Given by His Excellency, President Kevin Baugh
27 May 2017 XL
My Fellow Molossians, Family and Friends.
Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the Republic of Molossia, four decades of mighty accomplishments for our great nation. It has been a long road to the place we are today, a road fraught with pitfalls and detours, but one marked with smooth sailing as well, and leading us always forward.
The Republic of Molossia was founded on 26 May 1977 as the Grand Republic of Vuldstein. Inspired by the movie, the Mouse That Roared, my friend James and I decided to start our own country. He was King and I was Prime Minister and in short order we had the framework of a new nation, including our own laws, money and flag. After a while James moved on to other projects and places but I stuck with the idea and over the years developed plans to turn Vuldstein into a real nation. In 1998 that plan became a reality when I obtained this land here within Nevada, raised the flag and declared this to be the Republic of Molossia.
Even then the process of growth was slow. The catalyst in our development was the transition in concept from the idea of a largely virtual nation to one that is tied to a real place, this place. This meant transitioning from our early population of online citizens and fictional locales to citizens we actually know and places that are actually real. While that seems like an obvious change, many micronations have only virtual citizens and lack a real homeland. Once we made this change, things began to fall into place for Molossia. Making our nation as tangible as possible, given our small size, became the goal. Sovereignty and independence became real goals, not just words on a website. It became important that we not just state that we have a post office or bank, for example, but also to actually have those things, real places in our real nation. I determined that Molossia should and would be a functioning nation, with all of the trappings that a nation has and that those things should work, actually function. The goal is to build Molossia into everything that a nation can be, albeit in a small package.
And this we have done. From a formless idea 40 years ago, Molossia is a now real place, a real nation, staking its claim on this earth. Today we have our own money, stamps, postal and phone system, a unique culture and customs, a space, program, a navy – everything that a nation should have. Every day the flag proudly flies over this land, our land, our nation. We have made a real name for our Molossia, and established a proud reputation as a leader in the world of small nations. We have worked hard to build Molossia into the great nation that it is today. And we will continue to do so over the next 40 years and beyond. As I often say, the future belongs to Molossia. I am very, very proud of what we have accomplished together as a nation and just as proud to lead this nation into that future.