TRADITION AGAINST TYRANNY INTERVIEW FOR ERKENBRAND

Recently we were interviewed by a Dutch think-tank Erkenbrand. Below is the complete interview, which was first published on Erkenbrand´s website in three parts. With our interview, we returned the favor, since Erkenbrand also gave an interview for our website before.

What is “Tradition against Tyranny” all about?

Tradition against Tyranny was first started in early 2017 by one of us as a website and an online project. Initially, the goal was to create an online platform for alternative, mainly white identitarian ideas, and for European nationalist worldviews, which had very little representation in Slovenia at the time. With this aim of presenting principles and ideas that represent a viable alternative to the prevailing liberal/cosmopolitan or neo-Marxist views, the website started publishing articles, translations, and interviews through which the Slovenian public could learn about these ideas without the negative bias with which they are presented in the mainstream media.

Apart from being the website that represents the European nationalist views and the thoughts of identitarian, or what we like to call, the “racially conscious” Right, it also seemed important to offer valid criticism of the modern prevailing multicultural agenda and false liberal assumptions about gender, race, human nature and nature in general, and to draw attention to the negative consequences of leftist multiculturalism and capitalist consumerism, since the first is destroying our nations in the physical sense and the second in the mental and spiritual sense. And it was also equally important to awaken our fellow countrymen to the fact that these negative consequences, that this destruction of our culture and traditions, this ongoing demographic replacement of our people in their own lands, and general prevailing decadence, are not something that just happened “by mistake”, or because of the foolishness of our politicians, but is, in fact, a part of a carefully designed plan of the so-called international globalist elites, and of the hidden powers which want to create a rootless, dull population without a strong racial identity and a sense of belonging, that could be easily controlled in a global world without borders where people, as well as capital and other means, are easily transported all around the globe.

After some time the person who started Tradition against Tyranny was joined by a few like-minded comrades who were also willing to write articles for the website, create graphic designs and promote the project on the streets by putting up stickers, or through their social media accounts. And while there are some other patriotic and rightist groups and projects operating in Slovenia today, we felt that there was a need for a new organization or a movement, that would specifically focus on spreading the positive affirmation of our racial, national and cultural identity and on building the foundations for identitarian racially conscious community and a dissident right “counter-culture”. That is why we recently decided that we should take this project one step further, and create a new activist group and movement. While we intend to carry on with the initial aims of Tradition against Tyranny and continue to spread our views online by publishing interesting material such as various articles, interviews, and translations, we believe it is necessary to also move some of our activities into the “real world”. This includes spreading our message on the streets of our cities through promotional material such as stickers etc., organizing some hiking trips in nature, visiting historical sites, museums and monuments, organizing debates and round tables, educating and slowly building our organization into a community of like-minded comrades, and maybe do some charity or environmental work in the future. We believe activism and bonding are both equally important for a strong movement.

We would also like to add that we consider ourselves a strictly metapolitical group taking part in the cultural war, and because of that we think it is important to talk not only about specific ideas but to look at our society and contemporary culture as a whole, and from the racial point of view take into consideration what is good or bad for our people and our future. So in our writings, we also focus on culture, religion, traditions, literature, contemporary consumerist “culture” and mass entertainment. And finally, as some of your readers might be familiar with the following quote: “I can fight only for something that I love, love only what I respect, and respect only what I at least know”, we share this opinion and believe that by writing and talking about some of the mentioned topics such as national customs, culture, traditions, etc. of not only Slovenians, but of Europeans as a whole, we can ignite the spark of racial consciousness and the sense of belonging to a great European family of nations within our countrymen, so this is another important aspect that we take into consideration.

To conclude, we would like to say a few words about the name “Tradition against Tyranny” itself. While we are familiar with the traditionalist philosophy and cherish such thinkers as Julius Evola, the “Tradition” in our name is closer to Dominique Venner´s view of tradition as a manifestation of certain archetypes and of a soul of specific peoples, of their experience of the world around them, and of their characteristics. As Venner said, “It rests upon the hereditary dispositions of related peoples, and a spiritual heritage …” We are in a way born into certain “tradition” which is a part of us, which gives us an “interior compass” that helped our ancestors to determine right from wrong and is the foundation for our cultural norms and values. For us, tradition and culture are in many ways the reflection of our racial soul that we share with other white people. To turn to Venner once more, the differences that we can notice between say, southern or northern European peoples are the consequences of the different climate, environment, and geography, and the different cultures that emerged through the ages in Europe are “simply contrasting manifestations of the same tradition”. As many readers will know, Venner saw the greatest and the purest source of this European tradition in Homer. By affirming and accepting our traditions we affirm and strengthen our bonds with our fellow European nations. By learning about our traditions we learn about ourselves, and by defending it we defend our heritage, our blood, our racial characteristics, given to us by nature, and our right to exist, against the Tyranny of political correctness, false equality, and the cosmopolitan liberalism and cultural Marxism. 

When looking at your interesting website it becomes clear that you are seeking cooperation among European nationalists. Do you think this hasn’t been done enough until now? And what ideas do you have to improve cooperation in the future? 

We strongly believe that Europeans everywhere should work together and cooperate against the leviathan of globalism which seeks to erase and replace us with masses of third world invaders. The struggle we are facing is full of hardships and dangers, and we need to fight it together for the sake of our collective racial interests. We support the vision of a pan-European nationalism, an idea that has nothing to do with the mixing of the different white European nations into one, as some may think since that would be on a racial level, what globalists want to achieve on a level of the whole humanity. Nor does the “vision” of pan-European cooperation has anything in common with the Pan-Europeanism of Richard von Coudenhove Kalergi, who was financed by the Jewish bankers and envisioned a man of the future as a mixed-race mutt. For us, this idea of pan-European nationalism and solidarity is rooted in an awareness of our common roots and ancestral ties going back to the beginnings of our history. We should cherish our local national customs and culture and this true European diversity which evolved on our continent, and represents different “manifestations of the same tradition”, but should also be able to stand together when our racial interests and our common homeland Europe is endangered.

In the rapidly globalizing western world, infested with consumerist culture and mass migrations, Europeans everywhere are once again invoking their common identity. Faced with the “otherness” brought to our shores by the racial aliens who are invited by our traitorous leaders, Europeans are again realizing, that although many of our cultures from different parts of the continent are quite different on the first sight, they share much in common, and we have seen considerable progress in the last decades and especially in the last years, in building international alliances among white Europeans all across the West. Some such instances were the organized actions of Generation Identity who some years back took to the sea, and later guarded the mountain passes, in an efforts to prevent illegal migration under the well-known slogan “Defend Europe”, or the march that the Austrian identitarians are organizing in Vienna every September in memory of the battle in which the Siege of Vienna was broken with help of brave Polish hussars and their king Jan III. Sobieski in the 17^th century. Another such great initiative was the march “No More Brother Wars”, organized by Polish nationalists in Gdansk, and attended by nationalists from various countries. There are many other cases of different identitarian and nationalist organizations cooperating in many ways and we fully support such developments toward a European nationalism, invoked by such thinkers as Dominique Venner, Guillaume Fay, Kai Murros, and others.

Unfortunately, there are still some hostilities and grudges among different European nations, as a consequences of past wars, conflicts, and border disputes. Because of this, we can still notice in different degrees a presence of unhealthy nationalism, or “national-chauvinism” in many parts of Europe. We believe that we should overcome these past differences and problems, and we should refuse to be, as Kai Murros nicely said, “slaves of the past”. Thus, we make clear distinctions between racially conscious true nationalism and the petty chauvinist nationalism that can do more harm than good.

What do you think about the Europa Terra Nostra project and could it be successful in just that aim of cooperation among nationalists? 

Europa Terra Nostra is a project which we wholeheartedly support. We regularly follow their website and activities, and we see it as a great example of cooperation among nationalists and of “European” nationalism that we mentioned in the previous answer. We would say that judging by their work, they have already proved to be quite successful in their aims of encouraging the cooperation between nationalists from various countries in Europe, and hopefully their activities will inspire others to join such projects and movements.

As we already stated, we believe that a new “European” type of nationalism that goes beyond one´s border, and reminds us that we all belong to a European racial family and should therefore defend the home of this extended family together is necessary today. Organizations such as ETN are continuing the work of the previous thinkers and movements that laid foundations for such developments within the nationalist circles, and deserve the support of identitarians and nationalists from all across the West.

Neighboring countries like Austria have a famous story about battling the advancing Ottomans in Vienna and the Magyars during the Middle Ages. Can you tell me a little bit more about the Slovenian people taking part in this or other famous battles? 

During those clashes our people were part of the Habsburg or the Austrian Monarchy and as such took part in the battles against the Turks. At the time, present-day Slovenia was divided into different provinces that had their own armies. Turkish incursions into our lands began in the 15th century and lasted until the end of the late 16th century when the Ottomans suffered a defeat in the Battle of Sisak in present-day Croatia. On these incursions, Turks would usually burn villages, kill or enslave our people and steal their cattle and crops. This went on for about 200 years until the outnumbered Austrian forces, including Slovenian armies from different provinces, defeated the Ottomans at the fortress Sisak. Slovenians and their commanders such as Andrej Turjaški (Andreas von Auersperg) and Adam Ravbar (Rauber) gained great renown as warriors in that battle, so it remains an important event in our history.

Can you explain something about the current political situation in Slovenia? Is there any room for an ethno nationalist party? Or do you only have ‘kosher’ populist parties? 

Early in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, a center-right government led by the Prime Minister Janez Janša and his conservative right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska Demokratska Stranka) came to power, after the previous liberal Prime Minister Marjan Šarec resigned and the government collapsed. At that time, Janša managed to form a fragile coalition with some other centrist and conservative parties, as his SDS won in our last election in 2018, but was at the time unable to form a ruling coalition, as none of the liberal and left-leaning parties would join them. Janša is a seasoned politician, who also played a role in the independence of our country, and has held many different positions in the past, including being the Prime Minister before.

Slovenian Democratic Party used to be your typical center-right conservative party, until the migration crisis in 2015, at which time they adopted more strict rhetoric against illegal migrations and a more populist stance, similarly to Hungarian Fidesz and their leader Victor Orban, who is a close ally of Janša. It would be fair to assume, that this shift towards a more anti-migration politics was at least in part a stunt to gain the support of people who were dissatisfied with the growing number of dark aliens at our borders. Nevertheless, their gaining support which led to their victory in 2018 showed us that many people were indeed at least worried and skeptical about the mass migrations, which is in a way a good sign in itself, regardless of the true aspirations or interests of the winners. But of course, their public opposition to mass migrations also earned them the burning hatred from the Left and the disapproval of the mainstream media. So from the moment they were able to form a new coalition and take power, the leftist-liberal parties in the opposition alongside various NGOs and mainstream media mobilized and started attacking them, talking about the “growing threat of fascistic totalitarianism”, “dictatorship” and of the “Orbanization of Slovenia”, a term coined by the Left in regard to above-mentioned friendship and dealings between SDS and Fidesz. All this was done mostly under the guise of the criticism aimed at the COVID-19 related restraints and lockdowns, and during the late spring and summer, it erupted in weekly protests against the government, orchestrated by the Left. These protests are supposedly aimed against the “growing fascism” and encroachment on our personal liberties due to the Covid-19 crisis, but the real reason is that the government wants to shut down the state financing of various NGOs and so-called “cultural workers”, and is also to some extend battling the prevailing leftist hegemony in our media. So, the leftists, “human rights” type NGOs connected to Soros, and various performers known as “cultural workers” are afraid that they will lose their privileges and the taxpayer’s cash flow.  On the other hand, the liberal left opposition parties, connected to what we might call the Slovenian “deep state”, joined in the protests as they want to topple the current government and return to power, so they can continue with the advancement of their openly pro-migrant, globalist agenda, including censorship of different views and tougher “hate-speech” laws. They even formed their own coalition, and are trying to take over by recruiting and persuading some of the ruling coalition parties and their individual members to join them. Soon we will see how everything will play out.

We strongly oppose the Left and the liberals, but we are also well aware that the conservatives have their own interests and gains in such “struggles for power”, and their own connections and dealings with certain international groups and big businesses. We are against the so-called “civic nationalist” approach seen regularly among the conservative ranks everywhere, since we believe that nation is firmly rooted in race, and we do not like their support for modern capitalism and their connections with big capitalists and corporations. Many who criticize migrations and attack the Left for wanting to import their “future voters”, forget that liberal capitalism and big corporations are equally guilty of facilitating mass migrations, so they can gain cheap labor force and new masses of consumers. This connection between big corporations, capitalist businessmen, and center-right conservative politics can also be observed in the case of SDS, as they allow and even support the import of cheap labor force from such places as Kosovo and Albania. Also, as is the case with many conservative parties and with politicians of all colors in general, they will say one thing, then do something opposite. For example, despite their anti-migrant rhetoric, some SDS members of the European Parliament voted in favor of the migrant quotas in 2015, and despite being a strongly family-oriented party, the majority of their members who sit in the city council of our capital Ljubljana refrained from voting against the inclusion of LGBT material in the educational plans for local schools, when the issue was being decided. Now to be fair, we should give Janša and SDS some credit for standing up to the leftist NGOs, the leftist “cultural workers, and the mainstream media, in spite of the opposition trying to trip them on every step of the way. They also deserve credit for upholding the freedom of speech, and are at least for now not trying to pass the above mentioned, stricter “hate speech” laws like their liberal leftist predecessors planned to do, but this is also partly because SDS themselves are being regularly accused of some forms of “hate speech” by the Left. In any case, we are wary of politicians and parties from both the Left and the Right and do not support any political party at this time.   

As to the second part of your question, there are a few smaller political parties that may include some elements of “ethnonationalism”, but none of them gets many votes during the elections, and they are quite rare. We believe that as long as the leftist hegemony rules our societies, there will be no real chance for a successful openly ethno nationalist party. That’s why we rather concentrate on metapolitical activities, trying to affect the society as a whole, and by establishing a successful nationalist “counter-culture”, win the hearts and minds of our people, and create circumstances in which a real political change will be possible. 

How objective is the media in your country? Is it, like in most Western European countries, completely biased towards liberal-progressive globalism? 

Just like elsewhere, the mainstream media in our country is extremely leftist and liberal and is regularly pushing the multiculturalist, pro-migration, cultural Marxist agenda, and an essentially “anti-white” narrative. There is one smaller conservative media outlet, which manages to operate within the “mainstream”, and is also sympathetic toward identitarianism and the new right, occasionally publishing interviews with identitarian and rightist thinkers, but all of the big media outlets are completely in the hands of the post-communist left. These big media outlets are also connected with various NGOs, mostly financed by George Soros, and with the leftist politicians. There were even such cases when some female reporters left their job in the supposedly objective leading media houses to have a political career in liberal-leftist parties. Many of the journalists and reporters working for our national radio-television Slovenia, and other big media, are openly completely leftist, yet they still dare to talk about “objective” journalism. Under the guise of objectivity, the media is pushing the above-mentioned agenda, looking out for the interests of their leftist “comrades” and of their globalist masters. We know that such a situation prevails within the mainstream media all across the West, and that is why we must constantly warn our countrymen that the media today are just the propaganda machinery of globalism.

How would you like a post-liberal, traditionalist Europe to develop itself? Centralized and strong, or more confederation? In what way should Europe behave towards the other big players like the USA, Russia, and China? 

We would say that there are two prevailing views among white identitarian thinkers and movements regarding this subject; one is that we should establish a European federation, or a new European “Empire”, stretching from “Lisbon to Vladivostok”, as Guillaume Faye suggested. The other is that of the creations of white ethnostates across Europe and the West as advocated by Greg Johnson in his White Nationalist Manifesto. We are perhaps a bit more inclined towards the idea of an “Empire” or a European federation, which was also presented by Alain de Benoist in his Manifesto for a European Renaissance. As he said, such Federal Europe would be built on a principle of subsidiarity, and would “organize itself into a federal structure, while recognizing the autonomy of all the component elements and facilitate the cooperation of the constituent regions and of individual nations”. But as a metapolitical group, we also consider other ideas on this subject that have their own positive aspects. In any case, one thing is clear to us: a post globalist, post-liberal, nationalist-orientated Europe should be built on the common bonds of her peoples and should be able to stand united against both inner and outside threats. In the case of separate ethnostates, European nations should form strong military and economic alliances, sort of an alternative to EU or NATO, working for the common good and for the racial interests of all Europeans, instead of being puppet organizations serving the interests of globalists as is the case today.

The most realistic view is that as nationalism and identitarianism would gain strength, first through metapolitical, and later political developments, different white ethnostate would be established, that could after the complete and true liberation of Europe – as opposed to the “liberation” of 1945 – form a new federal Europe, which would then grow into a superpower. But we think that we are still at relatively early stages of our struggle, certainly at the metapolitical stage, and many things can happen. Our success is not guaranteed and the future looks quite dark at times. It would be fair to say that if together we will be able to move onto the later stages of the struggle, there is a good chance of rising conflicts that could turn into a European “racial” civil war, as the current elites won’t just give up their power.

Regarding the USA, we see our struggle not just as a struggle of the European continent, but of all white peoples everywhere. We have the same enemies and similar problems. So we hope that the later developments of the struggle would happen more or less simultaneously across the West and that as we built new Europe, new white America, Australia, and New Zealand will arise as well. Of course, the Americans have different historical circumstances and their own ideas about a white homeland, and the ordering of their continent. We also believe that, concerning the recent BLM riots and now the stolen elections, the escalation of conflicts that could lead to civil war is more likely to happen in the USA, and could happen sooner than in Europe.

However, just like identitarian and nationalist groups from the USA and Europe are cooperating today, we should also cooperate in the future and present a common white front against such growing superpowers as China which could become our main adversary on the world stage. And if by any chance Europe would be able to liberate herself, while the USA would still remain the stronghold of globalists, we should help and support U.S. dissidents in their struggle by means and actions that would seem the most effective in such a scenario.

As for Russia, regardless of geography Russians should as a white nation be a part of the new Europe and should be included in any developments toward an “Imperium” Europa. Or if there should happen that while Europe would rise free, Russia would still be in the clutches of oligarchs and globalist mafia, we should also help Russian dissidents, while remaining extremely vigilant toward their state. But such developments may be less likely for Russia in the event of growing ethnic conflicts. In both cases of the USA or Russia, it could easily be the other way around and they would be the ones to help our struggle.

As we already said about China, it could very well happen that this vast nation could become our main rival, so we should be prepared for any hostilities in stopping her grasp towards the West. On the other hand, we should also be open to any kind of mutual arrangement with foreign nonwestern countries and should leave them in peace as long as they do not threaten our existence, self-determination, and racial interests.

This is of course a complex topic and as our struggle develops new thinkers will arise, as some already have, with new and more detailed proposals about the foreign policy and the future ordering of Europe free from the shackles of globalism, who will build upon the ideas of the thinkers already mentioned in this interview. 

If one looks at history, Slovenia always tended to be on the crossroads between Slavic, Roman, Magyar, and Germanic tribes. Do you and most Slovenians strongly identify as Slavic peoples and why? 

That’s true, our country lies on important historical crossroads between different European cultures, and between southeastern and central Europe. Many of our cities were in fact first founded as Roman Empire´s trading or military defense settlements, such as our capital Ljubljana (Emona), Celje (Celeia), Ptuj (Poetovio), or Kranj (Carnium), among others. And before that our land was also inhabited by Celtic tribes.

Slovenians generally consider and identify themselves as a Slavic nation. With that being said, there are also many Germanic aspects within our culture. We have many cultural similarities with our Austrian neighbors, and with Germans, which can be seen in our folk music, national customs, food, folklore, and so on. This can also be observed in some of our customs and holiday celebrations, so we can find both Slavonic elements, such as of course our language, and Germanic elements, in our culture. This is partly due to the fact that our nation was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for a long time, and was under its cultural influence. And even though we find ourselves geographically on “cultural” crossroads, as one might say, we belong mostly to the cultural sphere of middle or central Europe. Moreover, this is not the only connection we have with the Germans or Austrians, as a lot of Slovenians have some German ancestry and there are many German-sounding surnames. This is, of course, most visible in the northern part of the country, while in our seaside region, in the Slovenian part of the Istrian peninsula which was in the past both under Austrians and Italians at different times, we can also notice some Italian influence, and so on. But broadly speaking, our culture and nation consist mainly of both Slavic and Germanic elements. We accept it as such and consider ourselves first and foremost a white European nation.

Some countries in the Balkans seem to have a difficult relationship, especially among nationalists. For example, between Croats and Serbs. Slovenia has many neighbours. How do you estimate the relationship between Slovenia and its 4 neighbours? 

Our land was part of bigger Empires for a long time, and at some points, different parts of our territory were controlled by different countries. Because of that, there are some complaints about stolen territories coming from certain nationalistic circles both in Slovenia and in our neighboring countries. For instance, after the First World War when Slovenia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia, a bigger part of the region Koroška (Carinthia) decided on a plebiscite to stay within Austria. This was an important loss, as Karantanija (Carantania) which is considered by many to be the “first Slovenian state” was established in this region in the 7th century. Then there are some issues regarding the already mentioned Istrian peninsula where the Italian influence is quite strong. Some Italians will claim that Istria was stolen from them and that it doesn’t belong to the Slovenes or Croats. Now on the other hand some Slovenes, either of the Yugonostalgic or of the chauvinist variety – the former does not exclude the latter- claim that Istria and especially Italian city Trieste belong to us. In the other part of our country there is a region called Prekmurje, where Hungarian influence is strong as it borders Hungary, and since this region was once under Hungarian control, some Hungarian patriots, mostly of the chauvinistic type, see it as a part of a greater Hungary. All of these regions were inhabited both by us and by our neighboring nations, so we have indigenous minorities from these countries, and they have Slovene indigenous minorities living inside their countries. These minorities were also at times a source of disputes, as for instance, some national-chauvinistic politicians would oppose the two-language signs in the areas where the Slovenian minority lived, etc. But currently, these “disputes” are mostly limited to different historical debates, or can be found in some groups with elements of “old nationalisms”. Apart from that, the only bigger dispute that we have concerning our border is with Croatia, mostly regarding the bay of Piran and some other border locations. This dispute about our sea and land border has been going on for years and has affected the diplomatic relations of our countries. Finally the EU “stepped in”, and the decision was made by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2017, but the Croatian government refused to recognize the decision of the court, so the issue is still not completely solved.

With that being said, our relations with our neighbors are quite good and more or less completely normal. Many Slovenian tourists regularly spend time in those countries, and we get visits from their tourists, etc. So, apart from some individuals or small groups with national-chauvinistic attitudes, we get along well. Many of us have visited beautiful cities such as Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, or Venice, or have spent summer at the Croatian seaside, and there were many contacts and even some cooperation between Slovenian identitarian and nationalist groups with fellow nationalists and identitarians from those countries over the years.

We would also like to stress that we as a group distance ourselves from the chauvinistic attitudes mentioned above. Now, do not get us wrong, we in no way want to give the impression that our history is unimportant and that we should forget our past or dismiss every claim about some parts of the land where historically our nation lived. But we must understand that the other nations may as well have some credible claims about the same piece of land, and we think that such claims should be researched with the utmost considerations and objectivity, keeping in mind that we are all Europeans and that we should deal with such subjects calmly and with mutual respect. Unfortunately for that to happen we must first understand that today we face common threats as one family of nations and as a specific race. If we can deal with these threats and prevail in our current struggle for the future of our continent then hopefully one day we can deal with such border issues and historical claims not as adversaries and rivals, but as racial brothers and allies. Until that day these issues will sadly only breed chauvinistic hatred and will reignite old grudges, or will be used by politicians on both sides to gain votes and parade around like great patriots and defenders of the land when they will want to increase their public support.

Can you tell us a little bit more about Slovenia’s most important politicians, writers and poets?

Just like other European nations, we have our share of poets and writers, some of whom nurtured our national consciousness and identity, and whose works became part of our historical and cultural identity. The most well-known, and generally considered the “greatest” Slovenian poet, would be the 19th-century romantic poet France Prešeren. The seventh stanza from his poem Zdravljica (The Toast) is the national anthem of Slovenia. From his other poems, we can mention the great heroic epic Krst pri Savici (The Baptism on the Savica), which talks about the Christianization of the pagan Slavs and of a brave commander of the pagan forces, and has taken an important place in our cultural heritage. Another important Slovenian poet was the priest Simon Gregorčič, whose most known poem is Soči (to Soča), an ode to a river flowing through western Slovenia that has many patriotic aspects. Gregorčič expressed his patriotism in his other poems such as Domovini (To Homeland) and Znamenje (A Sign) as well.

Some of the other well-known and generally seen as important literary figures and poets were the representatives of Slovenian modernism, such as neo-romantic poet Dragotin Kette, symbolist poet Josip Murn, poet, playwright, and translator who translated works of Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, Balzac, George Bernard Shaw, and Knut Hamsun, and other authors of Western literature into our language, Oton Zupančič, who was also quite an opportunist, supporting Yugoslav monarchical “nationalism” before the second world war, and after the war showing support for communist victors, a writer and a playwright Ivan Cankar who was also a political activist and a socialist, writer Ivan Pregelj, playwright and writer Fran Levstik, who was a big influence on Slovenian writers and poets that at the time held “national-liberal” views, such as romantic realist Josip Jurčič, priest Anton Aškerc who was known for his epic poems, and historian and writer Janez Trdina who also collected folk tales. All of the mentioned authors worked mostly in the 19th and early 20th century. There were also other authors such as the Enlightenment era poet Valentin Vodnik, modernist poet Srečko Kosovel, or writers Fran Saleški Finžgar, Janez Jalen, Anton Martin Slomšek, and others.

When talking about historical personalities, which were important for the development of Slovenian national and cultural identity, we must also mention Primož Trubar from the 16^th century, an adherent of the Reformation movement and a Lutheran protestant priest, who is the author of the first Slovene language printed books, and is considered the father of our language. His first published book, and the first book printed in Slovene, was Katekizem ( Catechismus), which is sort of a manual written in the form of questions and answers, dealing with religious practices and such. And his second book, because of which he is considered the “founder” of our language, is called Abecednik (Abecedarium) and was meant to help ordinary people learn how to read and write.

Regarding the historical personalities who, for better or worse, left their mark in political developments of our nation, there was Dr. Anton Korošec, who was elected to the Austrian part of the parliament in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where he read the May Declaration which called for the unification of all South Slavs in one state unit within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. After the First World War, he was vice-president in the first government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Later on, he was also the Prime-Minister in the kingdom of Yugoslavia in the late 1920s. He held other positions in the government during his political career, and campaigned for the greater autonomy of Slovenes within the Yugoslavian monarchy. He was a member of Slovenian´s People Party, which was Catholic and Conservative. And we should also mention writer and a politician from the 19th Century, Janez Evangelist Krek. Concerning the events around the First World War and the establishment of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which later became Yugoslavia, some Slovenian patriots also admire Slovenian General Rudolf Maister, who at the end of the war prevented the German forces to annex the city of Maribor to Austria, and ensured the northern part of Slovenia to stay within the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He is thus hailed by some as “defender of the northern border”. And about more recent historical events we should at least briefly mention that another May declaration was read in 1989 and called for a sovereign Slovenian state. This was followed by a plebiscite at the end of 1990 that was attended by more than 90% of Slovenians who voted for independence.  

Finally, we would also like to say a few words about a Slovenian general and a politician Leon Rupnik. Rupnik started his military career in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and fought in the First World War as an Austro-Hungarian lieutenant. After the war, he was active within the army of the kingdom of Yugoslavia, where he gained the rank of a major general. He fought in the brief April war in which the kingdom of Yugoslavia was swiftly defeated by the Axis forces. He was interned as a war prisoner and after his release, he decided to take on the “ungrateful” role of the representative and a leader of his people in dealings with the occupational authorities. He became the mayor of our capital Ljubljana under the Italian occupation in 1942, and later the President of the Provincial Council of Ljubljana. He was also one of the founders of the Slovenian Home Guard, which fought against the reds alongside the Axis forces. He was a divisional general of the Home Guard, and in 1945, before the end of the war, he was the chief commander of the Slovenian Home Guard. Rupnik was not only fiercely anti-communist but he also regularly warned about the dangers of the organized international Jewery and freemasonry in his speeches and writings. He was also a great patriot who wanted to ensure a rightful place for his nation in the creation of a New Europe. After the war, the communists slaughtered tens of thousands of members of the Slovenian Homeguard and threw them in the pits of the forests of Kočevski Rog in the southeastern part of our country, where many Serbian and Croatian anticommunist forces also met their fate. Leon Rupnik himself was tried for treason and shot in 1946. His last words were: “Long live the Slovenian nation!” His grave remains unknown, and in 2020 the Supreme Court in Slovenia annulled his death sentence.

In one of your articles you refer to cultural marxism, and the ride through the institutions by the Frankfurter Schule. How did this affect your country in the Yugoslav era? And what were the developments after 1991? 

Looking back at the post-WW2 history and the rise of what we refer to today as “cultural Marxism”, we can say that ironically the countries that fell under Marxist socialism were in a way shielded from cultural Marxism, and of course from the liberal agenda that was considered a part of the capitalist West. The “old” socialists and communists did not approve of a number of degenerate elements that were appearing in liberal democracies. This was also in many ways true for Yugoslavia, especially in the first decades, as is illustrated, among other things, by the fact that in the 1950s homosexuality was a crime that could earn the “perpetrator” up to two years in jail, and wasn’t completely decriminalized until late 70s when the first traces of liberal influence and cultural Marxism started to appear.

We should also stress the fact that Yugoslavia broke off with the Soviet Union soon after the war and that we had a “softer” version of communist socialism when compared to the Soviet-dominated countries from the eastern bloc. This of course did not spare tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who were slaughtered without trial after the war, as mentioned in the previous question. Those killed were not only the ones who took arms against the red partisans, but also those deemed “opponents of the revolution”, or simply seen as a threat to the new regime. It also did not spare many of the “dissidents” being jailed or sent to the infamous political prison located on a Croatian barren island called Goli Otok (Naked Island). But the everyday life conditions were better than in Eastern Europe, and what’s important in this context, the country was open to the West. Marshall Tito, the well-known leader of Yugoslavia, who was guilty of many atrocities still not completely known to the public until this day, had good relations with liberal democracies, and it should be noted that he was ideologically more of a social democrat than a Bolshevik. So, already in the 60s, the hippie movement, and various student movements that were used by cultural Marxists in the West, also appeared and grew in Yugoslavia. They were looked down on by the “old” communists and there were some cases of police harassment, but since the country had in general good relations with the West, the liberal influence got its foothold especially in the larger cities of Yugoslavia. During the 70s, organized liberal and “new left” groups appeared, and in the 80s such groups, which were mostly pro-western, and most likely financed from the West grew stronger, planting the seeds of the modern liberal views and principles, which would later fall under the umbrella of cultural Marxism.

After the Slovenian independence in 1991 when we became a democratic country moving towards Western liberal democracies, the liberal influence grew freely within Slovenia, and the cultural Marxist subversion became more visible, especially after 2004 when we joined the new liberal version of the Soviet Union, known as the EU. Now, since we had a “softer” version of Marxist socialism, there was no lustration or purge of the former communists and no hard break from the communist past at the time of our independence. Many of the old commies who were personally not too glad about the breakup of Yugoslavia, just put on the masks of the born again liberals or democrats and took important leading positions within our newly founded state. Such is the case of our first president Milan Kučan who said in 1990: “It is even hard for me to think about the secession of Slovenia from Yugoslavia, as this was never my first most intimate option”. But regardless, he became president after the independence and is today one of the main representatives of the Slovenian “deep state”, alongside other former communists and their leftist disciples. Today´s Slovenian leftist and liberal-left political parties and various leftist activist groups and NGOs have incorporated both, the Yugonostalgia and the communist mythology as well as the “new left” pro-migration, feminist and LGBT stance. The leftist parties, such as the Social Democrats, or various activists whose imagery includes rainbow flags as well as red stars, will praise the old communists, such as Edvard Kardelj, Boris Kidrič, and of course Tito, while at the same time push for the typical globalist agenda like open borders, LGBT rights, and so on. They are of course agents and useful idiots of the Slovenian “deep state” who is in turn under the control of the international globalists. So, the leftist or “cultural Marxist” cultural hegemony arose in Slovenia through the merging of the old Yugonostalgic and communist sentiments with the modern leftist liberal agenda. Our media, schools, and many state institutions are in the hands of leftists and of the deep state agents who are directing the main public discourse, as is the case in almost all of the European and Western countries today. Hopefully, think tanks like Erkenbrand, and other identitarian groups such as ourselves will be able to counter and eventually break this leftist cultural hegemony in the future.

Concerning your religious and spiritual tradition, can you tell a little bit more about that? Are you interested in Christianity and Slavic or European pagan traditions? And does Slovenia have interesting archeological sites and ancient holy places of worship? 

Religion has always played an important role in human history, not only as a set of beliefs about the creation of the universe, our world, and about the purpose of life but also as a moral guideline and a set of values setting apart the good from the bad, right from wrong, etc. From this perspective, it is important for every identitarian group dealing with topics of tradition, culture, history, and so on, to know the religious influences and views that shaped the general values of their people, and the way in which they perceived themselves and their surroundings through history.

Because of that, we are especially interested in the old pre-Christian European religions that can give us a glimpse into the mind of our ancestors and in how they perceived the world, what they considered to be good or bad, what were their values. It also shows us the similarities between different white peoples and tells us that their religions, traditions, and cultures came from the same racial soul, as religion itself is in a way, just like customs and traditions, a mirror of our collective racial soul and spiritual characteristics. This can also be seen in the “Europeanization” of Christianity, as the majestic cathedrals, art, and the battle spirit of medieval and Christian Europe obviously differs from the early Christianity that arose in the Middle East. Since Christianity, although imported to Europe, also played a huge part in our history and culture, we are also interested in Christianity, which in our opinion had both some positive and negative aspects.

We have within our group both people closer to “paganism”, and those who are, especially in the cultural sense, Christians or Catholics, as Slovenia is a majority Roman Catholic country. Most of all we try to approach religious questions objectively and with an open mind, as unfortunately religious differences between pagans and Christians can be a source of disputes and division within nationalist circles. As a group, we welcome both Christians and those orientated towards our old gods such as Svarog, Perun, or Veles within our ranks, as long as they have developed a healthy racial consciousness and want to join our metapolitical cultural struggle for the rebirth of Europe.

There are a few interesting roman and pre-roman archaeological sites in Slovenia, and in some parts of the country where local old beliefs survived in some smaller communities up until modern times, there were also places of worship of the old ways. And of course, many customs and traditions within our culture are rooted in paganism, just like in other European countries.

Finally, what are your plans for the future? 

As we mentioned at the beginning, we are a fairly new organization. So, our plans include building a strong metapolitical movement and laying the foundations for an identitarian community and a counter-culture within our society, through various activities and actions mentioned in the first answer. We also seek cooperation and contacts with other identitarian nationalist groups across the West. For any additional information, we invite the readers to visit http://tradicijaprotitiraniji.org  and to feel free to contact us through our contact form. Thank you for your interest, and for this opportunity.