Metal-spirited nationalists in history

[scourge]

The Legion of Romania was founded by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu in 1927. In 1930, the Iron Guard was formed as a paramilitary wing of the Legion. In 1935 the Legion was renamed Everything for the Country, sometimes translated Everything for Fatherland or Motherland.

The movement's leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, was a religious mystic who aimed at a spiritual resurrection for the nation. [2] According to Codreanu's heterodox philosophy, human life was a sinful, violent political war, which would ultimately be transcended by the spiritual nation. In this schema, the Legionnaire might have to perform fanatical and violent actions that would condemn him to damnation- which was considered the ultimate sacrifice for the nation![2] In addition to its regenerative nationalism and heretical-Christian doctrines, the Legion promulgated a biological conception of the Romanian nation.[2] Like many fascist movements, the Legion called for a revolutionary "new man". As for economics, there was no straightforward program, but the Legion generally promoted the idea of a communal or national economy, rejecting capitalism as overly materialistic.[2] The movement considered its main enemies to be present political leaders and the Jews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Guard

Post WWI Romania probably saw itself fated to become a rural backwater anachronism amidst an industrializing Europe that was adopting modern warfare capability. So, its leadership decided to whore its land and people to internationalists and bankers; our forever wandering global mercantile caste. The result, like in so many nations, was the rise of a nationalist, "For Our Land and People" type party with a violent paramilitary wing. It is interesting that the Iron Guard incorporated mysticism drawn from "heretical" modifications of Orthodox Christianity.

The mysticism of the Legion led to a cult of death, martyrdom, violence, and self-sacrifice. Its action squads were called echipa morţii, or "death squads".[2] A chapter of the Legion was called a cuib, or "nest," and was arranged around the virtues of discipline, work, silence, education, mutual, aid, and honor. These groups observed rituals that included writing oaths in blood and drinking blood.[2]

[Nebelnacht]

It's interesting that when Evola seems to pop-up in discussions, usually Codreanu follows not far behind...

Here is an article on Evola's relationship to Codreanu

http://www.centrostudilaruna.it/evolacodreanuschwarz.html

And in Evola's words

http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/id15.html (scroll to "The THE TRAGEDY OF THE ROMANIAN 'IRON GUARD' : CODREANU"

You could say that Codreanu drops perfectly into what Evola would have wanted happening in Italy (in particular after the fall of the Italian regime). Codreanu's Iron Guard, with its ascetic legion of warrior/monks falls exactly into Evola's "Kshatriya" (indian warrior caste) view of how society should have become. The Iron Guard and, in particular, the "death squads" demanded a total dedication to the cause. They lived like monks, no distractions, no life outside of the "nest".

More info and texts by and about Codreanu can be found here

http://www.codreanu.ro/

Not sure what Guenon would have made of it mind you... I'm actually looking for some articles that relate to this subject... Any suggestions?

Still speaking of Codreanu, there is a neo-folk compilation dedicated to him... Some interesting tracks (Spiritual Front & Foresta di Ferro above all). I'll try to upload them to the Audiofile section as soon as I have some time.

http://www.discogs.com/release/253705

[Godkiller]

As interesting as they were and no matter how "romantic" they might seem, the Legionaries were a bunch of copycat nutcases who were more dangerous than they were good, strongly religious in nature and were behind the brutal and bizarre murder of one of the most important Romanian intellectual figures, Nicolae Iorga. Antonescu was wise to curtail their influence.

[nous]

OMG STRONGLY RELIGIOUS
THE HORROR

Seriously, independent of whether those Romanians had it right or were crazy, what's the problem with being religious?

[Devamitra]

It's just a word. We'd be better off if both of you explained which one do you mean of the various encyclopedic and cultural definitions.

[scourge]

Vlad the Impaler is an obvious one. Competition between educated nobles determined who ruled.

Another factor influencing political life was the means of succession to the Wallachian throne. The throne was hereditary, but not by the law of primogeniture. The boyars (wealthy land-owning nobles) had the right to elect the voivode (prince) from among various eligible members of the royal family. This allowed for succession to the throne through violent means. Assassinations and other violent overthrows of reigning parties were thus rampant. In fact, both Vlad III and his father assassinated competitors to attain the throne of Wallachia.

Little is known about the early years of Vlad III’s life. He had an older brother, Mircea, and a younger brother, Radu the Handsome. His early education was left in the hands of his mother, a Transylvanian noblewoman, and her family. His real education began in 1436 after his father succeeded in claiming the Wallachian throne by killing his Danesti rival. His training was typical to that of the sons of nobility throughout Europe. His first tutor in his apprenticeship to knighthood was an elderly boyar who had fought against the Turks at the battle of Nicolopolis. Vlad learned all the skills of war and peace that were deemed necessary for a Christian knight.

Vlad Tepes often had the stakes arranged in various geometric patterns. The most common pattern was a ring of concentric circles in the outskirts of a city that was his target. The height of the spear indicated the rank of the victim. The decaying corpses were often left up for months. It was once reported that an invading Turkish army turned back in fright when it encountered thousands of rotting corpses impaled on the banks of the Danube. In 1461 Mohammed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, a man not noted for his squeamishness, returned to Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of twenty thousand impaled Turkish prisoners outside of the city of Tirgoviste. This gruesome sight is remembered in history as "the Forest of the Impaled."

Thousands were often impaled at a single time. Ten thousand were impaled in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu in 1460. In 1459, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, Vlad III had thirty thousand of the merchants and boyars of the Transylvanian city of Brasov impaled. One of the most famous woodcuts of the period shows Vlad Dracula feasting amongst a forest of stakes and their grisly burdens outside Brasov while a nearby executioner cuts apart other victims.

http://www.donlinke.com/drakula/vlad.htm

Side note: we're expected to have 9 billion people in the coming decades. Really, what's the big deal about atrocities besides individual fear of getting swept up in one? Humans aren't an endangered species. They are the opposite: the species wiping out the others for no useful reason.

[RedReign]

we're expected to have 9 billion people in the coming decades.

Humans aren't an endangered species.

These statements are both exceedingly optimistic.





Overpopulation is a condition that is handled quite effectively by nature.  Huge populations of immunodepressed people and giant shantytown slums with no medical care and no sanitation apparatus and no clean water mean that we're going to see a plague in this century (very likely soon) that's like nothing we're familiar with.

Swine flu alone might very well rip through the third world like nobody's business.

Sooner or later Malthus always wins.  In this case it's to our benefit: Western medicine, barrier protection and superior life support in hospitals mean that we're very likely going to be largely unscathed but Africa and India are going to get a bath.  China too, very likely, but that will be more because of population pressures-- their nationalistic dictatorship allows them quarantine measures that are unacceptable to Western societies.

Overpopulation is an argument for education and aid for the third world.  Paradoxically, these two things (and especially emancipation for females) result in much smaller rates of population growth.

Believe me, population is the least of our worries (except insofar as it's the single greatest enabling factor for fulminating viral epidemics.)  Nature is very powerful, exhibits homeostatic behavior that looks very much like intelligence at times, and takes care of itself.

[Nimbostratus]

Sooner or later Malthus always wins.  In this case it's to our benefit: Western medicine, barrier protection and superior life support in hospitals mean that we're very likely going to be largely unscathed but Africa and India are going to get a bath.  China too, very likely, but that will be more because of population pressures-- their nationalistic dictatorship allows them quarantine measures that are unacceptable to Western societies.

That might be a barrier for a limited time, because developed economies depend too much from third world countries and their respective overpopulations. Subcontracting produces enough wealth in first world to have such infrastructure, but enough food in third world countries to allow them to overpopulate.

Of course I agree, sooner or later, Malthus wins, everywhere.