The Nation

THE NATION 

from Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, "Pentru Legionuri" (Bucharest: Totul Pentru Tara, 1937) translated by Stephen Fischer-Galati

When we speak of the Rumanian nation, we refer not only to the Rumanians currently living on the same territory, with the same past and same future, the same habits, the same language, the same interests. When we speak of the Rumanian nation we refer to all Rumanians, dead or alive, who have lived on this land of ours from the beginnings of history and will live on it also in the future. The nation includes:
1. All Rumanians currently alive.
2. The souls and tombs of the dead and of our ancestors.
3. All who will be born Rumanian.
A people becomes aware of its existence when it becomes aware of its entirety, not only of its component parts and their individual interests.
The nation possesses:
1. A physical, biological patrimony: the flesh and the blood.
2. A material patrimony: the country's soil and its wealth.
3. A spiritual patrimony, which includes:
A. Its concept of God, people, and life. This concept constitutes a possession, a spiritual patrimony. The limits of this domain are set by the limits of the brilliance of the concept. There is a country housing the national spirit, the expectations of that spirit, a spirit resulting from revelation and the nation's own efforts.
B. Its honor, which shines in proportion to the acceptance by the nation, during its historical existence, of the norms derived from its concept of God, people, and life.
C. Its culture: the fruit of its life, the product of its own efforts in thought and art. This culture is not international. It is the expression of the national genius, of the blood. The culture is international in its brilliance but national in origin. Someone made a fine comparison: bread and wheat may be internationally consumed, but they always bear the imprint of the soil from which they came.
Each of these three patrimonies has its own importance. All three must be defended by the nation. But the most important of all is the spiritual patrimony, because it alone bears the seal of eternity, it alone transcends all times. The ancient Greeks are with us today not because of their physiques, no matter how athletic--those are only ashes now--nor because of their material wealth, if they had such, but because of their culture.
A nation lives forever through its concepts, honor, and culture. It is for these reasons that the rulers of nations must judge and act not only on the basis of physical and material interests of the nation but on the basis of the nation's historical honor, of the nation's eternal interests. Thus: not bread at all costs, but honor at all costs.

THE NATION'S ULTIMATE GOAL

Is it life?
If it be life, then the means whereby nations seek to ensure it become irrelevant. All are valid, even the worst. The question may thus be asked: What are the norms for international behavior? The nations' animal instincts? The tiger in them? Do the laws of the fishes in the sea or of the beasts in the forest apply?
The ultimate goal is not life. It is resurrection. The resurrection of nations in the name of Jesus Christ the Savior. Creation and culture are only means--not the purpose--of resurrection. Culture is the fruit of talent, which God implanted in our nation and for which we are responsible. A time will come when all the world's nations will arise from the dead, with all their dead, with all their kings and emperors. Every nation has its place before God's throne. That final moment, "resurrection from the dead," is the highest and most sublime goal for which a nation can strive. The nation is thus an entity that lives even beyond this earth. Nations are realities also in the other world, not only on this one. To us Rumanians, to our nation, as to every nation in the world, God assigned a specific mission; God has given us a historical destiny.
The first law that every nation must abide by is that of attaining that destiny, of fulfilling the mission entrusted to it. Our nation has not abandoned that goal, no matter how long and difficult has been its own Golgotha. And now we are faced with mountain-high obstacles.
Are we going to be the weak and cowardly generation that will relinquish, under threats, the Rumanian destiny and renounce our national mission?