Octavian Goga
Governed Romania for 44 days in 1938, issuing 13 anti-Jewish decrees that stripped 225,000 citizens of rights.
1881–1938 (age 57)·Romanian politician and poet·Birthday: April 1·The Gilded Age
Biography
Octavian Goga served as Prime Minister of Romania from December 28, 1937, to February 10, 1938. His 44-day government issued 13 decrees targeting Jewish citizens. These laws revoked citizenship for about 225,000 Jews, barred them from professions, and closed a third of the country’s Jewish-owned businesses. Goga co-founded the National Christian Party in 1935, merging his agrarian group with the fascist League of National Christian Defense. King Carol II appointed him to weaken the rival Iron Guard, but Goga’s radicalism destabilized the economy and alarmed foreign allies. A poet of the *Șezătorist* movement, his 1905 collection, *Ne cheamă pământul* (The Earth Calls Us), romanticized Romanian peasant life. He translated works by Schiller and Ibsen. His political rhetoric, however, directly inspired the more comprehensive anti-Semitic legislation of the Iron Guard regime that followed. Goga suffered a stroke in May 1938 and died. The Vienna Diktat of August 1940, which ceded Northern Transylvania to Hungary, occurred partly due to the nationalist fervor his government inflamed.
The Gilded Age
1860–1882
Born during or after the Civil War, they built industrial America — the railroads, the steel mills, the first skyscrapers. An era of massive wealth, massive inequality, and the belief that the future belonged to whoever could build it fastest.
Octavian was born in 1881, placing them squarely in The Gilded Age. The events that shaped this generation — world wars, depression, and rapid industrialization — shaped the world they entered and the choices available to them.
#1 When Octavian Was Born
The biggest hits of 1881
Octavian's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1881Born
President: Chester A. Arthur
1886Started school
Statue of Liberty dedicated in New York Harbor
President: Grover Cleveland
1894Became a teenager
President: Grover Cleveland
1897Could drive
President: William McKinley
1899Could vote
President: William McKinley
1902Turned 21
The eruption of Mount Pelee kills 30,000 in Martinique
President: Theodore Roosevelt
1911Turned 30
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 in New York
President: William Howard Taft
1921Turned 40
First commercial radio broadcasts
President: Warren G. Harding"My Man" — Fanny Brice
1931Turned 50
The Empire State Building opens as the world's tallest
Gas: $0.17/galPresident: Herbert Hoover"Minnie the Moocher" — Cab CallowayBest Picture: Cimarron
1938Died at 57
Kristallnacht and the escalation toward WWII
Gas: $0.20/galHome: $2,850Min wage: $0.25/hrPresident: Franklin D. Roosevelt"Begin the Beguine" — Artie ShawBest Picture: You Can't Take It with You
Key Achievements
- Served as Prime Minister of Romania from December 28, 1937, to February 10, 1938, forming a far-right government.
- Authored influential poetry collections like "Ne cheamă pământul" (1905), key to Romanian nationalist literary culture.
- Translated major German and Scandinavian literary works, including Friedrich Schiller's "William Tell," into Romanian.
Did You Know?
He was born in the Transylvanian village of Rășinari, then part of Austria-Hungary, and studied in Budapest and Berlin.
His father was an Orthodox priest, deeply influencing Goga's fusion of religious and nationalistic themes.
A heavy drinker, he was known for composing political speeches and poetic lines in taverns.
“The soul of the nation must be purified through its own blood and laws.”
