In Search for the Perfect Romanian. National Specificity, Racial Degeneration and Social Selection in Modern Romania, Iași, Polirom Publishing House, 2024. Marius Turda

Through In Search for the Perfect Romanian. National Specificity, Racial Degeneration and Social Selection in Modern Romania [În căutarea românului perfect. Specific național, degenerare rasială și selecție socială în România modernă], Marius Turda proposes a new method to understand and explain the foundations of Romanian nationalism between 1880 and 1950. Structured in six chapters, the book shows that in Romania there was a eugenic and biopolitical culture that was to define Romanian nationalism and scientific racism. Its extreme forms materialized in the measures taken against Jews and Roma during the Holocaust in Romania. I review the book from the perspective of social memory. By questioning some present-day commemorative practices I highlight the present legacies of eugenics: schools named after strategists of racism, such as Sabin Manuilă; public commemorations of anti-Semites such as Liviu Stan or Nicolae Paulescu.