Grand Duchy of Navārdia

Grand Duchy of Navārdia Grandduklando de Navārdia
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Motto Pluribus unitus en pactum (Latin: Many united under one covenant)
Peachtree City, Georgia, United States
Capital city	Capital Province
Largest city	Pope Island
Official language(s)	English, Esperanto
Short name	Navārdia
Demonym	Navārdian
Government	Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
- Grand Duke	Casper von Navārdia
Legislature	Parliament
Established	September 9th, 2019 Fall 2017 (as Chocomarina)
Disestablished	December 31st, 2019
Area claimed	3.238 acres
Population	7 (as of December 2019 census)
Currency	US Dollar (de facto)
Time zone	Central Navārdia Time (UTC-4:22)
National sport	Broomball
National drink	Eggnog
National animal	Whitetail Deer
Patron saint	Blessed Gerard (de facto)
This nation was a member of the LPN and ARU
Government website

Navārdia, officially known as the Grand Duchy of Navārdia, was a territorial entity which claimed to be sovereign state, often classified as a micronation. It was made up of three noncontiguous pieces of land in the deciduous forest region of North America, including two provinces and an honorary district. All of the landlocked territory of Navārdia was surrounded by the United States of America.

Navārdia was founded to establish a government that utilized modern ideals, give every citizen an opportunity to directly affect their nation’s legislative forces and create a tight knit community with hygge on the North American continent. Its culture was mainly inspired by that of North American and European nations; specific examples include the United States, Germany, Denmark and the Baltics.

Navārdia had a notably open foreign policy, and in late October of 2019 the nation began communicating with the greater micronational community. This led to Navārdia joining the League of Professional Nations and founding the Atlanta Regional Union. The organizations hosted some of Navārdia’s most notable allies.

Etymology

The name Navārdia comes from the Latvian term nav vārda, meaning no name in English. This name was picked by Navārdia’s founder himself to reflect the nation’s Baltic roots, and to symbolize coming from nothing; Navārdia was a large project taken on by a grassroots team and this name forever memorializes the dream of the first Navārdians.

There is a French wine company called Navardia. It has no association with Navārdia, and the similarity in name has not discovered until 2020. The government of Navārdia blames the collective creativity phenomenon.

Over the course of history, Navārdia and its predecessor states had two distinct names.

• Fall 2017 to April 5th, 2020 Chocomarina
• September 9th to December 31st, 2019 Grand Duchy of Navārdia

History

Pre-Navārdia

A digital recreation of the flag of Chocomarina.

At some point while he lived North Carolina, likely Fall of 2017, Casper discovered the website of the Republic of Molossia. He became inspired to create a micronation of his own with his friends, and began to write about his nation-in-progress in a journal.

Based on the contents of the journal, which was rediscovered in late March of 2020, the nation was to be called Chocomarina. A flag was designed for the nation, and the cellular network industry was intended to be nationalized by the end of 2018. Not much else was written about the nation; even its government structure appears to be lost to time.

Though it was the subject of many discussions and writings, declarating Chocomarinian independence was delayed several times, as Casper knew that he would soon move to another state - at the time, long distance governance was an impossibility. Despite this delay, it is believed that Chocomarina was established before Casper left North Carolina, and was simply forgotten over time.

Nearly two years later, on September 2nd, 2019, Casper (now living in Georgia) read an article on weird historical events. One of the events listed was Leicester Hemingway’s creation of New Atlantis, a 240 square foot raft that he tried to turn into an independent nation. Linked to that article was a second article detailing the modern micronation phenomenon, and linked to that were the websites of several micronational governments.

The learning pathway led to Casper rediscover micronationalism. He deciding to create the first nation in Peachtree City, a perfect location for such projects due to its varied geography and vast network of golf cart paths. For about a week, Casper researched existing micronations, governing styles, vexillology and family history to inspire the new nation. A flag was designed after several prototypes, with the final draft taking the most inspiration from Akhzivland and Aruba. A royal democracy was found to be the most effective system of governance for the small nation, and a constitution was written following those principles.

Naming the nation, however, was a challenge once again. After failing to come up with a fitting name for about a week, Casper decided to call the nation Navārdia, meaning “no name” in the ancestral language of Latvian. With a name, law and flag decided upon, the Grand Duchy of Navārdia was declared independent on September 9th, 2019.

Independence

Despite being a one man nation, Navārdia faired well for its first few weeks. More government research was pursued, and three laws were passed. On September 23rd, however, Grand Duke Great Grandfather William von Navārdia passed away. A funeral was soon planned in the U.S. state of Kentucky, a place where much of the Grand Ducal family stemmed from.

Nearly the entire Grand Ducal family arrived for the funeral weekend. Despite the unfortunate circumstances, the family spent time reminiscing about memories of William and enjoying the rare, large company the event brought about. After the funeral, Casper annexed a patch of land in Kentucky, in honor of his great grandfather, and the time spent with family in Kentucky. The land was initially called the Memorial Honorary District of Todge, but is today called the Town of Todge.

Shortly after the funeral and annexation, Casper's laptop fried. As such, development of national online resources was relegated to an iPhone. To take advantage of the limitation, citizenship applications were sent to colleagues at a church meetup via AirDrop, to no avail (all recorded responses were memes and other spam). However, one individual unrelated to the meetup became a citizen that evening via iMessage, ending Navārdia's time as a one man nation.

With the nation expanded in size and population, the government became interested in establishing diplomacy, particularly within the Atlanta Cluster. Of particular interest was the nation of Uncornia, thought to have been founded by acquaintances of Casper. With knowledge of several local nations, the government began to advocate for an organization to unite the Atlanta Cluster. Citizens and associated Americans agreed with the idea unanimously, and with that, formation of the organization began.

Late into October, the nation experienced a peak in activity. A military and police force by the name of the Internal Services Office was founded on the 19th. A resident of the Capital Province allowed Casper access to their computer, resuming development of the national website and other such tools. On the 23rd, another citizen was accepted into the nation as an Internal Services officer, and Pope Island was annexed by her recommendation. The next day, Unicornian diarchs organized a meeting with Grand Duke Casper, during which a mutual recognition and defense treaty was signed. Finally, on Halloween night, the first ever national gala was organized by Casper and Officer Eggs Benedict.

On November 10th, Casper created a government email address for intermicronational community, soon after signing a treaty with the Kingdom of Phokland. Tsar Charles of Phokland invited Navārdia to the League of Professional Nations after establishing mutual recognition, an invitation that was quickly accepted. Lehmark and Ledilia, both fellow members of the league, signed mutual recognition treaties with Navārdia soon after.

On the 27th, Navārdia was accepted as a part of the Union of East-Erica, a transcontinental confederation consisting at the time of Phokland and Lehmark. However, Lehmark suddenly dropped out of the union, and East-Erica was subsequently postponed to better plan out its functions. The more successful Atlanta Regional Union was founded by Casper alongside King Tyler of New Athens on December 1st. Navārdia gained three citizens in the period concurrent with union negotiations.

By December 10th, the East-Erica union had been restructured into the Phoklandian Free State. The national news service issued an announcement that Navārdia was to join the union on New Year's day, and outlined several changes that would occur due to the merger. The provisional government of the Free State began searching for ministers to fill the national government, leading an individual known as General Steelbottom to become a citizen and reserve the position of Defense Minister. Not long after, New Year's eve finally arrived. All seven citizens of the Grand Duchy of Navārdia rung in a new decade, and a new nation.

The next day, the Navārdian Free Land was a constituent state of Phokland, though it was reformed into the Province of Navārdia just sixteen days later.

Foreign Relations

Navārdia’s foreign policy allowed it to recognize all nations and governments that exercise professionalism in their actions. It had unilaterally recognized many, even gaining tacit recognition from the highly respected Republic of Molossia, but only had formal relations with six. Among those were governments which Navārdia had signed treaties with and members of the Atlanta Regional Union.

• Unicornia
• Kingdom of Phokland
• Empire of Lehmark
• Principality of Ledilia
• Free Nation of New Athens
• Republic of Aswington

Unrecognized Governments

Navārdia had decided not to recognize certain nations and governments due to lack of freedoms, suspicious activity or violations of international law.

• Republic of Shrikailasa
• Kingdom of Catan
• State of Samizdat

Military

The closest thing Navārdia had to a military was the Internal Services Office. Officers mainly assumed the role of Navārdia’s police force, but were sometimes be deployed as soldiers. One example of this was the deployments to Unicornia - a treaty signed with the nation mandated that Navārdian troops had to defend the royal residence. Due to lack of staff, Grand Duke Casper usually had to take their place, so de facto state visits between the two nations were uncommon.

Citizenship

Navārdian citizenship was only open to those who have been personally invited into the nation by existing citizens, and whose applications the government accepted. This was not only to prevent criminals and other suspicious persons from associating with Navārdia, but also to ensure the it remained a tight knit community.

Geography

Navārdian policy on geography stated that the nation’s territory was to be divided into provinces and honorary districts. Provinces were either chunks of land inhabited by citizens, or islands not inhabited by noncitizens at the time of claiming.

Provinces were considered truly sovereign territory. Honorary districts were any land, water or virtual claims of the nation that do not fit the definition of a province. They are considered culturally sovereign, which is generally defined as a level of sovereignty similar to that of a tribal government or British West Florida. A list of all claims at time of dissolution is kept below.

Name	Territorial Flag	Citizen Residents	Date of Founding
Provinces
Capital Province		2	September 9th, 2019
Pope Island		0	October 28th, 2019
Honorary Districts
Todge		0	September 29th, 2019