do
mestic spiritual decline ("modernity's crisis" according to
ontological
Roger Griffin) and unfavorable international conditions (territorial losses
and war).112 During the interwar period, cultural histories of the nation
often intersected with racial narratives of national belonging. Indeed, the
need for the rejuvenation of the ethnic community shared by most Ro
manian intellectuals at the time was based on the of
"palingenetic myth"
national renewal, comprising both the idea of spiritual metamorphosis
and its fulfillment in a new ethnic ontology.

112.Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania, 222; Griffin, "Tunnel Vi

sions and Mysterious Trees," 133.