The Lion of the North: An Alternate History Finland

Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
Finland at least would be another place for Greeks to flee to once the Eastern Roman Empire gives way to the Ottomans. Especially to a kingdom that is ruled by a member of the Palailogosi clan instead of say Muscovy. You might even see a Palailogosi siphon funds from the royal treasury to lead a mercenary army to attempt to save Constantinople from Sultan Mehmed II, only to end in sheer disaster and death for the army. I can see it happening and the Rälssi would be extremely pissed at the insolence of their "Roman" king.

Also one cultural development that I can see happening is the earlier creation of a Finnish national epic, in essence the flowering of great Finnish literature. I am sure you can come up with awesome ideas for that.
 
Olligarchy

Olligarchy

Cuāuhtemōc said:
Finland at least would be another place for Greeks to flee to once the Eastern Roman Empire gives way to the Ottomans. Especially to a kingdom that is ruled by a member of the Palailogosi clan instead of say Muscovy. You might even see a Palailogosi siphon funds from the royal treasury to lead a mercenary army to attempt to save Constantinople from Sultan Mehmed II, only to end in sheer disaster and death for the army. I can see it happening and the Rälssi would be extremely pissed at the insolence of their "Roman" king.

Also one cultural development that I can see happening is the earlier creation of a Finnish national epic, in essence the flowering of great Finnish literature. I am sure you can come up with awesome ideas for that.
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Yeah, these are really good ideas. I figured I'd do something about the Fall of Constantinople, and since the printing press is about to be invented... well the time is full of possibilities. Of course there's also the thing about Third Rome... if a good amount of Greeks fled North to Finland instead of Muscovy, how like is it it that the Eastern Orthodox would name Moscow the Third Rome? ;)

arctic warrior said:
Really good update. :cool:
The temptation of the crown might just be too much for the good "italian"! :D
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Indeed! How many people would turn down the offer to be a King, even if they did not necessarily know much about the kingdom in question? :D

Cuāuhtemōc said:
Out of curiosity, how much has the Finnish population grown since 1250?
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I'm horrible at math, and population growth in general, but I estimate it to be as such:

  • Finland Proper (Southern Finland, ending at the junction of Gulf of Bothnia and where Oulu is today) should have some 300k people living in it by now.
  • Karelia (ending north at the Kola/Kantalahti has seen substantial movement of Russians fleeing from the Tartars and some other Finno-Ugrics from the ice sea coast and as such has 250k people in it.
  • Lappland and Kola have the lowest populations all together, numbering maybe 100k in total.
  • Estonia is the warmest and as such easiest to settle and probably has at least 200k people in it.
This would give the Kingdom a total population of 850k, though cultural unity is neither here nor there. I tried to look for sources on population, but it seems that the earliest numbers that can be counted on can be gotten at around 1600 which states that Finland (the southern half) had a population of around 400k at that time. Taking into account the increasing wealth and such I figure the population growth to this level is easy enough to achieve, though the black death might've ravaged some parts of the country pretty hard.


What are your thoughts guys?
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
Olligarchy said:
Yeah, these are really good ideas. I figured I'd do something about the Fall of Constantinople, and since the printing press is about to be invented... well the time is full of possibilities. Of course there's also the thing about Third Rome... if a good amount of Greeks fled North to Finland instead of Muscovy, how like is it it that the Eastern Orthodox would name Moscow the Third Rome? ;)
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What sort of name would the Finnish to the Greek community? At the time, they didn't see themselves as exactly Greeks but Romans though I'm sure the Finns won't really care to humor the arrivals, or they might, with a junior branch of a Roman dynasty holding the throne. Will we see political marriages between the Finnish and Eastern Roman branches of the Palaiologoi clan? At this point, they're distant cousins at that. What better way to advance the idea of Finland being the legacy of Rome than a political marriage, uniting the two branches into one united clan?

Also there's the title of Caesar. The Germans had Kaisar. The Russians had Tsar/Czar. So the Finnish would have the title of Keisari. Just a suggestion for a future Finnish king or queen who thinks that highly of themselves; it probably won't be one of the Italian kings but someone further down the line. :p

And yes, I can't wait to see what sort of things happen in the literature front for Finland.

The estimated population size seems about right.
 
Olligarchy

Olligarchy

Cuāuhtemōc said:
What sort of name would the Finnish to the Greek community? At the time, they didn't see themselves as exactly Greeks but Romans though I'm sure the Finns won't really care to humor the arrivals, or they might, with a junior branch of a Roman dynasty holding the throne. Will we see political marriages between the Finnish and Eastern Roman branches of the Palaiologoi clan? At this point, they're distant cousins at that. What better way to advance the idea of Finland being the legacy of Rome than a political marriage, uniting the two branches into one united clan?

Also there's the title of Caesar. The Germans had Kaisar. The Russians had Tsar/Czar. So the Finnish would have the title of Keisari. Just a suggestion for a future Finnish king or queen who thinks that highly of themselves; it probably won't be one of the Italian kings but someone further down the line. :p

And yes, I can't wait to see what sort of things happen in the literature front for Finland.

The estimated population size seems about right.
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I presume that if the Greeks/Byzantines introduce themselves as Rhomaion, the Finns would call them as such. Of course they have no real reason to humour the rump state that the Empire is today, but I'm sure the nobles (especially the Karelian Orthodox ones) would see the political advantage in having a claim to the ancient throne of Rome. As such the will to unite the dynasty into one might indeed be found, especially if the Monarch gets it into their head that they might be able to claim the throne. Possible matches might well be Helena Palaiologina or even Sophia who in OTL married into the Rurikovich dynasty. Of course this might well warrant the Finnish branch (as the junior one) to return to the Orthodox faith which might cause an interesting story given that majority of the kingdom is at least "tokenly" Catholic.

Ahh... a Finnish Caesar would indeed be amusing. Not only because of the presumption of the said character, but because there would be precious few whom would ever support him laying claim to such a title. Of course if the Finnish Palaiologisi are somehow confirmed as being the heirs of Rome the title might be warranted, but it might cause such a major political backlash from the Papacy, the Holy Roman Empire and the Muscovy that it might not be "worth it."

Literature will indeed get an early flowering with this dynasty it seems. :)

arctic warrior said:
Especially in Medieval times a crown being the ultimate goal of nobility! :D

I looked up this http://www.populstat.info/Europe/finlandc.htm guess your pop estimate would be quite possible.
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Yup, plus the throne of Finland looks... at least on a map quite nice. Sure it's north, but it looks quite sizable ;so large in fact that most will be severely dissapointed when they find out how low a population and resources it really is!

And that source is what I've been using as well. Strangely Finland itself has the most complete sources, but Karelia, Kola and Estonia don't have any sources to be found at all... at least not in the languages that I can read and understand.
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
Olligarchy said:
Ahh... a Finnish Caesar would indeed be amusing. Not only because of the presumption of the said character, but because there would be precious few whom would ever support him laying claim to such a title. Of course if the Finnish Palaiologisi are somehow confirmed as being the heirs of Rome the title might be warranted, but it might cause such a major political backlash from the Papacy, the Holy Roman Empire and the Muscovy that it might not be "worth it."
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Well there's always the Reformation, if something analogous to the event still occurs, leading to the northern European nations breaking their ties. Then Finland can begin distancing itself from the Papacy and well the Holy Roman Empire is bound to weaken anyways so that removes two worries of backlash in regards to the Finnish rulers declaring themselves Caesars. I only suggest it as a move way down the line, like maybe the eighteenth or nineteenth century. Just like Russia used Pan-Slavism as a political means to dominate fellow Slavic nations, from the trajectory of this timeline, Finland won't be a superpower but it will be far stronger than it ever was in OTL: it can push pan-Finnic or pan-Uralic nationalism to expand to the north where you have the Sami, to the south towards the Livonians and the east where there are the Karelians and Vepsians.

The powers that be will have their moment of weakness and under the right ruler, the Finns can successfully expand in one of those directions.

Especially towards the north! I kinda dig the idea of Finnish Svalbard. :p

Literature will indeed get an early flowering with this dynasty it seems. :)
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Sweet!
 
Olligarchy

Olligarchy

Pardon for the long wait for the next update. My missus has gotten sick and I'm taking care of her... hopefully I'll have time to write something on friday. :)
 
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