Feeding off anger, fuelled by Russia… Enter Călin Georgescu, Europe’s latest radical populist | Simon Tisdall

Riding on a TikTok tide of Putin propaganda, the Romanian nationalist typifies a swing on the continent that is raising the spectre of the 1930s

Politics in Romania can be a bloody business, especially on the right. The excesses of the Iron Guard, an insurrectionary, violently antisemitic, ultranationalist 1930s political-religious militia, stood out even at a time when fascist parties were wreaking havoc in Germany, Italy and Spain. Given what is happening in Europe today, the events of that period are instructive.

Iron Guard founder Corneliu Codreanu, a ruthless assassin who was himself assassinated in 1938, and his ally turned enemy, the pro-Nazi general Ion Antonescu, who was executed for war crimes in 1946, are back in the news of late. That's because both men have been lauded as national heroes by Clin Georgescu, shock winner of last weekend's first round of Romania's presidential election.

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