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Gender and Violence in the Romanian Fascist Movement
February 4 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
The Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES) and the Ion Rațiu Chair of Romanian Studies invite you on Tuesday, February 4 from 5:00 until 6:00 PM to a lecture featuring Dr. Anca Diana Axinia, tracing the history of women’s participation in the Romanian (Fascist) Legionary Movement from its foundation in 1927 until the pogrom of Bucharest in January 1941. The event will take place in the Herman Room of the Healey Family Student Center (HFSC) at Georgetown University located at 3700 Tondorf Roard, Washington, DC 20057. A light reception to follow.
The event will be moderated by Dr. Diana Dumitru, Visiting Ion Rațiu Chair of Romanian Studies at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES) at Georgetown University.
The first part will examine women’s participation in the Legionary Movement or Iron Guard, a far-right, antisemitic movement active in interwar Romania. Secondly, it will offer an insight on the relationship between gender and violence in the Legion. In the fascist virulent nationalist and antisemitic ideology, these women were alternatively and contradictorily depicted as mothers and warriors, as wives and “sisters in arms.” The language of violence was rewritten in gendered terms, through “feminine” symbols, analogies and metaphors. However, the practice of violence remained for women a far more varied activity, involving different degrees of participation and engagement. Finally, the last part will address the most recent findings on the interrelations between gender, the representation of violence, and transitional justice in the case study of the Bucharest pogrom.
Dr. Anca Diana Axinia received her PhD in history from the European University Institute in Florence in 2022. Her dissertation, Women and Politics in the Romanian Legionary Movement, is the first systematic study of women’s participation and gender relations within the Romanian Legionary Movement. Her research interests include fascist studies, gender studies, feminist theory, and Eastern European history. She recently completed a research fellowship at the New Europe College in Bucharest, where she examined the intersections of fascism, gender, and the Holocaust in the Romanian context. As of January 2025, she has been a research fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
Dr. Diana Dumitru is the Visiting Ion Rațiu Chair of Romanian Studies at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES) at Georgetown University. Her field of research includes the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, nationalism, and Jews under late Stalinism. Dr. Dumitru has held multiple fellowships that include a Woodrow Wilson Center’s Fellowship (USA), Gerda Henkel Stiftung Fellowship (Germany), Simone Wiesenthal Institute Visiting Researcher (Austria), and the Rosenzweig Family Fellowship for research at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USA). She has authored over forty academic articles and two books. Her second book, The State, Antisemitism and Collaboration in the Holocaust: The Borderlands of Romania and the Soviet Union, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2016. Together with Chad Bryant and Kateřina Čapková, she is currently working on a book titled The Trial that Shook the World: The Slánský Process and the Dynamics of Czechoslovak Communism. She is also writing a separate book focused on Jewish life in the Soviet Union after World War II. Dr. Dumitru is an editorial board member of the scholarly journals Holocaust and Genocide Studies, East European Jewish Affairs, and Journal of Genocide Research. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the EU-funded European Holocaust Research Infrastructure.
To register for the event please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ratiu-lecture-gender-and-violence-in-the-romanian-fascist-movement-tickets-1225389375609