Codreanu on Wearing the Clothes of Democracy

"We wear the clothes and embrace the forms of democracy. Are they worth anything?"

- Corneliu Codreanu, "A Few Remarks on Democracy"

Founder of the Legion of the Archangel Michael;

more commonly referred to as the Iron Guard.

Remark from Codreanu on the Decline of Romania

"Romania is dying because of a lack of men, not a lack of programs."

- Corneliu Codreanu, "For My Legionaries"

Codreanu on the Life and Death of Nations

"A people is not led according to its will; the democratic formula; nor according to the will of one individual: the dictatorial formula. But according to laws. I do not talk here of man-made laws. There are norms, natural laws of life; and there are norms, natural laws of death. Laws of life and laws of death. A nation is headed for life or death according to its respect for one or the other of these laws." 

- Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, 'For My Legionaries' 

Image: Iron Guard funeral procession for Codreanu

A Quote from Codreanu on Service to Homeland

"The Politician's goal is to build a fortune, ours is to build our homeland flowering and strong. For her we will work and we will build. For her we will make each Romanian a hero, ready to fight, ready to sacrifice, ready to die." 

- Corneliu Codreanu, 'The Nest Leader's Manual'

A Quote from Codreanu on a Framework of Service

"I started with an impulse of my heart, with that instinct of defense which even the least of the worms has, not with the instinct of personal self-preservation, but of defense of the race to which I belong. This is why I have always had the feeling that the whole race rests on our shoulders, the living, and those who died for the Fatherland, and our entire future, and that the race struggles and speaks through us, that the hostile flock, however huge, in relation to this historical entity, is only a handful of human detritus which we will disperse and defeat... The individual in the framework and in the service of his race, the race in the framework and in the service of God and of the laws of the divinity: those who will understand these things will win even though they are alone."

- Corneliu Codreanu

Codreanu on the Virtue of Silence and the Oratory of Deeds

"The law of silence: Speak little. Say only what you must. Speak only when necessary. Your oratory should be deeds, not words. You accomplish: let others talk." 

- Corneliu Codreanu, 'The Nest Leader's Manual'

A Remark from Evola on Codreanu's Life

"Indeed, it is the very force, and even the very tragedy, of things, which sees to it that the narrative of Codreanu has a particular suggestive power, and we think any fascist should become aware, through it, of the tragic and painful vicissitudes of a struggle which, on the Romanian soil, has repeated the struggle of our own anti-democratic and anti-Jewish revolutions..." 

- Julius Evola, 'The Tragedy of the Iron Guard' 

Image: Codreanu kneeling among the bones of Romanian soldiers...

Codreanu on Struggle, Death, and the Legionary Spirit

"A Legionnaire loves death, for his blood shall cement the future Legionary Romania." 

- Corneliu Codreanu, Nest Leader's Manual

The funeral procession for Corneliu Codreanu (1899-1938), the

leader of the Iron Guard, which sanctified death in the name of struggle