The Banner of Christ
No one foresaw what was going to happen, what was to transpire in the last months of 2014. The 21st century in our world was an epic story of misery, freedom, war, prosperity and new found sense of renewal, yet for our tiny Bogorian Republic in the centre of Lusankya, it was just misery and war. 1999 presented itself as our sense of renewal, the end of 41 years of cruel socialism under a failed socialist republic, it was our chance to begin a new, a chance to right the wrongs of 41 years of oppression and division between us, a chance to rebuild Bogoria as a nation of all Bogorians, a nation for all of us.
Yet the 21st century much like the previous proved, to be not so productive, our utopian like dreams and ambitions for our democracy never came fruition, perhaps... it is because they were utopian. We are a divided nation, we despise one another, this is not a class war, but a racial and sectarian war. The north, so beautiful in geography, so beautiful in culture and architecture, the south, so brutal looking, so deprived and rejected, desolate farmland, separated by sprawls of grey urban land, so miserable and lacklustre, denied the same beauty of the north for so long. The north, the lands of the Gods, the south the land of Christ and his holy mother, so divided and so despised.
No one saw the war coming, many knew one would come eventually, but none foresaw the war that destroyed us. Like a great storm cloud on the horizon, hovering, impending and yet so far away, we did not see it move over us, we did not feel the rain until the buildings burned and the people died. Our tiny Republic, drowning in blood, drowning in burnt flesh and ruined homes, our tiny Republic, the victim of the machinations of a greater neighbour, the innocent prey of a hungry predator, eager for land, labour and resources, our tiny Republic, no more.
Why we wondered, did such a fate be deserved by our tiny Republic. We were not an evil land, we did not seek hegemony, we did seek no world domination or glory, we only sought the freedom and liberty denied to us by Marxist ideologues for 41 years, yet I suppose it was our destiny to receive such an end, nations rise and fall, people rise to the top and fall to the bottom, this is the way of things, it is the way history is written, yet why such an end? We entered the 21st century with such naive optimism, we could be dismissed as dreamers, as air-headed liberals, least we were by the South. Many, in decades to come will ask the all important question; who is to blame for our bloody end? Was it the kind hearted President, Algirdas Kirkilas? Was it the patriotic yet dogmatic Prime Minister Milos Spidla? Or was it the hero of the south Wislaw Sokol? Or perhaps was the entire end of our tiny Republic the work of the man in Romula, in his palace of righteousness?
Perhaps it does matter who is to blame for the end our tiny republic, perhaps we all hold some blame, the northerner who looked at the south with indifference, the southerner who looked to north with stern pride, the northerner who looked to the south in anger and contempt, the southerner who looked at the north with envious eyes. Perhaps when a nation falls, we should all accept the nature of life, the nature of things, to use a Rodarian saying, “the Lord works in mysterious ways, yet the world has an order of things.” One day Rodarion will fall, one day Emmeria and Belhavia will fall and in their place others will rise and they too will fall, yet I hope we can lament that Bogoria never rose at all before it fell.
Our tiny Republic, silent. Our tiny Republic devoid of laughter, devoid of smiles and grins, devoid of love and compassion, our tiny Republic devoid of green, red and yellow, our tiny Republic devoid of life. Our tiny Republic, no more. Above the ruins, above the dead flowers, fields, forests and hills, above the silent children and the soulless mothers, flutters a banner, the Banner of Christ in victorious splendour.
- Gabriella Kirkilas, daughter of the late Algirdas Kirkilas
