Prof Marius Turda’s public lecture on ‘Ethnic Stereotypes in Interwar Romania‘ delivered in Bucharest on 8 February 2026 is now available on YouTube:
Public Lecture at the National Museum of Art, Bucharest
In Search of the Perfect Romanian – podcast
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.
Racializing the Roma
Marius Turda’s article on “The Racialization of Roma as ‘Black’ in Interwar Romania and Beyond’ has been published in Slavic Review, the journal of Association for Slavic, East European & Eurasian Studies.
The article is available on Open Access here:
Public lecture to the University of Medicine and Pharmacology
On 13 November 2024 Professor Marius Turda gave a public lecture to the University of Medicine and Pharmacology ‘Grigore T. Popa’ in Ia?i (Romania). The topic of his talk was “Eugenics and the Dehumanization of People with Disabilities”.
In the Community
The exhibition ‘We are not Alone’: Legacies of Eugenics‘ is now a permanent feature of the ‘Lucian Blaga’ University Library, one of the most popular public spaces in Sibiu (Transylvania).
Political Recognition and Historical Reckoning: Eugenics on Trial
On 22 March 2023 Prof Marius Turda took part in the International Mock Trial on Human Rights held in the plenary hall of the Romanian Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies. Marius acted as an expert on the history of eugenics providing context to the development of eugenic thinking in Germany, Britain, the USA and Romania.
More info on the trial here:
From Soviet ‘Race Science’ to Romanian Anthropology (Science and Ethnicity III)
A new exhibition devoted to the re-emergence of physical anthropology and human genetics in communist Romania opens in Bucharest at the Romanian Academy’s Institute of History ‘N. Iorga’ on 11 November 2022. It is generously sponsored by the Romanian Government’s Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER).
We are not alone travels to Iasi
On 29 June 2022 the exhibition ‘We are not alone’: Legacies of Eugenics travels to Iasi at the National Atheneum.
