Interview with LEGIONARII

 

Legionarii is a young - but very active - martial industrial project dealing with themes of European unity and traditional values.

Your message as LEGIONARII seems to be very serious and radical. So what do you think about all these martial-industrial / neofolk bands who often stress that „they are not interested in politics” and that „they only depict history and human nature” or even that they simply like „old soldier's songs and martial rhytm, you know – just music”. In fact, some of these bands play very good music (I think). So, what is your opinion?

First of all, when it comes to Legionarii, I must say that I don’t see the message „serious and radical”.The essential message of Legionarii is that the people of Europe should unite under one banner, preserve their heritage and beliefs, respect their ancestors and ancestral lines, return to more simple and pure, natural way of life, awake their warrior spirit, and realize that this modern world is made only to destroy them. So this cannot be radical unless people, for example, really don’t like the continent of Europe (and it’s people and history), the idea of uniting with people similar to them, and the awakening of your ancestral archetype. And if anyone who is living in Europe or is of European descent says he is against this, I must at least say that there is something wrong with him. This means that he should be the one to be called „radical” not Legionarii and it’s fanbase. Concerning those bands that say „they’re just for the music”, I think that everybody has the right to do and say the things they like, you cannot change that. If someone just likes military music, and wants to make music that is militaristic, without any complex messages or goals and without declaring himself in some terms, I have nothing against that. But I must say that I’m a little suspicious when someone says that his music has no point, claiming that it’s „just music”, and that he doesn’t want to transmit some message, whatever the message may be. Every creation must have a story behind it, it can’t arise from vacuum.

Continuing: did you met with any „politically correct” opinions about your music, something like: „We won't release (or buy, promote etc.) your album because you are too much ideological, there is too much message in your music”?

No, so far I did not have such experiences. I myself also don’t see why would someone perceive that Legionarii is too much ideological, more than some other big projects in martial industrial such as Arditi or Triarii, for example.

Do you consider LEGIONARII as a „political” project? Of course I don't mean political parties and voting for their candidates, I don't want to be ridiculous. But do you consider your ideas as „right”, „far right”, „conservative” or „reactionary” in opposition to „leftism”?

Well, from one side I must say no, I do not consider Legionarii as a „political” project, because Legionarii is not aimed at popularizing some specific political ideologies but instead hailing the warrior culture and unity under one body, mind and spirit. I also don’t like it very much when people constantly need to put a label on something, or have someone else do that for them. I would say that Legionarii is here to raise consciousness about the truly warrior side of human psyche and to take part of awakening the masculine, traditional heroic spirit in man and the spirit of ancient unity, not to raise consciousness about some specific political movement, specific leader or party. Of course, in doing so, Legionarii borrows different things from various concepts to achieve the right combination of power and glory in music. And as we know, certain way of thinkings are much more suitable for promoting warrior way of thinking and purity of spirit than some others.

What is your attitude to Christianity? What is most interesting for me, is your opinion about Traditional Catholic movements (like FSSPX or sedevacantism) and Orthodoxy. It seems that some martial / neofolk bands consider their „traditionalism” as pagan and antichristian, while others (Von Thronstahl, Kriegsfall-u, Rose Rovine e Amanti, Lonsai Maikov) are Catholic or Orthodox and think that Christianity is an important and real part of European heritage. What do you stand for?

There is certain controversy in the view that Christianity is an important part of European heritage. First, from whatever side you look at it, it is a known fact that Christianity is not a genuine European religion peculiar to white man. It’s origins are Hebrew and it concerns places, culture and people far away from Europe and has nothing to with it and it is not an opinion, it is a known fact. On the other side, Europe has been „forced” into using it at about 1500 years ago (at that time the large part of the continent was under it’s influence), and when something begins in your relatively distant past and lasts that long you must say that it represents a foundation of today’s Western world in many ways. Leaders knew the power of monotheistic religions (especially Christianity) to rule the masses, I don’t think they did it because they were true Christians themselves. They’ve exploited it very wisely, spreading it this way over the entire globe, The most negative side of Christianity is that it destroyed almost all ancient, great beliefs and cultures, indoctrinating people with Hebrew gods, culture and beliefs, and with it’s principle of „everyone should be united and forget their ancient roots” gave way to intermixing and homogenizing of different cultures and people with very different roots on one place. Because of that, and because it mainly teaches humility and guilt towards their gods Yahweh and his son Jesus, I myself do not feel so much close to Christianity. I hold my respect for people who live highly spiritual life and I respect their beliefs, I just don’t see it as „my” religion and the true religion of European, warrior people.
But some of it’s views I find to be the right way of thinking and positive for achieving greater state of being, like denial of physical lust and spiritualizing your world, or living by high values and nurturing honor and respect. And some aspects of it have proven very useful for preservation of some European values and traditions, but in a sense, it has replaced much more ancient traditions with it’s own. One more thing that is positive is that it gave inspiration to some people who led the movements to preserve European identity and made them fight harder for our cause. As for those movements you mentioned, I’m not much interested in analyzing the positions and problems of Catholicism, so I must say that I don’t have a formed opinion on that matter. If I must comment something on this I guess I can say that, like sedevacantists, I also don’t care about the current Pope, with addition that I think that Papacy has been corrupt for many centuries, not just in the last one.

Regarding to Christianity... What do you think about famous counter-revolutionary Catholic and Orthodox movements like Spanish Carlism, French Chouans (and Vendeens), Papal Zouaves, Mexican Cristeros, Russian White-Guards or Lebanonese Falanga?

As I said, one of Christianity’s positive sides is preservation of traditional views and standpoints (not in the modern times though), and uniting of people under one reign. Autocratic reign ( in this case monarchy) is for me the best way to lead a nation, and it was proven the best way in the past. People need a higher goal than this false individual „I am in control of my own destiny” standpoint. It is a false „destiny” (in fact, it is not a destiny), made up of small, fake goals that make you go in circles the entire life, not seeing the point of it and makes you remain small and alone all the time. Also, most revolutions in the past were incited because of individual, selfish goals of some specific persons, who did not like the notion of being united under the leader and serve the higher power. Before this onslaught of modernity and it’s system based on selfishness and greed (which came to life because of that very same selfish individualism, besides the primitive lust for material goods), people realized the greatness of autocratic rule. And concerning religion, as we know one of the best ways to unite people is under the notion of a divine force-it is, in fact, an almost obligatory for a king who wants to succesfully lead his people in progress to indentify himself with the higher power.

There is a kind of strange paradox on the martial / neofolk / dark ambient scene. On the one hand there is a lot of lyrics and imagery relating to ascetism, heroism, sacrifice, spiritual inner-war and renunciation. But on the other hand there is a strong trend to themes like decadence, hedonism, sex-magick, lust and decay (e.g. Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio). Is it a contradiction? What is your opinion about practising ascetism and so-called „high moral standards”?

I agree, it is some kind of a paradox. Yet this one only seems strange if you take a stand that all martial music is supposed to be political and look upon the certain way. People are free to think and express themselves as they want. As for me, I believe in the ultimate supremacy of spirit over body. Not in the sense that physical strength is not important (it is), but as a belief in triumph of intelligence and higher wisdom over the primitive, animal instincts we all have inside. I am not saying that it is „wrong” for you to enjoy sex for example; and everyone of us sometimes has some „decadent” tendencies, because besides spirit, we are all made of flesh. But if you can’t control those impulses and let them take over your life, making your spirit eclipse, then at least you should reconsider your thoughts and actions. Conquering your own material world by spirit is for me the greatest thing to do, and all people should strive for that. The fact that most of the people are indulging themselves in lust and deviation, controlled by the basic primitive instincts and degrading themselves is what made them easy to control and brought this world on the edge of destruction and chaos.

Interview with...

Ciąg dalszy...

You seem to be very much inspired by ancient Rome. So do you know about any attempts to reconstruct original Roman or Greek music? Are you interested in such things?

Of course, I am very interested in that. I’ve heard about some projects concerning the recreation of original antic music but I’m a bit skeptical about all that. There are very few, if any, remains and writings concerning the musical structure actual performance of the Roman music. And without the actual source, any attempt will come up to us putting our consciousness into theirs, and that’s not what we want. When it comes to music, I think that it is possible that we will never know how it really sounded back in those days.

What about other – non-European – cultures? Are they any inspiration for you? I mean, for example, ancient pre-Columbian civilizations, Chinese and Japanese culture or cultures founded on islam...

I have always been impressed by the ancient Japanese culture. The warrior lifecode, heroic spirit, strict discipline and hierarchy of Shogunate is really fascinating and it’s my personal ideal. Ancient Japanese people were also aware of supremacy of spirit over the material world, lived by high values and moral standards, codes of honor, respected their ancestors and nature, so in a way they are also an inspiration for me. I am also impressed by the achievements of other ancient civilizations around the globe and mysterious architecture which shows us how history is written to manipulate and deceive us by saying that we are on the highest state on development, and that all these were creations of „primitive men”. I can’t say these cultures themselves are a direct inspiration to me, but I am fascinated by the stage of development in those times and I respect their way of life. Now, the true origins and causes of that same great achievements by ancient civilizations is an entirely different story.

I'd like to know your opinion about so-called national bolshevism and ideas of people like Aleksander Dugin.

I must say that I did not go into details with the ideas like that. The only thing I can say is that I am more for pan-European, egalitarian, brotherly unity, than for Eurasian union and dominion of one nation, whatever it is (in this case it would be Russia) over the entire continent. However, the idea of some kind of unity and counterbalance to the decadent, non-European West is very appealing.

I'm also interested what do you think about Poland, about our place in European history, on „European map” etc. Sometimes countries like Poland are (in the Western countries, even in „traditionalist” circles) considered as „worse”, „weak”, „not really European”, „wild” or simply not interesting... But be honest!

To be honest, I could not understand a person that says that Poland is „not really European” and that it’s „weak”. This is totally outrageous to me. Poland is in the very heart of Europe, and has been an essential part of the European heritage for a long time. In some periods of medieval times, territories of Poland were much greater than of France or England for example, it was a really great power in Europe with great culture and heritage. And many people in Poland, Czech Republic and Baltic states in general even have much of the German blood in their veins, since German and Slavic people were intermixed in ancient times more than any other genuine people of Europe. So, that kind of hate-talk can come only from a person that is either really not informed, is brainwashed or is a just full of hate.

Another „martial industrial paradox” is that the early industrial scene (like Throbbing Gristle, Einsturzende Neubaten) had nothing to do with Evolian-Guenonian traditionalism, European heritage etc., they were rather revolutionary, leftist and nihilistic. But now there's a lot of post-industrial bands (mainly martial and folk but also power electronics) who stand for so-called „old values” and look for inspiration in the European history. Is it a contradiction? Development? …we remember that (for example) young Evola was a dadaist painter...

I would not call it a paradox. For me it is not a strange thing, it’s totally normal way in a musical world. Music is one of the greatest mysteries of mankind, so there can’t be surprises-it’s constantly evolving. For example, we can take the beginnings of rock music and apply the same argument there as well. As we know, rock music has it’s roots mainly in blues, which was a largerly ethnic type of music (colored people of USA and their „soul”). And it was mainly created as a „fun” and playful music, under the great influence of African rhytm. Then, rock was used mainly for expression of anti-war, new age spirit, used by hippie movements that influenced bands. But later it became exclusively „white” music, and today it is even used as a main tool of white power expression; it also took forms of totally serious „anti-fun”, like black metal, which took the rock music to entirely different dimension. We can say that this is the real paradox, compared to the industrial music. Today, very few persons will dare to call „rock” music non-white or exclusively „hippie”, and it is a sign of development and evolution of music. But music is ever evolving and changing, taking many forms and channeling many spirits, so after a while no one is asking questions about the beginnings anymore. Same goes for industrial, it doesn’t matter what someone first used this kind of music for, it does not define the entire genre because of that. And it also was not serious as it was with some other genres, industrial did not entirely started with themes of leftism and revolutionarism. Besides, many revolutionarist themes took form of anti-capitalism and anti-globalization, themes which are frequent in traditionalism. So, it’s all in your mind and how you construct your reality. And because of it’s nature, no one can put any serious standards in music, it’s all relative and it’s up to your creativity (and it’s a good thing).

Could you describe us your discography and your plans for the future? Are you satisfied of our Polish label Rage in Eden?

Legionarii currently has 4 releases behind (all in 2012), 3 official (on label) releases and one self-released single. Discography so far includes one full length album „Europa Rex”, which took the form of dark, mostly atmospheric martial ambient with a touch of industrial elements, set in the near past of World Wars. Second release was an EP „Age Of Taurus” which travelled back to the esoteric roots of our ancient past. Lastly, there is a split with BloodSoil, Striider and TSIDMZ, in which Legionarii payed tribute to the fallen soldiers of WW2 with three tracks. There is one more split coming very soon, and it’s with German project Waffenruhe, planned to be released by Castellum-Stoufenburc, an independent underground German label with which Legionarii has special bonds. As for Rage In Eden, I am very satisfied with the collaboration I have with Marcin, hence the both full length releases of Legionarii are scheduled to release through Rage In Eden. He’s been one of the first to support my works and he’s been really supportive all this time. I communicate easily with him and there have been no problems so far. Next full length assault is also planned to be released by Rage In Eden and it is in the final stages of preparation. The album will be called „Iron Legion” and by my personal opinion, this would be so far the best release of Legionarii: it is packed with over 50 minutes of blasting martial industrial that takes the listener right to the frontlines, giving him no rest throught the entire piece. This is the release the scene has been waiting for. Prepare to experience war through the speakers!