A welcoming speech by Olena Semenyaka at Pact of Steel III conference
I welcome everyone at the 3rd edition of the annual Pact of Steel conference on behalf of the paneuropean Reconquista movement, Militant Zone and Plomin Club. This conference cycle is timed to Winter Solstice and *a special kind of* Black Metal Asgardsrei festival, already 7th.
It is no surprise that we gather here today before the musical part, because it has never been a purely musical event, just like the very genre of BM, in its original form, is above "only music."
Initially, this Pact of Steel between Eastern and Western Europe was "signed" in Russia. However, the increasing oppression of Russian nationalism by Putin's regime soon closed this opportunity. The rebirth of Asgardsrei festival happened in the post-revolutionary Ukraine, for the first time in 2015. Since then, it outgrew its initial format: this year, it will be a 2-day festival, in fact 3-day, and we needed a much bigger venue than last year.
Yet, united against the common enemy, quasi-Soviet Putin's Russia, Ukrainian, Russian and Belorussian nationalists gave birth to something bigger: the program of the Great European Reconquista. In 2016, it transformed into the geopolitical program of Intermarium, the union of Central and Eastern European countries, as a platform for the alternative European integration the endgoal of which is the Paneuropean confederation of sovereign nations, or simply Paneuropa. The first Paneuropa conference took place in Kyiv in 2017.
This event would never be possible without the feat of Ukrainian nationalists, their comrades from Russia, Belarus and other Eastern and Western European countries who laid down their lives not only for the independence of Ukraine, but, above all, for the rebirth of the West. This is our duty now to make sure that their sacrifice was not in vain.
Last year, Pact of Steel conference bore the title "After the Darkest European Hour." For we believe that after the darkest and longest European night, Kali-Yuga, Iron Age, there will inevitably be a new dawn. And the natural cycles, the day of Winter Solstice in particular, to which the current conference cycle is timed, promise us this eternal reccurrence.
But not only this. The Heathen worldview itself shows the way to our spiritual homeland out of the emptiness of European nihilism brought by secularized desert religions. European genetic code and Heathenism is represented in its purest archetypal form precisely in the Nordic countries, and today we are lucky to welcome here Frodi Midjord from The Faroe Islands, the founder of Scandza Forum, which lays a special emphasis on the nordic identity, and the host of "Guide to Kulchur" podcast. He will talk about the metaphysical foundations of European Heathenism, referring to Martin Heidegger's fundamental ontology in particular.
Afterwards, we will listen to Hendrik Möbus who'll have a rehearsal right after his speech along with legendary Absurd band that will headline Asgardsrei VII festival. We are extremely proud that Asgardrei festival was one of the reasons that inspired him to "return" to the public space and appear today here with the lecture about the White God of War, Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. The sun of Europe rises in the East, and this symbolical for the Reconquista Movement figure may be considered as the Wild Hunt incarnate.
