Powerful people have conspired to erase Southern culture over the last several decades, many, but not all, of them of Northern extraction. George Orwell would recognize the methods used. Many historical truths have been thrown down the Memory Hole, while the honorable men of Dixie – Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, John C. Calhoun, and many others – are subjected every so often to something resembling the Two Minutes of Hate ritual via the Establishment-controlled organs of the academy, the media, and so forth. Tragically, many of those engaged in these acts of destruction and desecration are Southerners themselves.
We are reaching a critical time here at the South. Dr Clyde Wilson put it bluntly in a recent essay: ‘We have never been in greater danger of losing our identity as the South.’
In this moment of danger, we would like to strike a note of optimism. Peoples in more dire situations than Dixie have in recent years been able to renew their cultural identities, and even to go beyond that – to establish themselves as independent countries amongst the family of nations. Let’s have a look at the experiences of a couple of them from southeastern Europe, Macedonia and Bulgaria, to see what the South can glean from them.
Macedonia: Suppressed by Greece
Though Macedonia has existed since well before the Word of God became Incarnate and dwelt among us, the labor of establishing a separate Macedonian culture began in earnest only in the 19th century (Loring Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, Princeton, NJ, Princeton UP, 1995, p. 56).
The main opposition to international recognition of a separate Macedonian culture and state was the government of Greece. The Greeks were virulently opposed to the claim that Macedonians were a separate people. For many Greeks, all Macedonians were part of the Greek ethnos; and that was the end of the discussion (Danforth, Chapter V, ‘The Macedonian Human Rights Movement’, pgs. 108ff).
Southerners can sympathize with the Macedonian situation. The Greek claims regarding Macedonia are much akin to the claims of Lincoln and other American nationalists that separate cultures (like the South) don’t exist or shouldn’t exist within the United States – that we must all become one homogenous American culture, that whatever prevents perfect Yankee oneness is harmful to the grand ‘American Experiment’.
The Greek government went to extreme lengths to suppress the Macedonian culture. For instance, ‘Elderly Macedonians remember being arrested, fined, imprisoned, and tortured for speaking Macedonian under the Metaxas dictatorship in the 1930s’ (p. 119). Unsurprisingly, many Macedonians broke under the pressure and hid or renounced their Macedonian identity.
But the truth of a separate Macedonian culture couldn’t remain concealed. It kept breaking through at various times and in various ways, sometimes in quite curious ways. The life of one Macedonian man illustrates this well.
The family of Ted Yannas was from Florina in northern Greece. Like many Macedonians there, they were subjected to various abuses and as a result emigrated to Australia. But even there, Mr Yannas’s parents downplayed their Macedonian heritage, adopting a Greek identity instead. He went through life believing himself to be a Greek fellow until he met a woman named Vera, who was Macedonian. The relationship he formed with her began to awaken his submerged Macedonian identity. His father’s death pushed him to explore his past more deeply. In his own words:
‘“I always thought I was Greek,” Ted says now, “but there were things I couldn’t explain. My brother and sister just accepted things; they believed what they learned in school. But not me. I always had questions. Why do we have two last names, Yannas in Greek and Yovanov in Macedonian? Why do we speak Macedonian? Why do they call us Bulgarians? My parents would say, ‘Don’t ask questions. Forget about it. Just leave it alone’”’ (pgs. 185-7, quote at p. 187).
The decisive moment for Mr Yannas came at an unexpected time, at a meeting prior to a soccer match between Alexander and Preston. The Greek consul wanted to cancel the match, as the Preston team was made up openly of self-professed Macedonians, which he believed would undermine the maximalist Greek nationalist position regarding the non-existence of a Macedonian people and culture (pgs. 188-9). Mr Yannas objected to scrubbing the match, and the consul became irate, shouting at Mr Yannas that he wasn’t at the meeting to help the soccer club but rather,
‘“You’re here to help me destroy that race! As good Greeks we have to drown those people in the Yarra River!”
‘Looking back on that incident years later, Ted says, “At that moment I realized he was talking about my people. He was asking me to destroy myself. That’s when I understood that I was truly a Macedonian. What-ever part of me felt Greek died; it disappeared. My whole life passed in front of me, and I realized I was false. I felt like an adopted child who had just discovered his real parents. All my life had been a lie. I’d been a janissary; I’d betrayed my own people”’ (p. 190).
Mr Yannas’s full acceptance of his Macedonian lineage occurred in 1979. Not many years later, the rest of the world would accept the existence of a Macedonian country (called North Macedonia to win Greek approval) after the Macedonians voted by a large majority to establish their own nation on 8 Sept. 1991 (p. 142).
The hysterical overreaction of the Greeks to Macedonian cultural and political independence was a sign of just how close the Macedonians were to achieving those goals. And certainly here at the South and in her sister States we are beginning to see some signals of this kind, as neocons and Leftists lash out in irrational fury at anything connected with Dixie’s history and traditions, and as the people of the South realize that they don’t share a common ancestry or culture with the people of New England. Like Mr Yannas, Southerners are realizing that they don’t have to destroy their own native culture; they can instead love and cultivate it.
But can Dixie nurture and strengthen her culture to the point of acquiring autonomy once again? Macedonians were helped greatly in their own efforts by an extensive and powerful international diaspora to lobby for them at various global forums (United Nations, Council of Europe, etc.; pgs. 134-5). The South lacks this international presence. Her answers must come mostly from within. Another Balkan country gives her those answers.
Bulgaria: Suffocation within the Ottoman Empire
Bulgaria first appears in history in 680-681 A. D., when Khan Asparukh at the head of an army crossed the Danube and settled down at Pliska, near modern-day Shumen (R. J. Crampton, A Concise History of Bulgaria, 2nd ed., Cambridge UP, Cambridge, UK, 2005, pgs. 8, 9). Baptized into Christ under the saintly Tsar Boris in 864 (pgs. 13-14), the Bulgarians had a tumultuous relationship with the great power just beyond their southeastern border, Constantinople, and with other nearby peoples, fighting multiple wars over the next five centuries (pgs. 16-28). Yet there were enough calm intervals that a settled Christian culture did develop, with some remarkable achievements: the frescoes at the church in Boyana (c. 1259) and the illuminated Gospels commissioned by Tsar Ivan Alexander (c. 1355) (pgs. 25-7). All of that came to an abrupt end in 1393, however, as the rising power of the Ottomans crushed the Bulgarian nation and absorbed the Bulgarians into their empire (p. 28).
Under Ottoman rule, Bulgarian culture atrophied severely (p. 37). It was not until the 18th century that a Bulgarian rebirth, vûzrazhdane, would begin. One of the main instigators of it was an Orthodox monk named Paiisi who lived upon the holy mountain of Athos. Pained by the low condition into which the Bulgarians had fallen during the Ottoman captivity, he felt compelled to write his famous book, A Slavonic-Bulgarian History of the Peoples, Tsars, Saints, and of all their Deeds and of the Bulgarian Way of Life (c. 1762), in which he extolled the great deeds of Bulgaria’s past and exhorted his fellow Bulgarians not to abandon their own history and folkways but rather to ‘keep close to your heart your race and your Bulgarian homeland’ (pgs. 45-6, quote at p. 46).
St Paiisi and the others who were involved in Bulgaria’s national revival are known as ‘the awakeners’ (p. 45), and together they make up the first part of the answer to Dixie’s dilemma of how to re-establish a flourishing culture: The South will need determined men and women who are dedicated to reacquainting Southerners with all the praiseworthy aspects of Southern living. This has already begun and is bearing fruit, thanks to web sites and organizations like the Abbeville Institute and others. This outreach will need to continue for years to come, however, and to expand.
The Bulgarian rebirth was greatly aided by an expansion of education tailored precisely for Bulgarians. They had a steep hill to climb. Teaching materials and schools in the 1820s were sparse, but by 1878, the year of Bulgaria’s independence, there were close to 2,000 schools. Literacy and publishing began to flourish, too, with book publishing alone rising from 9 new books published between 1821 to 1830 to 709 between 1861 and 1870 (pgs. 60-3).
This is the second plank of a Southern revival – education. It too has already begun in some ways, with Shotwell Press and a handful of others printing valuable Southern books, and with private schools and home schools introducing Dixie’s children to a truthful account of the history of their people. Much work remains to be done in this area, as public schools and colleges remain a potent weapon in the hands of Dixie’s enemies, and most publishers of books, newspapers, etc., have likewise not ceased to print an abundance of slanders about the South.
The final key to the Bulgarian renewal was regaining a native, culturally unique Bulgarian church. This was initially achieved in 896 (p. 16) but had been lost in 1394, a year after the Ottoman conquest (p. 38). The importance to the Bulgarians of a church that embodied and expressed their national culture was emphasized in a line at the end of a letter circulating in 1851 throughout Bulgarian communities: ‘Without a national church there is no salvation’ (p. 67). Through many ups and downs and twists and turns, a native Bulgarian church was restored in 1870 (p. 74), which capped the cultural renewal, ‘the creation of a Bulgarian cultural nation represented in its church’ (p. 75).
This part of the Southern revival is the least developed. There are a multitude of Christian denominations across the South, but few of them consciously embody Southern culture. Quite a number of them seem to be making a determined effort to avoid the appearance of explicit Southernness to gain the approval of The Powers That Be. We must work on building up a church that unapologetically incarnates Southern culture so that we may worship the Lord with the finest gifts (song, painting, architecture, and the rest) that the Southern people have to offer, so that we may present the Gospel to Southerners in cadences they will understand and be attracted to.
Awaiting the Southern Rebirth
The birth of a child can be a long and agonizing process. We must not be surprised if a rebirth of Southern culture follows a similar course. And yet, as we said above, there is room for hope. Macedonia’s journey to cultural and political renewal and autonomy proceeded fairly quickly once it got properly underway, as did Bulgaria’s. Both were helped by geopolitical events. Macedonia was aided by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. The South may be helped in a similar way by the weakening of the United States Empire, as it wastes itself in futile foreign wars abroad and various harmful political and economic ideologies at home.
But the most important consideration is God’s Will – ‘Thy will be done’, as the Lord Jesus taught us to pray to our Heavenly Father. Is it God’s will that the South exist separately from the rest of the States? As any child with a request for its father, all we can do is ask that He would grant it, and then make the attempt, understanding that the answer could be Yes or No.
And now at least we have some elements to focus upon and develop as we seek to discern God’s will for us: awakeners, education, a native church. With such, the Bulgarian people achieved cultural and political renewal and independence. With God’s help, we will be able to do the same here at the South.
The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.
Good morning, Mr. Garlington. I hold myself and my family as children of this awakening. This awakening began for my family and I in 2018 with my acquisition of the Kennedey brother’s “The South was Right.” (Second Edition) The governments COVID response and the 2020 ‘”election” only deepened my distrust in those who have imbedded themselves in the general government. This includes the allegedly elected politicians and the swarms of unelected locust eating out our substance known as government bureaucrats. As my knowledge base has become more diverse (not a bad word in the context of moving beyond federal government sponsored education) and expansive, I see Southern secession as a possible, peaceful solution to the federal leviathan that seems to resist all efforts at reform. As A retired Naval veteran, I have served and continue to serve these united States with love and pride. I do not view the concept of secession in any other light than a potential opportunity for the people of the several States to return to the Constitution of our founding and draw up governments that more accurately reflect their will and right to self-determination. (California can do California; I am okay with that, just do you away from me and my kith and kin, please!) My study of the South has had the wonderful and added benefit of making me a better Christian, so I completely understand that this is all in His hands. (Thank God!) The salvation humanity was a “Lost Cause” until Christ came and made all things new again. If it be His will, may our prayers and supplications bring about the change government necessary to bring peace not only to the South, but the various other countries that other States may form. With the South as its own independent confederation, a confederation that recognizes Christ’s important role in governance, we can become an example to the other States of the former united States and ultimately to the world in general as we become less despotic at home and less aggressive abroad. Deo Vindice
“But the most important consideration is God’s Will – ‘Thy will be done’, as the Lord Jesus taught us to pray to our Heavenly Father. Is it God’s will that the South exist separately from the rest of the States? As any child with a request for its father, all we can do is ask that He would grant it, and then make the attempt, understanding that the answer could be Yes or No.”
If the answer is “no,” then we must ask why? Always aware that He may not choose to answer at this moment (or ever if He chooses). But in any event, I will never turn from God, nor from the South. JMO
I don’t know. Sometimes I look around and I think, it’s never coming back.
Thank you for this article. It speaks to me as I’ve been asking the Lord about this lately. It is my desire to live peaceably with everyone; however, our cultural differences are like a deep chasm. I believe everything happens for a reason, so maybe the current political climate will cause more of us to awaken and break away. I know I’m tired of being lied to!
If it is the Lord’s will for us to finally have our own country, I shall rejoice. If it is not, then I will be fine with that also. Everything in His perfect timing, but God bless Dixie!!
Also, would anyone happen to know of any educational associations, programs, or curriculum tailored to unreconstructed history for children? I’m a homeschooling mom of two (13yo boy and 10yo girl) in SC. Thank you in advance! Deo Vindice!!
Yes Ma’am. Try looking online at the Sam Davis Christian Youth Camp. It’s a wonderful week in the summer where the people teach Christian values and unreconstructed history. De Vindice
The constitutional option of secession always gives me hope. The biggest challenge will be which states would secede. Some states, sadly, are overrun with carpetbaggers who have done irreparable harm. Wonderful essay, Mr. Garlington.