The History of Liberlandia

Fig. 1: Gretarian (left) and Hemogard (right) reflecting upon and recounting Liberlandia’s history.

Liberlandia was first founded by The Holy Kaiserreich of Gotawa on the 27^th of November of 2023, or two days before Henry Kissinger’s death. Liberlandia is the brainchild of Gotawa and Gretarian. The name of the region stems from their “love for freedom”, and, coincidentally, had nothing to do with the once ‘real’ “Free Republic of Liberland”, founded on April 13^th, 2015, on the banks of the river Danube. Ensuing the creation of the region, the following nations joined: North Admin Kylood, Hemogard, Thercus, Valistakhan, Phe len shy, Vrij, The democratic republic of, and White widow super cheese.

The region, which was a shared project between real-life friends, encountered a scramble for the role of WA Delegate between Gretarian and Hemogard. Their claim to this role was due to their relative seniority and the fact that North Admin Kylood, their elder, didn’t want the burden of being involved in political matters. Initally, whilst Hemogard had more endorsements thanks to unorthodox maneuvers, he was forced to abdicate from his position by Gotawa and his supporters, notably Thercus, who favoured Gretarian instead. Thus, Gretarian became the WA Delegate and Gotawa the regional Kaiser.

During the following month, Liberlandia continued to grow, with more nations, fruits of chat amongst the aforementioned friends, arriving, such as Drenchland, Kentuckystan, Mauritinia, and Novo isis, which was banned from the website immediately due to its inappropriate name. Throughout these halcyon days, the residents of the region engaged in much debate and brainstormed ideas for Liberlandia’s future.

In the month of January of the year 2024, elections were called upon by the region’s founders, as a way to reform and streamline the region’s government and ensure that all tasks are well distributed. Additionally, it was seen as a way to diversify the role-play experience and keep the NationStates experience fresh. The candidates for the position of Prime Minister were Hemogard, Gretarian, and Thercus. These elections were split into three steps: an opening speech delineating positions, a debate amongst candidates, and a session to answer questions. Of the three 5-hour-energy-fuelled-candidates, Gretarian won by popular vote, despite losing the debate according to the jury (composed of “impartial” Liberlandian Sovereign States). However, due to the soon-to-be-Prime-Minister’s compulsive need to “do his issues”, and a major oversight on his behalf, Gretarian doomed his chances at continuing in the World Assembly by logging into North Admin Kylood’s phone. Shortly after this, whilst still holding the privileges of the position of Prime Minister at the time of commanding the region, he appointed Hemogard as Liberlandia’s WA Delegate on February 6^th. 2024. Finally, Gretarian established his Cabinet, composed of Ministers of: Environment (Hemogard), the Interior (North Admin Kylood), Immigration (Valistakhan), and Foreign Affairs (Thercus).

On the one-hundredth (100^th day-anniversary of the region’s founding (7^th of March, 2024), the aforementioned Cabinet outvoted Gretarian, the Prime Minister, and thus the region became a Frontier. Due to this change, the position of Kaiser ceased to exist, and, after one-hundred and sixteen days of ruling, Gotawa lost his executive powers. On the seventeenth (17^th) of this very month of March, an embassy between Liberlandia and Imperial Sanctuary was established, with Histarctica leading the latter’s foreign relations. As shown later, this would be a pivotal moment for the region’s history. After gaining as many as 179 nations, a crushing majority of which inactive, the Cabinet decided that Liberlandia should revert back to the status of a Stronghold. This however, couldn't be done since the sheer volume of nations made switching away from a Frontier too costly in terms of regional influence. Therefore, “The Spring Purges” began and hundreds of inactive puppets and vacant accounts were ‘slaughtered’, and cast down into the The Rejected Realms. The region became a Stronghold again, and, with the indecisive and inexperienced Cabinet of those days, returned to a Frontier once more shortly after. Around this time, one of NationStates’ most loved and collaborative events arrived: The Wonders of The World event. The region’s Wonder of the World was created by Hemogard; The Historic Crisp Factory of the Artisan of Martos, which, thanks to the combined effort of Gretarian, Gotawa, and its creator, reached 11th place in the “Most Liked” category. This event saw the faces of new noteworthy nations, such as Hawkwas Sovustian, Tomington, The Duck Island, Neo-Numenor, and Pridnestrovian SSR, which would become intrinsic parts of the region’s nucleus. Noteworthy of a mention were the arrivals of New kiki and Kalmarheim as well, who left a positive impact in the little time they remained in the region. Another important event from the region’s first spring was that, with Hemogard in power, a series of ‘embassy-slashings’ began, in an effort to make the region “more serious” and cut ties with problematic regions like NATO 2022 and One Collective Brain Cell which had taken advantage of Liberlandia’s lack of expertise and naiveness to establish embassies.

On the third (3^rd) of June, Liberlandia formed and joined with Imperial Sanctuary the Atomic Defense Union (ADU), a defence union for NationStates’ event ‘N-Day’. On the twenty-fourth (24^th) of that same month, Liberlandia was proposed and granted observer status in the old Treaty of Entioch (ToE), an interregional alliance between Territories of the Asmor Federation, The Three Isles and Imperial Sanctuary, which became the United Confederation of Planets.

Between the months of May and August of 2024, Liberlandia entered a period of hiatus, with the clement weather of a fair summer discouraging many from attending to their nations. Consequently, the nations of
Kalmarheim, Phe len shy, New kiki, Kentuckystan, Valistakhan, and The democratic republic of ceased to exist, leaving a quasi-unfillable-void which remains to this day. As a product of this inactivity,
Hemogard resigned from the World Assembly, ceased being the regional delegate after some one-hundred and ninety-eight (198) days, and left the region to join The Black Hawks. Thus, Hawkwas Sovustian became the region’s unappointed and unelected delegate. Despite this, and despite his leaving, Hemogard remained the de facto leader of the region, and had the regional delegate revert the region back from frontier-dom to a Stronghold. This change was completed on the 30^th of September of said year. Hawkwas Sovustian ‘abdicated’ unofficially, and Gotawa officially retired as the region’s Kaiser, thereby leaving Hemogard in charge, who made the nation Hemogard of Liberlandia to avoid being an absent governor (and consequently having an executive WA Delegate). In order to follow suit with the democratic theme of the region, the name of the highest organ of regional power was changed to President.

Around that same time, the Liberlandia took part in her first N-Day, coordinating and siding with the Atomic Defense Union (ADU) on the occasion of N-Day ¹¹. This represented one of the first moments of Liberlandian unity, with Hemogard and Gretarian being vital elements of the ADU’s leadership and Liberlandia being the region with most participants and strikes within the faction. Moreover, this marked the beginning of the new Treaty of Entioch (ToE) and the region joining as a leading member. Throughout the following autumnal season, many changes were made to improve Liberlandia and equip her with indispensable tools such as a welcome telegram, a recruitment telegram, a new WFE, etc. which would enable routinary elections and set up a solid democratic system in place. Most of the until-now inactive Cabinet, counting with the quality contributions from Hawkwas Sovustian and some help from Tomington, collaborated on this effort. Thanks to this, the region is as we know her today. Liberlandia was founded on strong friendship and good discussions, and in just one year, she's grown immensely. The future holds endless possibilities, and you, the reader, can help shape it. After all, our future lies just ahead of us...

Written and compiled by Gretarian, 1^st of April of the year 2024, updated and polished by Hemogard, 16^th of November of the year 2024.