by In this podcast Marius Turda discusses his acclaimed book In Search of the Perfect Romanian (2026) with Ari Barbalat (Dialogues in Holocaust Studies and the Second World War).
This study investigates the discourse on the Romanian national identity and race spanning from the 1880s to the 1950s. Itasserts that in the early 1940s, anti-Semitism and anti-Roma racism were significant elements in the ethnic purification campaigns of the Ion Antonescu regime. The doctrines of racism and eugenics not only legitimized the deportation and extermination of Jews but also targeted the Roma. Consequently, the Holocaust in Romania should be interpreted as a result of both anti-Semitism and biopolitical nationalism. Finally, the book reveals that the eugenic ideal of the ‘perfect’ Romanian continued to exist after 1945, becoming part of the socialist vision of the ‘new man’ and the ‘ideal’ society that developed during the communist era.
