The assassination of Nicolae Iorga - museum testimonies
Author: Cristina Păiușan-Nuică
In 1974, two years after the inauguration of the History Museum of the Socialist Republic of Romania (May 8, 1972), Mrs. Liliana Iorga Pippidi and Mr. Valentin Iorga, descendants of the great historian Nicolae Iorga, donated several of his personal belongings to the museum, a gesture of generosity with a great emotional charge for the family of the Romanian professor, made in his memory. The pieces enriched the museum’s collection with direct testimonies of Iorga’s terrible murder.
The assassination of Nicolae Iorga by a legionary commando, on the night of November 26-27, 1940, shocked domestic and international public opinion and permanently discredited the movement.
Nicolae Iorga (June 5, 1871-November 26/27, 1940), historian, university professor, member of the Romanian Academy, author of thousands of books, studies, a supporter of Transylvanian and Bessarabian Romanians, a fighter for the unity of the Romanians, which he saw fulfilled in 1918, publicist, politician who was president of the Council of Ministers (1931-1932), was a symbol of Romania. His assassination symbolized the assassination of an era - the era of cultural and institutional formation of Greater Romania.
The conflict with Corneliu Zelea-Codreanu started in the spring of 1938, when Nicolae Iorga accused the legionaries of wanting to overthrow the regime and take the power using violence, as in Nazi Germany. Nicolae Iorga, offended and threatened by C.Z. Codreanu, in a letter from March 26, 1938, in which the historian was accused of instigating to “oppression against the legionaries”, filed a criminal complaint. A short trial followed, although Nicolae Iorga withdrew his complaint, a trial that ended with the Legionary leader being sentenced to 6 months in prison. Codreanu was assassinated by order of King Carol II, but the legionaries considered N. Iorga morally responsible for the death of their leader, because he had offered the king the perfect pretext for imprisoning their “captain”. After the proclamation of the National-Legionary State, on September 14, 1940, the historian’s life was facing great danger, but N. Iorga did not want to leave Romania. On the evening of November 26, 1940, he was taken from his home in Sinaia by a team of seven legionnaires, claiming to be bringing him to Bucharest for a police investigation. He was found on the morning of November 27, 1940, near the Strejnic forest, covered with frost. He had been shot with nine bullets.
In Romania fear and censorship prevented the heinous crime from being reflected in the press, there was no national mourning, the funeral was modest, the investigation was ridiculous, the killers were not punished. Instead, the European press reported on and condemned the political murder and European universities and academies honoured Iorga’s memory through conferences, flying flags at half mast.
This article tells not only the history of Nicolae Iorga’s assassination, but also that of the six items that he had on him on the day of his death and which became part of the National History Museum of Romania’s collections in 1974: a brown leather wallet, a Free movement card on the Romanian Railways, an Identity card for state pensioners and family members of state pensioners and civil servants with a 50% discount on the Romanian Railways; a Work Pass issued by the Romanian River Navigation Department, a card from the National Library in Paris and a Certificate from the Institute for the Study of Universal History attesting that he was its director. Pierced by one or more of the bullets fired at Iorga, the objects represent material evidence of the terrible murder.
