Leadership and Culture Creation

Christ Church in Weems, VA

​We have perhaps imbibed a little too heavily of the libertarian likker here at the South of late, believing naively that when a need arises, ‘the market’ will spontaneously act to meet that need.  This is not an ironclad law by any means.  Especially when it comes to the creation and preservation of a people’s culture, strong leadership that is willing to undergo hardships and sacrifices, rather than acquiesce to the soft seductions of monetary profits and related interests, is often needed.
 
Serbian and Southern history again intertwine to illustrate this for us.  We begin with Stefan Lazarevic (+1427; also called Stefan the Tall), the son of the Great Martyr at the Battle of Kosovo Polje, Prince Lazar (+1389).  Serbia had been crushed by the Muslim Turks; if decisive action were not taken, Serbia’s Christian identity itself was at risk of being lost.  Thankfully for the Serbian people, the very young Stefan did not shrink back but took upon himself the difficult task of putting the shattered pieces of the Serbian ethnos back together again:

Already as a thirteen-year-old, by coincidence, he began his ruling career. And the task is too difficult - Serbia with great material and human sacrifices, in which there is powerlessness and general fear of the Turkish invasion.
 
The surviving nobles retreated to their territories without wanting to take care of the population.
 
In such circumstances and with the wholehearted help of his mother, Stefan matured as a person, statesman and warrior.  . . .
 
As an Ottoman vassal, Stefan led Serbian detachments in the battles of Rovine, near Nikopolje and Angora.
 
The Battle of Angora in 1402 was a heavy defeat for the Ottoman forces, but also the place where Stefan's warrior skills shone the most. After her, he received the title of despot.
 
The writer Aleksandar Tešić, the author of the novel about despot Stefan "The one who taught darkness to shine", says:
 
"After this battle, the fame of despot Stefan spread far and wide. Everyone admired him like a warrior. Even the Mongols "took off his hat". On the other hand, in the battle of Angora, Sultan Bayezid was captured and soon died, and there was a statement by despot Stefan that it was his happiest day because he freed himself from Bayezid's shackles."

​A parallel may be seen in the way Dixie had to pull herself together after falling to the Yanks in the War:

William G. “Parson” Brownlow was a Tennessee Unionist who did not discriminate between black Africans and white Southerners; he hated both equally. After the war, Brownlow was elected Tennessee Governor in an election in which only other white Unionists were allowed to vote. Of Southern whites Governor Brownlow decreed, “Let them be exterminated,” and called on the federal government to “make the entire South as God formed the earth, without form or void.” In turn, Forrest responded, “If they bring this war upon us, there is one thing I will tell you – that I shall not shoot any negroes so long as I can see a white Radical to shoot, for it is the Radicals who will be to blame for bringing on this war.” When Brownlow went to the U.S. Senate and Clinton DeWitt Senter (a more moderate Tennessee Unionist) took his place as Governor, Senter ceased his predecessor’s apocalyptic threats, disbanded the militia, and promised to restore suffrage to former Confederates. Forrest considered the Klan’s mission accomplished and ordered its disbandment. “There was no further need for it,” he explained. “The country was safe.” - James R. Roesch

​But a leader’s work does not end simply because the clash of swords has ceased.  The well-being of a people is not secure without the protection and enhancement of their cultural edifice.  Just as a man needs a home to dwell in, so a community of men needs a culture to live within.
 
St Stefan’s example is helpful and very multifaceted:

Deeply aware of the delicate position of small Serbia among the great ones, in 1403 Despot Stefan became a vassal of the Hungarian King Sigismund. However, in exchange for that, Serbia got its "white city", Belgrade became an integral part of Serbia and its capital.
 
Until that time, Belgrade was a ruined, abandoned and "haunted" city. The despot took care of him and ruled in him for about 15 years. There he also built a church dedicated to the Mother of God, the protector of both him and Belgrade. The newly created capital proclaimed the Ascension of the Lord - Savior's Day - as its SLAVA, and that has not changed to this day.
 
Thanks to his exceptional skill in governing, Despot Stefan broke the resistance of the authorities, and he used the periods of peace to strengthen Serbia in political, economic, cultural and military terms.
 
 . . .
 
It would be difficult to find a more versatile and educated ruler in Serbian history than despot Stefan. But he also has an exceptional place in the history of Serbian medieval literature.
 
This ruler of a fervent soul wrote "The Word of Love" (Slovo ljubve), one of the most beautiful and most discreet poetic works in the Serbian language. That anthem of love was created in the time of short-term freedom, when the time of vassalship passed. The "Slovo ljubve " or "Word of love" consists of ten parts (stanzas), whose initial letters give its name to the so-called acrostic.
 . . .
 
The great enlightening role of despot Stefan is best reflected in the founding of the monastic transcription school in his endowment Manasija, which at that time was unique in the Balkans and culturally important not only for Serbia but for all other Slavic peoples in Europe.
 
In that school, not only various significant modern Byzantine church and secular works were translated from Greek, but also corrections of many previously translated such books were made, through which mistakes made either due to insufficient knowledge of the Greek language or due to disorder of old Serbian orthography were corrected.
 
He ordered his biographer Constantine the philosopher to create a grammar of the Serbian language better known as "Skazanije o pismenih" (A Tale of Letters).

​We see the same activity in the older generations of the South.  Robert ‘King’ Carter of colonial Virginia, and his father, John, built the famous Christ Church in the 17th century, which still stands.
 
Nineteenth-century Louisiana produced two notable examples of cultural crafting in Francois Valcour Aimé and Charles Gayarré.
 
Among the acts of Mr Aimé are these:

Aime donated money as well as a pair of large silver candlesticks and a set of the Stations of the Cross to St. James Catholic Church. In 1859 Aime purchased and reopened Jefferson College for $20,000 and established a governing board of directors comprised of his four sons-in-law: Florent Fortier, Alexis Ferry, Septime Fortier, and Alfred Roman. Aime constructed a Gothic chapel on the campus dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in memory of Gabriel and Felicie.
 
 . . .
 
In 1864 Aime transferred Jefferson College to the Society of Mary, re-creating it as the first Marist college in the United States. 

​About Mr Gayarré, we find that he contributed the following:

New Orleans native Charles Gayarré wrote the first complete history of Louisiana: a four-volume series entitled Louisiana History (1866). Originally written in French, his study focused on the region’s domination by France, Spain, and then the United States. Many of the components for this work came out of public lectures that Gayarré began giving in the 1840s. He also wrote and published other histories, political tracts, government reports, plays, novels, biographies, and articles in numerous journals, establishing himself as one of Louisiana’s literary pioneers.
 
 . . . At his death on February 11, 1895, Gayarré was poor but well respected by his friends and colleagues as the father of Louisiana history and one of the state’s literary pioneers. At Gayarré’s death, [Grace] King wrote that the “early cultural history of the state” was being buried with him.

​As these and other examples show, a beautiful culture does not arise from ‘spontaneous free market forces’ any more than a beautiful, orderly cosmos arises from the random collision of individual atoms.  Focused, determined leaders willing to sacrifice their fortunes and energies, confront grief and pain, and so forth are essential.  But the allure of money, comfort, ‘fun’, and other such modernisms (not to mention the lies of Yankees and others about Southern culture) has dissipated the ability of Dixie’s folk to perpetuate the leadership needed to build and maintain such a culture.  It is all the more imperative, then, to look back into the past – our own, as well as that of other Christian countries like Serbia – to draw inspiration and practical lessons for the difficult task of re-establishing a vibrant Christian culture in our beloved Southland.
 
A great champion of Georgian national autonomy, Mr Ilia Chavchavadze (+1907; canonized as St Ilia the Righteous in 1987 by the Georgian Orthodox Church) identifies the three fundamental strands of a people’s cultural tapestry and then asks a pertinent question about them:

​Ilia the Righteous was often heard declaring, “We, the Georgian people, have inherited three divine gifts from our ancestors: our motherland, our language and our faith. If we fail to protect these gifts, what merit will we have as men?”

​This is precisely the question we must ask ourselves as Southerners.