ABSTRACT
The resurgence of the radical right throughout Europe and the prominence it has attained in recent years have been noted with growing alarm (Eatwell, 2000; Minkenberg, 2002). Notwithstanding its wide scope, networks and joint efforts in the face of self-designated enemies, the radical right also bears the imprint of local backgrounds and histories that give mould to specific manifestations. The postcommunist transformation of the Central and Eastern European states, placed under the aegis of the ‘return to Europe’ and catalysed by the European Union enlargement process, created fertile ground for the reappropriation of interwar radical myths and nationalist ideologies (Minkenberg, 2002; Tismäneanu, 1998). As integral parts of a (pre)communist past in the course of rediscovery, these became readily available instruments for coping with disquieting social change or even attempting to undo its effects (Mann, 2004). Against the backdrop of frail democracies, weak state institutions, abject poverty and corruption, radical-right worldviews were bestowed with an aura of salvation (Tismäneanu, 1998; see also Andreescu, 2003; Tismäneanu, 2007), which continues to confer legitimacy on them, in Romania and in other CEE countries.
