Garda de Fier

What do you think it would happen if the Statue of Aviators, the Arc de Triomphe, the statues of Michael the Brave, Cuza, Kogalniceanu, Eminescu or Spiru Haret in Bucharest were destroyed, as it has happened in recent years in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederate States, where all the monuments have been thrown to the ground? What would you say and how would you react to see that bushes and grass replaced these monuments of inestimable value representing a valuable page of past history? What’s the answer that you’ll would have? How would you characterize such a barbaric and primitive act of a minority that destroys your culture and history through the force of intimidation and all uncivilized means that simply cannot be described? How? What attitude will you take in the face of such a monstrous alternative?

Perhaps this will be a good lesson for some and hopefully they will be able to learn something from it…

It is the tragic story of the city of Richmond; certainly, no one wants this story to repeat itself and become the story of their cities…

But the story of the city of Richmond is not just a singular story of what happened in just one city in America; it is a story multiplied on a national scale, in other cities, villages, and so on, cemeteries or places where tens of thousands of southern symbols were destroyed and desecrated by the atheist left movement that caused so many horrors lately.

Therefore, do not let the legacy of our ancestors be desecrated and destroyed by the current progressivism! Because if we will not be the defenders of values inherited from our ancestors, we will wake up in a huge void of history, in a void that will surround our consciousness, without Truth, but also without Freedom…

In spite of the repeated surveys that shows that the majority of Virginia’s population opposed the destruction of monuments in no less than nine (9) referendums (citizens overwhelmingly voting to maintain Confederate memorials from the state of Virginia and its capital, Richmond), the people from the leadership (elected to supervise and defend the well being of the city), they had changed all of a sudden their opinion in favor of the so called new „social justice”. Encouraged by the few hundred extremist vandals and anarchists, the city’s leadership gave shamelessly rein free to the lawlessness and acts of desecration, final scenario of the destruction of Confederate monuments. We remind only in parenthesis that the proportion of whites in the state of Virginia is approx. 64.95 %, while African Americans (the black people) constitute about 19.01 %, as shown by recent statistics concerning the state of Virginia (2022), the rest being a conglomerate of other races: hispanics, latins and asians.

For the city of Richmond that we are mentioning, the latest demographic data indicate that the proportion of whites is 57%, compared to that of blacks representing approx. 28%, the rest representing other races.

Personally, I visited the city only for a few days, more than 15 years ago, in the sunny spring air flooded by the raw green of the beginning of the May month and the fragrance of spring flowers. I was truly impressed, fascinated forever by the beauty of the buildings and the grandeur of the monuments encountered in the short respite I had at my disposal.One of the most famous and visited historic streets of the city, “Monument Avenue” covers a length of about 2 km., guarded in the middle and on both sides by trees, of flowers and beautifully landscaped green spaces almost throughout its entire course. Built between 1890 and 1929, “Monument Avenue” is a unique residential boulevard. As one of the oldest major cities in the United States, Richmond presents stunning examples of architectural styles. Some of its oldest houses and buildings dates back few centuries, ranking Richmond as the city with the most varied historical architecture. The colonial style prevails, the two-story red brick houses of the late nineteenth century, with porticoes, white columns, white painted ornaments and multiple windows flanked by shutters, two-story houses, that it is kept in very good conditions even today along this impressive boulevard.

Not to long ago, six monuments where located along the major intersections of the boulevard, five of them in honor of Confederate military leaders and one in honor of the famous tennis player Arthur Ashe, born in Richmond.
At short intervals, intermingling with the smaller arteries of the city, roundabouts surrounded the old bronze statues aligned on granite or marble pedestals, paying tribute to those who fought for the Confederation: J.E.B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Matthew Fontaine Maury and, of course, the majestic monument dedicated to Gen. Robert E. Lee who, by his massiveness, height and greatness dominated the entire city of Richmond over the years.
Paved mostly with the cubic stone laid so ever since its construction and of the residences, the wide boulevard seems deserted today after the removal of monuments, a table of contents abandoned by life that once pulsed by the conquered fame and by the tourists.
It remained known as the nation’s only grandiose residential boulevard, with memorials that survived mostly unchanged until their arbitrary destruction in recent years.

“Monument Avenue” (named so after the first monument built, that of Gen. Robert E. Lee), it served as a constant physical reminder of the deep-rooted commitment to honor and promote the Confederacy and its cause in the Civil War that occurred well over 150 years ago.

Today, the remains of Confederate statues lie thrown out in the open in an unknown location, stacked in a deserted place near the river that runs through the capital of Virginia, location surrounded by fences and barbwire, under constant surveillance of the authorities and hidden by any prying eyes that could jeopardize his secret. The few chosen “on the eyebrow” to visit the place in question, were accepted only on the condition that they did will not reveal or show any clues about the location under the ridiculous pretense that it is because of the “security reasons”. It seems, however, to be a former industrial area, most likely decommissioned and desolate for many years, near a water plant as we can infer from what the said “lucky” journalists who have committed themselves before the authorities to keep secret, but especially not to explain their fears. Fears can be only of total “repudiation”, and addressing only about the historical figures who represented the Confederate State – as is clear from an article on this delicate subject – and whose monuments dismembered have had found “the end they deserved”, thrown on the slabs of concrete and the gravel of an abandoned parking lot, and for which we do not have the right to say anything “contradictory” (in other words to “debate”), the truth imposed being only one; without crocodile tears and questioning, the authorities know the situation well, especially with quasi-totalitarian administration that we have today, where any right to reply simply “incriminates”!

One of the “lucky” ones that I mentioned before, a correspondent of the international news agency “Associated Press”, quite sarcastically explained what he saw on the spot (this time inside of one of the the buildings), where there is “a room full with these bronze men sitting around the sewage pumps, face to face, surrounded by the bayonets and other relics of war. Even after the standards of white supremacists’ gatherings – he writes – it sounds like the worst party cocktail ever to have taken place”.

Our correspondent amuse us telling us such a story, but we thank him for this confirmation that also brings light about other memorial monuments on the territory of the state of Virginia desecrated and vandalized by anarchists, statues about which nothing was known for a long time, nor where they were “stored”, nor where they put them, away from people’s eyes. As we can see, every evil has its good also!… 

But even though marble, granite, stone and bronze can be removed (as many noted on their open protests against de removal of the monuments), history remains the same forever! We are talking about history, whether we like it or not, which we must respect and learn some from it.As we can observed, the vast majority of those who have written lately about the destruction of monuments in Richmond in the commissioned press do not know this distinction, simple dreamers who are trying to invert our mind fiercely to explain to us at all costs the opposite and to demonstrate us the significance of the resulted “social benefit”.

John Simpson, like many other American historians shows that the construction of these monuments was „more of nostalgic and moral nature”, to maintain the „revival of the southern pride and self-confidence”, in other words a romanticized effort of preservation by the Southerners to protect and preserve their heritage and their culture. He also claims that the Civil War did not happen exclusively because of the slavery, but to protect the rights of the southern states, and the Confederate soldiers sought only to protect their territories invaded by Northern troops. Of course, other historians refute this thesis and contest it in different terms, claiming that the war also led to the abolition of slavery, even though the slavery was maintained after that for many years – in one form or another – both in the North and the South.

In the spirit of reconciliation agreed between the two sides at the end of the bloody conflict that took place, the erection of the Confederate and unionist monuments was agreed by both sides to be, both in the North and in the South.Today, as we can see, the reconciliation has come to a standstill, subordinated to other interests that further divide American society, subjected to the most drastic measures of coercion. Fear of the truth is deadly to some!

Indisputably, the tragedy that occurred “between the same brothers” of America and the wounds of the Civil War were deep for all! Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have lost their lives in the conflict without being able to choose their battle camp; therefore, the destruction of the monuments constitutes a real defilement of their memory and of history, and no matter how today’s “counterculture” intend to rewrite it, the history can neither be erased nor buried! Truth cannot be converted!The monument of the brave Gen. Robert E. Lee from Richmond (riding the horse above a large marble base over 18 meters high), was the first monument installed in 1890 in the former Confederate capital and, eventually, it will also be the last to be removed from the city at 8 Sept. 2021. The equestrian work of Gen. Lee, built in France and shipped to Virginia (included – as we said – in the National Register of Historic Places of America along with the other monuments in Richmond), survived as one of the largest and most imposing statues of the city for over 130 years. Now, roughly cut from the middle, its figure stands thrown next to other great Confederate generals, in a real and almost unreal “cemetery of destroyed and desacralized monuments” to appease the whims of a few ignorant and hateful activists, whims instilled and modeled even from the time of the “sublime” President Barack Obama, who has done nothing but exacerbate racial tensions, being described as a social problem that needed to be fixed. Nothing more falsely!

A COLLATERAL VICTIM

After standing sentinel for more than twenty years near the front entrance of the Museum of History and Culture of Virginia – the “Confederate Memorial Institute” (Battle Abbey) that merged in 1958 with “Virginia Society of History” – a bronze sculpture called „The War horse” was also removed and relocated in May 2019. Created by English sculptor Tessa Pullan, the statue was given to the Society of History and features a horse without rider, which pays tribute to more than a million and a half horses and mules that were killed in battle during the Civil War. Now, the statue lies almost hidden from public view, behind the museum, where it was deposited. Does this statue also offend, just because it was donated to a historical institution of Confederate origin?

“RUMORS OF WAR”

A statue titled “Rumors of War”, sculpted by Kehinde Wiley and installed several years ago in Richmond – as an example – defines plastic series of progressive avant-garde art, representing a young African-American with braided hair like a ponytail, wearing jeans ripped on the knees, sneakers branded Nike and a hoodie. The bronze horse and the rider stand defiantly above a granit pedestal in front of the Museum of Fine Arts in Virginia and, perhaps not by chance, right next to the headquarters of “United Daughters of theConfederacy” building. “The masterpiece” was unveiled in Richmond on December 10, 2019, after it previously stopped in Times Square in New York, under the patronage of several left-wing associations in this nebulous city.

It should be noted that the heroic appearance of the statue was copied (others say “modelled”) after the almost identical equestrian work of 1907 dedicated to Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart, located a short distance from the new sculpture. A few months later, on July 7, 2020, as you can imagine, the statue of General Stuart was taken down.While thousands of Confederate historical statues have been decimated, new ones have taken their place according to the counterculture method that is unfolding unhindered on a national scale. Statues with Lenin, busts with Mao Te Dun, Engels and Marx appeared, and in some parts even those of terrorists in the Marxist-Leninist organization “Black Panthers” or “Black Liberation Movement”, another communist organization created in the early ’70s, that produced numerous terrorist attacks resulting in hundreds of victims. Ironically, three great statues depicting Lenin are in the United States. One of the statues is found in the city of Seattle, one large bust in Los Angeles and another one in the city of New York. Fortunately, the statue of Lenin installed in front of the “Mandaley” hotel in Las Vegas and of the restaurant “Red Square”, was dislocated in 2019 following numerous protests from tourists. The same thing happened with Lenin’s statue in the city of Willimantic, in the state of Connecticut, which was also removed due to the pressure from the discontented people. In Bedford, Virginia, in a memorial there is glorified the very bust of the “father of peoples”, the odious criminal I. V’s. Stalin, known for his killing of millions of people who fell victim to him in the soviet gulags. Many other statues installed on the properties of communist followers and sympathizers are currently hidden from view, but because we find ourselves under a full leftist totalitarianism, it won’t be long and we’ll see them taken out to “light”. The list may go on, but I stop here. About the portraits of communist leaders displayed in the halls and campuses of American universities, holding hostages the minds of students washed away by communist ideology, we’ll talk on another occasion.

Today, the tourist office of the city organizes paid tours at the places where, until recently, stood the famous Confederate monuments on Monument Avenue, “to explore the reasons for erecting monuments” and, of course, “understand the reasons why they were removed”. A little brainwashing doesn’t hurt! Also, the tour also includes visiting former residences of Confederate leaders: J.E.B. Stuart, General Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Matthew Fontaine Maury, that are still standing, and is ending at the Arthur Ashe Monument, the sixth and most recent added monument left unaffected on the boulevard.

Tired of so many sacrileges committed, the city of Richmond will silently try to recover his former glory and eventually, perhaps it will be able to wipe away the wounds so deep for which he suffered in silence and endured it with so much resignation in the last few years. The immortal spirit of the brave General Lee still floats triumphantly over the crests of the surrounding heights, and he cannot be knocked down from history…

• Images: Judy Smith. Photo 1 (Gen. Robert E. Lee Monument); 2 (J.E.B. Stuart Monument); 3 (Jefferson Davis Monument); 4 (Gen. Robert E. Lee Monument); Photo 5 – 6 (Lenin Nolly) showing the remains of many Confederate statues, stacked under the open sky; in the first image, the statue of Gen. A. P. Hill, mockingly “honored” with two tires hanging from his neck); Photo 7 – 8 (Judy Smith): The Confederate Chapel and Gen. Robert E. Lee chapel; Photo 9 (Judy Smith) “War horse”; Photo 9 (VMFA): Rumors of war; Photo 10 (Judy Smith): Memorial dedicated to the 18,000 Confederate soldiers who rest in the “Hollywood” cemetery in Richmond, the only memorial of proportions whose fate has not yet been decided…

THE STORY OF THE MONUMENTS

J.E.B. STUART MONUMENT

On 14 May 1864, two days after Major General James Ewell Brown „J.E.B.” Stuart died of an injury received at the Battle of Yellow Tavern, The Richmond City Council created the Stuart Monumental Association with the task of erecting a monument to the Confederate Army’s most famous cavalry leader. The Stuart Monumental Association failed to produce a considerable monument, however, given the harsh conditions of the last year of the civil war and dissolved. It’s been 25 years before any further steps were taken to commemorate Stuart. In 1892, the Association of Cavalry Veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia incorporated and began the process of erecting a monument of the Confederate leader. In 1903, the Association selected the project of the sculptor Frederick Moynihan, and a year later it was also chosen the location, on Monument Boulevard. On 31 May 1907, J.E.B. The Stuart Monument was inaugurated in front of a crowd of tens of thousands of people during the U. S. Confederation Veterans’ Reunion, just eight days before the unveiling of the Jefferson Davis Monument.

JEFFERSON DAVIS MONUMENT

The Jefferson Davis Monument in Richmond was unveiled on June 3rd, 1907 in the presence of an impressive crowd estimated to be between 180,000 and 200,000 people. Almost immediately after his death in 1889, the officials of the city of Richmond and the Veterans of the United Confederacy, as a sign of tribute and respect due to the statesman – former President of the Confederate States of America -, decided to erect a sizeable monument to be placed in the former capital of the Confederacy, Richmond. The “Jefferson Davis Monument Association” was established and the efforts to erect the monument began. Despite of their efforts, the Association was unable to obtain all the necessary funds and, in 1896 it was decided that the United Daughters of the Confederacy would take over and continue this task. Although they encountered many problems in the difficult conditions of restoration that were still felt after the civil war, after almost eighteen years since the decision was initiated, under their leadership, the monument project will be completed. Architects: William C. Noland and sculptor Edward V. Valentin.

STONEWALL JACKSON MONUMENT

Designed by local sculptor Frederick William Sievers, the Stonewall Jackson Monument was unveiled on October 11, 1919 in front of a huge crowd of tens of thousands of people. However, the memorial was not the only one in Richmond for the former Confederate leader. In June 1863, a month after Jackson’s death, British allies in the South created the Jackson Monumental Fund to raise money for a Jackson memorial to be erected in Richmond. In 1875, the British Fund presented Virginia with a bronze statue of Jackson, was placed in Richmond’s Capitol Square. Virginia was still politically divided in the decade after the war, so then-governor James L. Kemper used the occasion as a unifying sentiment, a virtue and honor for which Stonewall Jackson was well known and admiredaround the world. Thirty-six years later, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and a group of Confederate veterans formed the “Jackson Monumental Corporation” in 1911 with the intention of creating the Jackson Monument to be placed in line with the other on Monument Boulevard; eight years later, the construction was completed, in the fall of 1919.

THE MONUMENT OF MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY

Unlike other Confederate monuments, the proposal for the statue of Matthew Fontaine Maury was not inspired by his military career in support of the Confederation, but to show its scientific contributions. Maury is considered by many to be the father of modern oceanography, and his scientific contributions have revolutionized ocean travel. Designed by Frederick William Sievers, who is also the author of the Stonewall Jackson Monument, the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument was unveiled to the crowd in November 11, 1929.

GEN. ROBERT E. LEE MONUMENT

This monument was first proposed to be built shortly after the death of Gen. Robert E. Lee in 1870. The project was completed twenty years later in 1890. The bronze equestrian statue of Lee on his famous horse called “The Traveler” was designed by French sculptor Jean Antoine Mercie and cast in four sections. The General Robert E. Lee Monument was officially unveiled on May 29, 1890, before an estimated crowd of about 150,000 people. Colonel Archer Anderson, a former Confederate military officer, delivered the keynote address highlighting General Lee’s historic figure as a man of action and hero of his home state of Virginia. In 2020, following escalating violent left-wing protests and anarchism, out of fear, then-Governor of Virginia Ralph Northam ordered the monument removed. The district courts upheld the governor’s decision, but the decision was challenged by the descendant confederate associations. In the face of pressure from anarchist-terrorist organizations, the Supreme Court of Virginia arrogated its right to decide, rejecting the appeal (a true black mark on the face of justice), and the statue of General Lee was removed a year later in September 2021.

ARTHUR ASHE MONUMENT

After his death in 1993, Richmond sought to honor Arthur Ashe as a sporting and humanitarian hero, thus rewarding his efforts for the benefit of his hometown. Ashe spent most of his youth in Richmond. During his professional career, Ashe became the first black man to play in the Davis Cup, the first and only black man to win the US Championships and Wimbledon. Before his death, Ashe collaborated with sculptor Paul DiPasquale to create himself a statue, which was to be placed in front of the African-American gym in Richmond. Former Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder made the controversial suggestion that the statue be placed on Monument Avenue. Over the next 18 months, public debate took place, with various opinions centered around the location of Ashe’s statue. Ultimately, the city boldly supported the decision to place the Arthur Ashe memorial on Monument Avenue, forever changing the look and history of the Boulevard. On July 10, 1996, the Arthur Ashe monument was unveiled in front of a crowd of approx. 2,000 people, and on December 3, 1997, the monument was also designated as a national historical landmark.
Photo 1 – 5: Judy Smith. Photo 6: Mary Ann Sullivan.

IN CHARLOTTESVILLE

We are concluding this article with a simple note about what happened in another locality in Virginia, hit in its turn by the Marxist earthquake.  Not to far away, in the northwest of Richmond, in the pretty little town of Charlottesville, two prominent Confederate historical monuments — the statue of General Lee and that of Thomas J. Jackson, the latter known as the Stonewall Jackson Monument — also suffered the same tragic fate like those of Richmond. The first one I mentioned, the statue of Gen. Lee, erected 100 years ago in the beautiful park that bore his name until recently, was melted down in October last fall, to create from it – as we learn from the website of the Marxist television station CNN – “a new art”! We can imagine what kind of art!^*) About the fate of the other statue, not being able to learn any other details for the time due to the care of the censorship that forbids us the right to such information, we cannot pronounce ourself, but it should not be a surprise to read sometime in a corner of a newspaper that the statue was in turn melted in Satan’s furnaces, for the benefit of the same “new art”.

^*) – The acquisition of “modernist art” has become a permanent preoccupation of the Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond as an expression of the left-wing progressivism that it assiduously cultivates. An example of this “art”, we are presenting it somewhere below…

Stonewall Jackson Monument in Charlottesville. Photo: Judy Smith.

Stonewall Jackson Monument in Charlottesville. Photo: Judy Smith. The bassoreliefs smashed and mutiladed by the marxist houligans.

Stonewall Jackson bassoreliefs in their original form. Photo: Judy Smith.

Robert E. Lee Monument in Charlottesville (melted in October last year). Photo: Judy Smith.

THE “NEW ART”

“Man and Vegetation” – avant-gardism exhibited in the park of the Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, a  sample of the anarchist subculture that seems to update and express the “moments of 2020” and white subjugation by “kissing the feet”, a familiar setting for those who were witnesses to these moments of racial humiliation, clearly expressed in the present “work” where the paw of the left foot remains conscientious  awaiting… “the white customers”! Photo: (VMFA). Photo: (VMFA).