For my Legionaries

I'm reading Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's "For my Legionaries (the Iron Guard)". Codreanu's strong personality, moral integrity, mysticism and spirit of sacrifice are mesmerizing. Blinded by decades of communist and then "free-market" capitalist propaganda, many generations of Romanians had only a distorted idea of the leader of the Iron Guard. However, now that his writings are widely available, Romanians and people around the world are free to open their eyes, wash the mud off their faces, bask in the Capitan's spiritual glory and follow into his footsteps up the hidden, steep mountain path. In our age of unfettered, decadent capitalism Codreanu's writings point the way towards a unified, organized resistance and meaningful counterattack. His example, as well as that of other leading Romanian intellectuals like Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, and Nae Ionescu provides a invaluable source of inspiration for everyone who struggles against the capitalist hydra. 

 

Dostoyevsky begot God by repeatedly striking his pen against his temple. God crawled out of the writer's head wound. Then God knew the Holy Spirit and they begot Jesus and his brother, The Captain. Once the Pharisees and Sadducees heard of the new leaders they ordered them killed. Their spirits were already tainted by murders and plunder and they didn't want Jesus and his follower to reveal their corruption and decay. Knowing they are in danger, Jesus and the Captain retreated deep into in the forested Carpathian Mountains and they prayed to a cross made of swords. There they found one of the painted monasteries built by Stefan the Great. They spoke with the saints and angels on the walls, and Archangel Michael himself flew out of the stone to know them better. But, underneath their calm, peaceful voices were bitter screams of pain and agony coming from the stones, and curses and gritting of teeth. Jesus and the Captain knew that Romanian peasants had been buried into those walls by the Pharisees and Sadducees who meant to silence them: wipe them from the face of the earth and burn their memory. The two leaders closed their eyes and prayed. The voices from the walls rose steadily as the saints and angles turned into warriors with painted faces and weapons at the ready. The church itself grew and began pulsating like a woman's ripened womb. Rivulets of blood poured from its foundations, gripping the earth like a red dead hand. Jesus and the Captain followed the blood and its whispers.

        "This is my blood," Jesus said.

        "These are the songs and poems of the stillborns," the Captain added.

     Looking ahead towards the green valley and the mountain crests, Jesus replied: "Let's hope someone will hear the tears of the forgotten saints."

 

Emil Cioran on Corneliu Zelea Codreanu:

"Before Corneliu Codreanu, Romania was but an inhabited Sahara...I had only a few conversations with Corneliu Codreanu. From the first moment I realized that I was talking to a man in a country of human dregs... The Captain was not "smart," the Captain was profound... He didn't want to improve our miserable condition, but rather to introduce the absolute in the daily existence of Romania. Not the revolution of a moment in history, but of history itself. Thus the Legion was not only meant to recreate Romania, but also to redeem its past, to make amends for its secular absence, to recover, through inspired and unique madness, all the time that has been wasted...In a nation of servants, he introduced honor ...In absolute terms, if I had had to choose between Romania and the Captain, I would not have hesitated a second... With the exception of Jesus, no one else has managed to live after death the way he did."

Emil Cioran, The Inner Profile of the Captain, December Issue of Glasul Stramosesc, 1940.