Visconti Victorious: Medieval Italian Unification

[krieger]

Maaaayybe? I mean, there's a bit more contact back and forth, thanks to the Ottomans being strangled and the Church Union, but the most I can see is some of the reformers suggesting an orthodox style autocephaly system (which is something that already exists in Europe at this point- the Autonomists, currently enjoying Royal patronage in England but not otherwise especially relevant or influential). Converting outright to Orthodoxy doesn't strike me as particularly likely, outside of a a few fringe cases like Bosnia or Albania. If anything it's the other way around, with Orthodox churches converting to Catholicism following Constantinople's submission to the west and the resulting Crusade against the Turks. This in turn probably would inspire more decentralized Church reform proposals, as the TTL flourishing Byzantine Catholic Church uses the existing Greek rites and practices but is in full communion with Rome, and something similar is going on (or at least being attempted) in Polish Ruthenia, Novgorod, Transylvania, Wallachia and Serbia.

Russia... is a geographical expression. For the foreseeable future at least. It's unlikely to directly inspire any conversion.

Hey, I'm new to this timeline and I wanted to express my admiration for the timeline. It's brilliant. But I have a question. You stated that Russia is a geographical expression right now and Poland is doing quite well in your timeline. In my opinion, (as a person who has some knowledge about EE affairs) it would lead to cultural polonization of elites of this "Russia". For example, even in the XVIIth century Tsardom of Russia, after Time of Troubles and the rest of rather wacky stuff, Polish was widely known and used among highest-ranked aristocrats in Moscow, Tsar Feodor III was a known polonophile, printed books were imported mostly from Poland. The thing, which prevented polonization from going further was existence of Russian imperial ideology connected to Orthodoxy and successes of Russians against the Poles. TTL, as far as I know - Orthodox church is very damaged if Constantinople accepted union with Rome and this union lasts somewhat long, Russia is a bunch of disunited, fighting among themselves principalities, who don't have any political entity rallying them around itself like Tsar was IOTL. The "Third Rome" myth is impossible with Byzantine Empire remaining intact. And even IOTL XVth century Russia was a religious mess - there were two major factions in Orthodox Church - "stazhatieli" (wealthy ones) and "nestazathieli" (non-wealthy ones). As we can already see, stazathieli wanted Church to continue accumulating wealth, while nestazatheli wanted Church to stop doing so. But it wasn't only difference between them. Stazatheli wanted also Church, who obeys prince at his ever word, while nestazatheli wanted Church, who can morally restrict a monarch, more like it was the West. Stazatheli also thought that the Russian tradition is a basis of religion and it's the purest form of praising God, so nothing needs to be changed in it, even if it's against Holy Scripture itself, while nestazatheli placed Holy Scripture above tradition. Quarrel between these factions was quite bloody - for example leader of stazatheli, Iosif Volkokamsky was physically harassing the leader of opposing faction, Nil Sorskyi. The mess becomes a bit more funny, when you add so-called "Judaizing sect" who went as far as rejecting Christ himself and started literally obeing Old Testament law. And they weren't some freaks without real support in Russian (or rather Muscovite) socjety of that time - Feodor Kurizyn, one of the main leaders of the sect was a highly-ranked court official and diplomat during rule of Ivan III, and grandson of said Ivan III - Dmitry Ivanovich supported Judaizing Sect openly, and if he ascended to the Muscovite throne, he could make it an state religion. If ITTL there is no superior religious authority in the form of monarch among "Russians", the disunity is not going to be quickly solved - for example prince of Tver could support stazatheli, while prince of Ryazan could support nestazatheli, while prince of Suzdal could support Judaizing Sect! I think ITTL nestazatheli could lean towards Byzatine Catholic Church as a role model (they were called Greekophiles IOTL) and in consequence - they would turn out to be pro-Polish, because in Poland such a church is already established and Polish king holds significant military power. Stazatheli, on the other hand would be fiercely anti-Polish and they probably would wish to destroy Poland itself. Judaizing Sect would be a third "player" on the field of TTL Russian religion and it would stay mostly neutral and watch how it's opponents are destroying itself. In the end, it could lead to reverse OTL XVIIIth century situation - in XVIIIth century Russia de facto controlled Poland because of bribing and blackmailing magnates (highly-ranked Polish aristocrats, who gained the position of sovereign princes in all but the name at the end of PLC). ITTL Poland could de facto control Russia by bribing and blackmailing it's princes, and manipulating them to fight even more among themselves, while showing himself as an only rightful judge of inter-Russian struggles.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

Interesting observations, I'd intended for Poland to cast a long shadow but this really helps develop my thoughts on the matter. That being said Poland is not the only game in town so to speak, the Germans (and Scandinavia) are involved too, as are the Tatars. The Reformation TTL could find fertile ground in a divided and demoralized Russia, especially one with the elites so out of touch with the commons, particularly the parts under Muslim rule (sort of like how Transylvania tilted protestant under the Ottomans).
The Volga and Baltic Germans seem like directly analogous to the Transylvania Saxons and are probably going to be the direct link with the HRE's religious developments.

 

[alexmilman]

Interesting observations, I'd intended for Poland to cast a long shadow but this really helps develop my thoughts on the matter. That being said Poland is not the only game in town so to speak, the Germans (and Scandinavia) are involved too, as are the Tatars. The Reformation TTL could find fertile ground in a divided and demoralized Russia, especially one with the elites so out of touch with the commons, particularly the parts under Muslim rule (sort of like how Transylvania tilted protestant under the Ottomans).
The Volga and Baltic Germans seem like directly analogous to the Transylvania Saxons and are probably going to be the direct link with the HRE's religious developments.

I’m afraid that for “divided and demoralized Russia” your TL is starting too late and by the time of the Reformation “the train was gone”. You’d need to start changes somewhere in the mid-XIV, before raise of the Princedom of Moscow became practically unstoppable.From that point on there were numerous offsets but none of them capable of stopping the process of consolidation. What could go differently was the scope of that consolidation: the resulting product may or may not include Ukraine and Belorussia but in OTL they became parts of the Russian state well after the “Russian” part was consolidated. There could be scenarios under which Novgorod retained its independence for a longer time but this would change little in a general schema.

The “Germans” as a conquering force are pretty much irrelevant because the only one point of contact was on Livonia/Pskov border and Livonia was not even an united state (and even if it was, it would be too small). Scandinavian states also could do little: the maximum extent of their realistic context was holding of Novgorod during the TOT but even that was was temporary. As for the Tatars, you would need to change the whole history of the Golden Horde for them to remain a major player by the XVI century. The Great Horde was falling apart since XIV and Crimea never was much more than a major nuisance.

Of course, the alt-Poland could be a big player but without Ivan IV there is no PLC, just Polish-Lithuanian union with Lithuania, IIRC, holding Ukraine. Anyway, even for the unified state, European Russian territory is too big peace to swallow even if by some not quite clear miracle the PLC is converted into a highly centralized state with a powerful standing army. I would not overestimate potential of the cultural influences either: the Pre-Petrian Romanov tsars could adopt the Polish (and Hungarian) costumes but any attempt of the prozelitizing would end up with end by burning. After all, Peter forced nobility to wear the Western dress and to talk on a peculiar mixture of Russian-Dutch-German-<whatever> but as late as the reign of Anna a member of the top Russian aristocracy was lucky to “simply” became a court jester after converting to Catholicism during his trip to Italy. The same goes for the various forms of the Orthodox heresies: they could led to some changes but hardly to Catholicism or Protestantism (at least in its western form).

And an idea of the “corruption from the top”, it is tempting but in the case of the PLC the aristocracy went under the Russian influence not just because of the bribes but also because there was a tiny insignificant factor of the Russian military presence which could (and did on more than one occasion) result in a loss of the estates and a need to flee the country. Hardly realistic in a reverse model and hardly realistic in pre-XVIII on any side.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

Muscovy's rise, although with strong winds, was by no means foreordained in 1400, and the Tatars were not yet wholly irrelevant (Crimea, as a "nuisance" did rather well for itself, under Ottoman suzerainty; with Muscovy broken by the Poles and the Persians backing them TTL they are doing fairly well for themselves) even if very much on the decline.

The Polish commonwealth doesn't exist- I am loosely modeling its development on OTL Austria Hungary, with Brandenburg corresponding to Austria, Poland to Bohemia and Lithuania to Hungary (a very rough analogy but it gets the idea across). Poland is the "strongest" power in the region but they are also fairly western oriented. Insofar as the Germans are relevant it is mainly cultural and economic rather than political and it was those ties that I was considering as vectors for a Reformation.

Scandinavia is unified and fairly expansionist (they currently possess Karelia, Ingria and Estonia and are loosely sovereign over Perm) and Novgorod is for now a Polish client state under a cadet branch of the Hohenzollern. The next update will deal with the east so I won't go into major developments just yet but both the Tatars and the Russians are in a rather different position TTL.

 

[krieger]

Interesting observations, I'd intended for Poland to cast a long shadow but this really helps develop my thoughts on the matter. That being said Poland is not the only game in town so to speak, the Germans (and Scandinavia) are involved too, as are the Tatars. The Reformation TTL could find fertile ground in a divided and demoralized Russia, especially one with the elites so out of touch with the commons, particularly the parts under Muslim rule (sort of like how Transylvania tilted protestant under the Ottomans).
The Volga and Baltic Germans seem like directly analogous to the Transylvania Saxons and are probably going to be the direct link with the HRE's religious developments.

Of course Poland is not only in game, but if we make reverse analogue to PLC's OTL situation Russia was not only in game, it was just a strongest player in it and it seems to be the case with TTL Poland. Scandinavians of course can and will interfere, but it would only make TTL Russia Polish-Scandinavian field of rivalry (as PLC IOTL was Russian-Prussian field of rivalry) and would end up similarly - Poles and Scandinavians would divide Russian principalities between themselves creating partition-like situation. Volga Germans simply didn't exist back then, it was Catherine II who invited them into Russia. Tatars of course will meddle, but IMHO they'll be the weakest ones in the "Game of Russia" and if ITTL XIXth century will resemble OTL even to the smallest degree, than they themselves are doomed to be incorporated and reduced by foreign power. IMHO, it would be most likely Poland because the population growth will cause a thirst for a new land and it's close to the Polish territories (Ukraine).

I’m afraid that for “divided and demoralized Russia” your TL is starting too late and by the time of the Reformation “the train was gone”. You’d need to start changes somewhere in the mid-XIV, before raise of the Princedom of Moscow became practically unstoppable.From that point on there were numerous offsets but none of them capable of stopping the process of consolidation. What could go differently was the scope of that consolidation: the resulting product may or may not include Ukraine and Belorussia but in OTL they became parts of the Russian state well after the “Russian” part was consolidated. There could be scenarios under which Novgorod retained its independence for a longer time but this would change little in a general schema.

The “Germans” as a conquering force are pretty much irrelevant because the only one point of contact was on Livonia/Pskov border and Livonia was not even an united state (and even if it was, it would be too small). Scandinavian states also could do little: the maximum extent of their realistic context was holding of Novgorod during the TOT but even that was was temporary. As for the Tatars, you would need to change the whole history of the Golden Horde for them to remain a major player by the XVI century. The Great Horde was falling apart since XIV and Crimea never was much more than a major nuisance.

Of course, the alt-Poland could be a big player but without Ivan IV there is no PLC, just Polish-Lithuanian union with Lithuania, IIRC, holding Ukraine. Anyway, even for the unified state, European Russian territory is too big peace to swallow even if by some not quite clear miracle the PLC is converted into a highly centralized state with a powerful standing army. I would not overestimate potential of the cultural influences either: the Pre-Petrian Romanov tsars could adopt the Polish (and Hungarian) costumes but any attempt of the prozelitizing would end up with end by burning. After all, Peter forced nobility to wear the Western dress and to talk on a peculiar mixture of Russian-Dutch-German-<whatever> but as late as the reign of Anna a member of the top Russian aristocracy was lucky to “simply” became a court jester after converting to Catholicism during his trip to Italy. The same goes for the various forms of the Orthodox heresies: they could led to some changes but hardly to Catholicism or Protestantism (at least in its western form).

And an idea of the “corruption from the top”, it is tempting but in the case of the PLC the aristocracy went under the Russian influence not just because of the bribes but also because there was a tiny insignificant factor of the Russian military presence which could (and did on more than one occasion) result in a loss of the estates and a need to flee the country. Hardly realistic in a reverse model and hardly realistic in pre-XVIII on any side.

But the TL starts in the middle XIV-th century, since it's POD is a different fate of Viscontis ruling Milan in the said period of time. I'd disagree with the effects of consolidation having to be exactly the smae as IOTL. At first, we need to notice that a lot of land creating Russian immensity were added after consolidation of Russian statehood. For example Kazan and Astrakhan were conquered during the rule of Ivan IV, after swallowing the rest of Russian principalities by Muscovy. So by weakening Muscovy we take away at least conquest of Astrakhan by Russia (in Kazan Russian cultural influences were already present at the time of conquest, so it's different story) and it's huge change. If someone else achieved the conquest of Astrakhan before Russians and peopled it's land with their own people - it creates a huge change in the form of significant land in the OTL borders of Russia, dominated by non-Russians.

Are you sure? In these scenario Jogaila never had sons, so Casimir IV Jagiellon was never proclaimed a Grand Duke of Lithuania and it changes a lot. If we look closer at the documents made during Jogaila's rule we can see that the union between Poland and Lithuania was not a simple personal union (although not PLC-level union). At first, we should start from a very beginning. In Krewo, when Jogaila made first steps towards becoming king of Poland, he promised Polish nobles to applicare his Ruthenian and Lithuanian lands to the Polish crown. And despite popular myth it wasn't some meaningless bullshit - the Lithuanian princes (brothers of Jogaila and Keystutovichi) were pledging allegiance not only to Jogaila and Hedwig, but also to Corona Regni Poloniae itself. The term Corona Regni Poloniae meant legal entirety of Polish state and it meant that Poland and Lithuania were not only tied by a person of common monarch, but also by a legal ties. Of course, scholars are arguing over the exact meaning of applicare and full incorporation was never enacted, but we cannot speak about Lithuania in the period 1386-1440 as a fully sovereign state. It is proven by the next agreements of Jogaila and Witold - in so-called union of Radom Witold gives a promise to Jogaila to fully incorporate Lithuania after his death into the kingdom of Poland, and later in Horodło - Lithuania is literally described as a part of Kingdom of Poland and in the document, the following Latin words were used to describe Lithuania relationship to Poland - "eo tempore, quo [...] coronam Regni Poloniae assumpsimus,incorporamus, invisceramus, appropriamus, coniungimus, adiungimus, confoederamus et perpetue anectimus - these words mean no less than to incorporate. Jogaila also named himself "supreme duke of Lithuania" and this title was directly tied to Polish crown - every king of Poland had a right to name himself supreme duke of Lithuania, and what's more - it was a Polish king who decided who should become a next Grand Duke of Lithuania. An real application of this law was situation from 1430 OTL, when despite Witold's wish, Jogaila (as a king of Poland) chosen his own brother, Svitrigaila to become a Grand Duke of Lithuania over Zygimantas Kęstutatis, Witold's chosen heir. Of course, Svitrigaila rebelled against Jogaila later, but it was not an example of Lithuanian independence from Poland, but rather an example of Jogaila's poor personal choice. And he should also look how Svitrigaila's rule ended - he was defeated by comined forces of Poland and Zygimantas Kęstutatis (who agreed to respect the terms of Horodło) and forced to abdicate, despite having suport of Livionian branch of TO and Muscovites. Lithuania only regained full independence in 1440, when Casimir Jagiellon was made a Grand Duke against wishes of his older brother Vladislaus of Varna, who intended his brother only to be his governor in Vilnius, not a sovereign monarch. And Vladislaus did nothing about this, because he was also a king of Hungary with contested rights to that crown (which was more valuable in his eyes that enforcement of full subordination of Lithuanian elites). ITTL Poland has no child king and no period of regency, where nobles stole a lot of king's estates, king of Poland doesn't fight for Hungarian crown and there is no failed Varna crusade. It means that the king and Polish elites have both time and resources to deal with any attempt of Lithuania fully breaking away. In addition, the Hohenzollerns of TTL gained Polish throne because of marriage to Jogaila's daughter. It is very important, because said daughter was also the great-grandaughter (from her mother's side) of Casimir the Great, and had more right to the Polish throne than her half-brothers, sons of Lithuanian-Ruthenian princess with no blood connection to Piast dynasty. ITTL kings of Poland don't need to worry about securing succesion for their descendants, so they don't need to support (to some extenct) Lithuanian distincivness, because they don't need an argument for Polish nobles to stay at throne. And of course, TTL Russians are not going anywhere. Even in the most optimistic scenario for alt-Poland, Great Russians will be the biggest ethnic minority in TTL 2019 Poland and there would probably be an "Russian Republican Army" doing terroristic attacks in the biggest Polish cities.

I envisioned reversed situation in the long-term (alternate XVIIIth century), I didn't mean that they will magically join Poland overnight. And you also forgot that even OTL PLC was capable of beating Russians in the open field - for example during the Time of Troubles Poles captured Moscow and posed an significant military threat to the elites of a country. And from the description of an author of timeline, it seems that TTL Russia has ToT on steroids.

Muscovy's rise, although with strong winds, was by no means foreordained in 1400, and the Tatars were not yet wholly irrelevant (Crimea, as a "nuisance" did rather well for itself, under Ottoman suzerainty; with Muscovy broken by the Poles and the Persians backing them TTL they are doing fairly well for themselves) even if very much on the decline.

The Polish commonwealth doesn't exist- I am loosely modeling its development on OTL Austria Hungary, with Brandenburg corresponding to Austria, Poland to Bohemia and Lithuania to Hungary (a very rough analogy but it gets the idea across). Poland is the "strongest" power in the region but they are also fairly western oriented. Insofar as the Germans are relevant it is mainly cultural and economic rather than political and it was those ties that I was considering as vectors for a Reformation.

Scandinavia is unified and fairly expansionist (they currently possess Karelia, Ingria and Estonia and are loosely sovereign over Perm) and Novgorod is for now a Polish client state under a cadet branch of the Hohenzollern. The next update will deal with the east so I won't go into major developments just yet but both the Tatars and the Russians are in a rather different position TTL.

I'm not so sure about the Austro-Hungarian way of development, because of reasons I listed before - the relationship between Poland and Lithuania was completely different than relationship (from a legal point of view) between Austria and Hungary - for example Hungary was never called a part of Austrian state, king of Hungary never had to have an permission of Austrian archduke to become king. No to mention, that Polish cultural influences in Lithuania were far more influential than German in Hungary - Buda wasn't a city with clear German majority, while Vilnius/Wilno had a clear Polish one. If you want to make comparison to Austria-Hungary it'd better to say that Brandenburg is Austria, Poland (in the meaning of Corona Regni Poloniae) as a Hungary, Poland proper (pre-union) is a Hungary proper and Lithuania is a giant Transylvania. But as far as I'm concerned it's a flawed analogy and better compare this alt-Poland to UK or Spain.

 

[alexmilman]

Muscovy's rise, although with strong winds, was by no means foreordained in 1400, and the Tatars were not yet wholly irrelevant (Crimea, as a "nuisance" did rather well for itself, under Ottoman suzerainty; with Muscovy broken by the Poles and the Persians backing them TTL they are doing fairly well for themselves) even if very much on the decline.

Sorry, but your timing is seriously wrong. Rise of some Russian state as a center of consolidation was almost (*) inevitable practically immediately after the Mongolian conquest. Rise of Moscow was practically inevitable since 1330's when Ivan I found solution of a fundamental problem of "how to convert a losing enterprise profitable without making any changes" (). By 1380's Moscow was a clear center of the consolidation even if the process was far from being completed.

You see, process of consolidation started well before the Mongolian invasion and, in a long term, the Mongols had been instrumental in accelerating the process by coming with a schema of a single prince responsible for collecting the taxes from the Russian territories. Which schema was, in turn, almost inevitable due to the limited resources of Batu and his successors. Batu was left with 4,000 Mongols (including those borrowed by his brother, ruler of the White Horde) and had to create his state, Blue/Kipchak Horde, practically from the scratch creating a new nation, the Tatars, and converting the defeated Kipchaks (who by the time of conquest were military inferior even to the Russian princedoms) into a formidable military force. All that while having a Great Khan who hated him (Quiuk) at his back and facing a need to keep the Russian princedoms subdued. Of course, to achieve this goal a local collaboration was needed and it was found in Prince Yaroslav (whom Quiuk presumably poisoned) and his son Alexander. A traditional system of the "baskaks" (tax collectors travelling with their military bands) proved to be unsatisfactory even during his life time and required backing by the local princes (as was the case with Alexander in Novgorod) so by the early XIV they evolved into the members of the princes' administration responsible for communications with the Horde. Direct dealing with the Russian princedoms had been working for a while and up to a certain degree but the Horde did not have its own administration developed enough to handle all the resulting problems. The next step for the Horde was to have a single person handling all these issues (and related problems) and such a person should be a prince powerful enough to assure (with the Mongolian help if needed) an orderly tax collection and to be able to handle the lesser issues on his own. This prince must be made the Great Prince of Vladimir (hierarchy was there since XII century). At that point choice of Moscow was optional but not completely arbitrary: there was a single main competitor, Princedom of Tver with Ryazan being "remote second".

"According to the Russian historian Kluchevsky, the rise of Moscow under Ivan I Kalita was determined by three factors. The first one was that the Moscow principality was situated in the middle of other Russian principalities; thus, it was protected from any invasions from the East and from the West. Compared to its neighbors, Ryazan principality and Tver principality, Moscow was less often devastated. The relative safety of the Moscow region resulted in the second factor of the rise of Moscow – an influx of working and tax-paying people who were tired of constant raids and who actively relocated to Moscow from other Russian regions. The third factor was a trade route from Novgorod to the Volga river." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_I_of_Moscow

To put things into a proper context, combination of these factors meant that Moscow is the richest princedom and can pay more taxes than the competitors. Of course, some "fortunate events" helped Khan Uzbek to make his choice: (a) death of Khan's sister (wife of the Prince of Moscow) in Tver's captivity (Prince of Tver was executed but his successors got the title of Great Prince of Vladimir) and (b) uprising in Tver during which Khan's baskak (and relative) was killed (title of the Great Prince of Vladimir was given to the Prince of Moscow and Prince of Tver was eventually executed). It is possible to imagine that the process could get Tver's way instead of Moscow's but the trend was already there.

_____________________________
(*) Two main alternative scenarios are:

(a) Orthodox Christian Horde during or soon after Batu's reign combined with the earlier disintegration of the Mongolian Empire so that ruler of the Horde is free to declare himself a Great Prince of Vladimir and start Volga-centered consolidation. Quite a few other things would be needed starting with a continued stable political situation within the Horde and willingness to play "Khubilai schema" by adopting the local habits.

(b) Russian-Lithuanian state - requires that Lithuania is predominantly Orthodox. This one could happen in the early XV based on the family union (in OTL Witold married his daughter to the Great Prince of Moscow so Ivan III was his grandson) but would require breaking of the Polish-Lithuanian union (as in the thread with German alternative to Jagello).

The Polish commonwealth doesn't exist- I am loosely modeling its development on OTL Austria Hungary, with Brandenburg corresponding to Austria, Poland to Bohemia and Lithuania to Hungary (a very rough analogy but it gets the idea across). Poland is the "strongest" power in the region but they are also fairly western oriented. Insofar as the Germans are relevant it is mainly cultural and economic rather than political and it was those ties that I was considering as vectors for a Reformation.

Honestly, I don't believe in the surviving monstrosities like that (especially as far as the idea of Brandenburg playing an upper-hand over Poland is involved; BTW, why short of the clear and present Russian danger would the Commonwealth came to the existence in the 1st place?) and Hapsburg model is a somewhat shaky analogy but this is your game.

Scandinavia is unified and fairly expansionist (they currently possess Karelia, Ingria and Estonia and are loosely sovereign over Perm)

A naive question (no offense): did you look at the map to find where Perm is located? Well, not to mention that city of Perm is 1st time mentioned as the village of Yagoshikha (Ягошиха) in 1647 and the city was founded only in 1720, Princedom of the Great Perm ("Великопермское княжество" dark green on the map, not to be confused with the term "Пермь Великая" , light green, which appeared in the XVI century within context of the Moscow's territory) was created in 1451 as a vassal of the Great Princedom of Moscow and between XIII and that time it was just a remote "volost" of the Novgorodian territory almost inaccessible due to the heavy forests and swamps. Raise of the area into some prominence started only in the mid-XVI when Stroganov family started massive developments (mostly salt extraction) there and only in the XVII century the found deposits of copper triggered the further growth which really picked up only within the XVIII century framework of industrial development in Ural area. So how exactly, and more important, why, would these unified Scandinavians get there by the early XV?

and Novgorod is for now a Polish client state under a cadet branch of the Hohenzollern.

Well, no offense is intended nut now you safely departed from the planet Earth into something so remote that it is rather hard to comment one way or another.

The only thing to say is that in OTL Novgorod did not have dynastic rule and, until the time of Ivan III, its princes did not rule the republic. They were just military leaders who lived, with their personal bands, outside the city and generally did not have a say in its affairs. So you would need to explain how these things changed into a dynastic rule by a presumably not-Orthodox princes: a number of the PODs needed would be quite significant.

 

[krieger]

Sorry, but your timing is seriously wrong. Rise of some Russian state as a center of consolidation was almost (*) inevitable practically immediately after the Mongolian conquest. Rise of Moscow was practically inevitable since 1330's when Ivan I found solution of a fundamental problem of "how to convert a losing enterprise profitable without making any changes" (). By 1380's Moscow was a clear center of the consolidation even if the process was far from being completed.

You see, process of consolidation started well before the Mongolian invasion and, in a long term, the Mongols had been instrumental in accelerating the process by coming with a schema of a single prince responsible for collecting the taxes from the Russian territories. Which schema was, in turn, almost inevitable due to the limited resources of Batu and his successors. Batu was left with 4,000 Mongols (including those borrowed by his brother, ruler of the White Horde) and had to create his state, Blue/Kipchak Horde, practically from the scratch creating a new nation, the Tatars, and converting the defeated Kipchaks (who by the time of conquest were military inferior even to the Russian princedoms) into a formidable military force. All that while having a Great Khan who hated him (Quiuk) at his back and facing a need to keep the Russian princedoms subdued. Of course, to achieve this goal a local collaboration was needed and it was found in Prince Yaroslav (whom Quiuk presumably poisoned) and his son Alexander. A traditional system of the "baskaks" (tax collectors travelling with their military bands) proved to be unsatisfactory even during his life time and required backing by the local princes (as was the case with Alexander in Novgorod) so by the early XIV they evolved into the members of the princes' administration responsible for communications with the Horde. Direct dealing with the Russian princedoms had been working for a while and up to a certain degree but the Horde did not have its own administration developed enough to handle all the resulting problems. The next step for the Horde was to have a single person handling all these issues (and related problems) and such a person should be a prince powerful enough to assure (with the Mongolian help if needed) an orderly tax collection and to be able to handle the lesser issues on his own. This prince must be made the Great Prince of Vladimir (hierarchy was there since XII century). At that point choice of Moscow was optional but not completely arbitrary: there was a single main competitor, Princedom of Tver with Ryazan being "remote second".

"According to the Russian historian Kluchevsky, the rise of Moscow under Ivan I Kalita was determined by three factors. The first one was that the Moscow principality was situated in the middle of other Russian principalities; thus, it was protected from any invasions from the East and from the West. Compared to its neighbors, Ryazan principality and Tver principality, Moscow was less often devastated. The relative safety of the Moscow region resulted in the second factor of the rise of Moscow – an influx of working and tax-paying people who were tired of constant raids and who actively relocated to Moscow from other Russian regions. The third factor was a trade route from Novgorod to the Volga river." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_I_of_Moscow

To put things into a proper context, combination of these factors meant that Moscow is the richest princedom and can pay more taxes than the competitors. Of course, some "fortunate events" helped Khan Uzbek to make his choice: (a) death of Khan's sister (wife of the Prince of Moscow) in Tver's captivity (Prince of Tver was executed but his successors got the title of Great Prince of Vladimir) and (b) uprising in Tver during which Khan's baskak (and relative) was killed (title of the Great Prince of Vladimir was given to the Prince of Moscow and Prince of Tver was eventually executed). It is possible to imagine that the process could get Tver's way instead of Moscow's but the trend was already there.

But the strength of said state wasn't predetermined. It was not God's will to make Muscovy/Tver/Ryazan/whatever the dominant player in Eastern Europe. Some Russian state would definitely emerge, but it's survival is not given. Depending on circumstances, it's path could mirror (to some extent) PLC's or Ottoman's path IOTL - instead of forming one of the biggest world's superpowers, it could decline and become irrelevant as well. The weakening of Muscovy is driving TTL Russia towards becoming irrelevant. At first, we should state that TTL "Russia" is more isolated than OTL - Novogorod is an independent state, and what's more - Muscovy is only Orthodox (not obeying Pope) nation in TTL's world. Author clearly stated, that Polish Ruthenia, Balkans, Romanian/Vlach principalities and even Novogorod or Byzantine Empire - they all are in communion with Rome. It is making harder to develop for Russia, because Muscovy was very often importing Greek scholars to serve on Tsar's/Grand Prince's court - for example St. Maximus the Greek was running Vassili's III personal library. With Greece being in union with Rome this source would end - heretics aren't allowed to enter Muscovy, and anyone who obeys the Pope is an heretic in the eyes of Muscovite state. And what's more - if Novogorod is the client Polish state, the trade between Russia and the West is even more restricted than IOTL. It'd harder for Muscovy to get a modern weapons, it'd be impossible for Muscovy to gain profits from Novogrodian trade - IOTL city's wealth served to build a Grand Prince's armed forces and ITTL it couldn't be used like this. It would mean that military superiority of Poland over Muscovy would last longer than IOTL.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

Sorry, but your timing is seriously wrong. Rise of some Russian state as a center of consolidation was almost (*) inevitable practically immediately after the Mongolian conquest. Rise of Moscow was practically inevitable since 1330's when Ivan I found solution of a fundamental problem of "how to convert a losing enterprise profitable without making any changes" (). By 1380's Moscow was a clear center of the consolidation even if the process was far from being completed.

You see, process of consolidation started well before the Mongolian invasion and, in a long term, the Mongols had been instrumental in accelerating the process by coming with a schema of a single prince responsible for collecting the taxes from the Russian territories. Which schema was, in turn, almost inevitable due to the limited resources of Batu and his successors. Batu was left with 4,000 Mongols (including those borrowed by his brother, ruler of the White Horde) and had to create his state, Blue/Kipchak Horde, practically from the scratch creating a new nation, the Tatars, and converting the defeated Kipchaks (who by the time of conquest were military inferior even to the Russian princedoms) into a formidable military force. All that while having a Great Khan who hated him (Quiuk) at his back and facing a need to keep the Russian princedoms subdued. Of course, to achieve this goal a local collaboration was needed and it was found in Prince Yaroslav (whom Quiuk presumably poisoned) and his son Alexander. A traditional system of the "baskaks" (tax collectors travelling with their military bands) proved to be unsatisfactory even during his life time and required backing by the local princes (as was the case with Alexander in Novgorod) so by the early XIV they evolved into the members of the princes' administration responsible for communications with the Horde. Direct dealing with the Russian princedoms had been working for a while and up to a certain degree but the Horde did not have its own administration developed enough to handle all the resulting problems. The next step for the Horde was to have a single person handling all these issues (and related problems) and such a person should be a prince powerful enough to assure (with the Mongolian help if needed) an orderly tax collection and to be able to handle the lesser issues on his own. This prince must be made the Great Prince of Vladimir (hierarchy was there since XII century). At that point choice of Moscow was optional but not completely arbitrary: there was a single main competitor, Princedom of Tver with Ryazan being "remote second".

"According to the Russian historian Kluchevsky, the rise of Moscow under Ivan I Kalita was determined by three factors. The first one was that the Moscow principality was situated in the middle of other Russian principalities; thus, it was protected from any invasions from the East and from the West. Compared to its neighbors, Ryazan principality and Tver principality, Moscow was less often devastated. The relative safety of the Moscow region resulted in the second factor of the rise of Moscow – an influx of working and tax-paying people who were tired of constant raids and who actively relocated to Moscow from other Russian regions. The third factor was a trade route from Novgorod to the Volga river." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_I_of_Moscow

To put things into a proper context, combination of these factors meant that Moscow is the richest princedom and can pay more taxes than the competitors. Of course, some "fortunate events" helped Khan Uzbek to make his choice: (a) death of Khan's sister (wife of the Prince of Moscow) in Tver's captivity (Prince of Tver was executed but his successors got the title of Great Prince of Vladimir) and (b) uprising in Tver during which Khan's baskak (and relative) was killed (title of the Great Prince of Vladimir was given to the Prince of Moscow and Prince of Tver was eventually executed). It is possible to imagine that the process could get Tver's way instead of Moscow's but the trend was already there.

_____________________________
(*) Two main alternative scenarios are:

(a) Orthodox Christian Horde during or soon after Batu's reign combined with the earlier disintegration of the Mongolian Empire so that ruler of the Horde is free to declare himself a Great Prince of Vladimir and start Volga-centered consolidation. Quite a few other things would be needed starting with a continued stable political situation within the Horde and willingness to play "Khubilai schema" by adopting the local habits.

(b) Russian-Lithuanian state - requires that Lithuania is predominantly Orthodox. This one could happen in the early XV based on the family union (in OTL Witold married his daughter to the Great Prince of Moscow so Ivan III was his grandson) but would require breaking of the Polish-Lithuanian union (as in the thread with German alternative to Jagello).



Honestly, I don't believe in the surviving monstrosities like that (especially as far as the idea of Brandenburg playing an upper-hand over Poland is involved; BTW, why short of the clear and present Russian danger would the Commonwealth came to the existence in the 1st place?) and Hapsburg model is a somewhat shaky analogy but this is your game.



A naive question (no offense): did you look at the map to find where Perm is located? Well, not to mention that city of Perm is 1st time mentioned as the village of Yagoshikha (Ягошиха) in 1647 and the city was founded only in 1720, Princedom of the Great Perm ("Великопермское княжество" dark green on the map, not to be confused with the term "Пермь Великая" , light green, which appeared in the XVI century within context of the Moscow's territory) was created in 1451 as a vassal of the Great Princedom of Moscow and between XIII and that time it was just a remote "volost" of the Novgorodian territory almost inaccessible due to the heavy forests and swamps. Raise of the area into some prominence started only in the mid-XVI when Stroganov family started massive developments (mostly salt extraction) there and only in the XVII century the found deposits of copper triggered the further growth which really picked up only within the XVIII century framework of industrial development in Ural area. So how exactly, and more important, why, would these unified Scandinavians get there by the early XV?

Well, no offense is intended nut now you safely departed from the planet Earth into something so remote that it is rather hard to comment one way or another.

The only thing to say is that in OTL Novgorod did not have dynastic rule and, until the time of Ivan III, its princes did not rule the republic. They were just military leaders who lived, with their personal bands, outside the city and generally did not have a say in its affairs. So you would need to explain how these things changed into a dynastic rule by a presumably not-Orthodox princes: a number of the PODs needed would be quite significant.

We are in the 16th century now and it is a very different world already.

Poland-Lithuania was not simply unified due to the Teutonic or Muscovite threat, although this helped expedite the process- as Krieger noted Lithuania was very clearly a vassal state of OTL Poland by the middle of the 15th century. TTL Poland's crown has avoided much of the disorder- no Crusade of Varna (instead a successful crusade against Crimea), no disastrous child regency, no effort to claim Hungary (although they did briefly take Bohemia during the Hussite Wars), an integration of Silesia, Brandenburg, eastern Pomerania and Prussia into the royal demesne and above all else dynastic continuity under a series of adult kings with an undisputed claim to both the Polish and Lithuanian thrones. Poland is a very different animal TTL.

Perm is a loose vassal/tributary mainly because Muscovy is in a state of disarray (it got sacked by the Tatars in the 1460s and sacked again by the Poles in the recent war) and because the Kalmar Union is sending traders through OTL Archangelsk. It might be more accurate to call them allies of convenience than anything else at this point.

Novgorod IIRC offered submission to Poland out of desperation when Muscovy came knocking, something that they were unable to enforce. TTL they did as part of the negotiations ending the War of the Brabantian Succession. It is not a stable regime and won't last long but it exists, however temporarily.

The Tatars (or specifically Astrakhan and Crimea) have benefitted from the weakness of the Russian states and the voracious demand for slaves in Venetian Egypt (and their willingness to offer financial and military support to buy those slaves) to conduct significantly greater raids into Russia than OTL throughout the 15th century, and Astrakhan has consolidated into a Mughal-esque "gunpowder principality" (this is getting a bit into what the next update is going to cover). They enjoy substantial support from Ak Qoyunlu Persia who considers them nominal vassals (and like Delhi, another "vassal" of Iran, the relationship is more of an unequal alliance than a strictly clientage, and even this is not going to last as Iran fades and the Turks rise) and is (or was) well positioned to support them due to their control over the Black Sea and Caucasus.

Add to which that Muscovy is much more isolated both diplomatically and economically- the Baltic is a Catholic lake (and a battlefield between Poland and the Kalmar state), Ruthenia, Moldovia, Transylvania, Greece, Serbia, and Wallachia have all accepted Church Unions and Novgorod had it forced on them by Poland (along with a German princeling), the Byzantine Empire is not only in communion with Rome but has a Latin Visconti on the throne and the Persians are the hegemonic power in Central Asia, eagerly supporting the various Khanates against the Russians and the Christians both. While Russia will still exist, the 16th century will be at least as rough for them as it was for Italy and Greece OTL if not rougher, and the Russia that emerges at the end will be a very different animal for the experience. Even OTL the Polish Commonwealth was generally stronger than Russia until the Deluge in the 17th century, TTL Russia will be lucky to consider herself an equal to Poland by then if she's even unified as a state that early on.

 

[alexmilman]

But the TL starts in the middle XIV-th century,

AFAIK, the OP starts in 1402 which is XV century and which is too late for reverting the process of Russian consolidation. Even during the fight between Vasili II and his cousin Dmitry Shemyaka the question was who is going to rule what was already there, the Great Princedom of Moscow.

since it's POD is a different fate of Viscontis ruling Milan in the said period of time. I'd disagree with the effects of consolidation having to be exactly the smae as IOTL.

Even putting aside rather convoluted links between Visconti and the Russian affairs, as I already stated, there could be couple of the realistic divergence points but by the mid-XIV Moscow was practically unbeatable "candidate" with a potential exception of the Russian-Lithuanian scenario. Even if this is not Moscow, then it is Tver but, short of the fundamental changes in the history of the GH, the result was going to be the same: consolidated state of the Central Russia.

At first, we need to notice that a lot of land creating Russian immensity were added after consolidation of Russian statehood. For example Kazan and Astrakhan were conquered during the rule of Ivan IV, after swallowing the rest of Russian principalities by Muscovy.

I'm afraid that you are misinterpreting what was said. Consolidation of the Russian lands and expansionism of the Russian state are not the same thing. I was talking about the ..er.. "objective process" of consolidation of the "Russian lands" (aka, those of the Central Russia; some of the presumably "Russian" territories outside that region did not become a part of the Russian-dominated state until 1939). With this process being practically accomplished during the reign of Ivan III, the rulers of Moscowite state had been controlling a huge territory which allowed further successful (Eastward) or unsuccessful (Westward) expansionism but practically excluded the schemes of Brandenburg-Polish (it is up to you to sort out who would play Bohemia in that schema ) Novgorod, Scandinavian Perm, etc.

So by weakening Muscovy we take away at least conquest of Astrakhan by Russia (in Kazan Russian cultural influences were already present at the time of conquest, so it's different story) and it's huge change. If someone else achieved the conquest of Astrakhan before Russians and peopled it's land with their own people - it creates a huge change in the form of significant land in the OTL borders of Russia, dominated by non-Russians.

Could happen, even if it was quite unlikely because both Kazan and Astrakhan were quite weak (to change that you'd need PoD which "cancels" Tamerlan) and, unless Astrakhan is occupied by some major power like the Ottomans (they had such an idea but implementation was sabotaged by the Crimean Tatars and, anyway, it belongs to a much later period), annexation was going to happen, just as a matter of expanding into a power vacuum. Would not make a critical difference as far as the Muscovite state was involved: unlike the Crimea, it did not control enough of the nomadic population, was not protected by an extensive steppe and, strictly speaking, had a vested interest in Volga trade. Anyway, until well into the XVIII Muscovite/Russian state had been plenty of the problematic borders and somehow managed to survive and expand.

 

[alexmilman]

We are in the 16th century now and it is a very different world already.

Poland-Lithuania was not simply unified due to the Teutonic or Muscovite threat, although this helped expedite the process- as Krieger noted Lithuania was very clearly a vassal state of OTL Poland by the middle of the 15th century. TTL Poland's crown has avoided much of the disorder- no Crusade of Varna (instead a successful crusade against Crimea), no disastrous child regency, no effort to claim Hungary (although they did briefly take Bohemia during the Hussite Wars), an integration of Silesia, Brandenburg, eastern Pomerania and Prussia into the royal demesne and above all else dynastic continuity under a series of adult kings with an undisputed claim to both the Polish and Lithuanian thrones. Poland is a very different animal TTL.

A successful Crusade against the Crimea was IMO a technical impossibility in the XVI century and "integration of Silesia, Brandenburg, eastern Pomerania and Prussia" with Poland does not look as a realistic long term schema to me.

Perm is a loose vassal/tributary mainly because Muscovy is in a state of disarray (it got sacked by the Tatars in the 1460s and sacked again by the Poles in the recent war) and because the Kalmar Union is sending traders through OTL Archangelsk. It might be more accurate to call them allies of convenience than anything else at this point.

Moscow (as a city) had been sacked by the Crimeans during the reign of Ivan IV and by the Poles during the ToTs. Did not result in a long term weakening of the state: within 2 decades it started (unsuccessful) war against the PLC and in 2 more decades it started a rather successful one. Sacking Moscow was a pretty much pointless exercise in the terms of both domination and general weakening. See how all these activities ended up in the OTL (I expect that you are interested in more or less realistic scenarios): even with the Central Russia being seriously devastated by prolonged wars, cities on Volga, especially Nizhni Novgorod had enough resources (trade did not stop) to raise one more army which was capable to regain Moscow.

City of Novoholmogory was founded only in 1584 and the name "Archangelsk" 1st was used in 1613. Taking into an account that by this time Perm was firmly under control of Moscow (not a loose tributary), the whole story with Kalmar Union is not quite convincing.

Novgorod IIRC offered submission to Poland out of desperation when Muscovy came knocking, something that they were unable to enforce. TTL they did as part of the negotiations ending the War of the Brabantian Succession. It is not a stable regime and won't last long but it exists, however temporarily.

OK, Novgorod is tricky. What they were routinely offering was some kind of a loose "protection" arrangement under which they would accept a foreign prince (in their usual pretty much meaningless fashion). Not sure how this would work with a non-Orthodox prince.

The Tatars (or specifically Astrakhan and Crimea) have benefitted from the weakness of the Russian states and the voracious demand for slaves in Venetian Egypt (and their willingness to offer financial and military support to buy those slaves) to conduct significantly greater raids into Russia than OTL throughout the 15th century, and Astrakhan has consolidated into a Mughal-esque "gunpowder principality" (this is getting a bit into what the next update is going to cover).

As far as Astrakhan is involved, simply unrealistic and you can start with answering to the obvious question how on Earth the slaves captured by Astrakhan would end up anywhere close to Venetian colonies in the Crimea. Or how exactly would it make the extensive raids into the Russian lands unless Russia expands into the lower Volga region which is kind of a contradictory to the premise of a weakened Russian state.

With Astrakhan being squeezed between Crimean and Nogai hordes (and being weaker than any of them), its chances of growing into the Mughal-esque state are too close to zero to be taken seriously.

Add to which that Muscovy is much more isolated both diplomatically and economically- the Baltic is a Catholic lake (and a battlefield between Poland and the Kalmar state), Ruthenia, Moldovia, Transylvania, Greece, Serbia, and Wallachia have all accepted Church Unions and Novgorod had it forced on them by Poland (along with a German princeling), the Byzantine Empire is not only in communion with Rome but has a Latin Visconti on the throne and the Persians are the hegemonic power in Central Asia, eagerly supporting the various Khanates against the Russians and the Christians both.

Well, all that long list is not too different from the OTL situation, except for the Novgorodian piece, but isolation did not quite happen except for more or less self-imposed diplomatic isolation (which never was complete either). There were still trade and diplomatic interests.

While Russia will still exist, the 16th century will be at least as rough for them as it was for Italy and Greece OTL if not rougher, and the Russia that emerges at the end will be a very different animal for the experience. Even OTL the Polish Commonwealth was generally stronger than Russia until the Deluge in the 17th century, TTL Russia will be lucky to consider herself an equal to Poland by then if she's even unified as a state that early on.

Well, sorry to tell but so far it is rather generalities than something clear. In OTL the XVI and early XVII centuries had been quite rough on the Muscovite state: loss of at least 20% of population during the reign of Ivan IV and more during the following period, civil wars, foreign interventions, loss of a territory, you name it. But, short of a military weakness, it grew into a consolidated absolutist state by mid-XVII.

 

[krieger]

AFAIK, the OP starts in 1402 which is XV century and which is too late for reverting the process of Russian consolidation. Even during the fight between Vasili II and his cousin Dmitry Shemyaka the question was who is going to rule what was already there, the Great Princedom of Moscow.

My mistake, but you need to notice that Tver and Ryazan were still around as a separate entities from Moscow in 1402. Even if Grand Princedom of Moscow will still be centre of Russian consolidation, it is not guaranteed that central Russian state will be as strong as it was IOTL. Different path of develompent could lead Moscow to become what Ottoman Empire was in OTL XIXth century - a field of expansionism for foreign powers.

Even putting aside rather convoluted links between Visconti and the Russian affairs, as I already stated, there could be couple of the realistic divergence points but by the mid-XIV Moscow was practically unbeatable "candidate" with a potential exception of the Russian-Lithuanian scenario. Even if this is not Moscow, then it is Tver but, short of the fundamental changes in the history of the GH, the result was going to be the same: consolidated state of the Central Russia

As I said before - the unified Great Russian state wasn't determined to achieve level of strength comaparable to OTL. It could choose many different paths and not every of them had to end positively for Russia. The link between Visconti and the Russian affairs is called butterfly effect - in this timeline neighbours of "Russia" are simply stronger than IOTL and have a lot more means to meddle in Russia. And Russia itself is weaker due to isolation.

I'm afraid that you are misinterpreting what was said. Consolidation of the Russian lands and expansionism of the Russian state are not the same thing. I was talking about the ..er.. "objective process" of consolidation of the "Russian lands" (aka, those of the Central Russia; some of the presumably "Russian" territories outside that region did not become a part of the Russian-dominated state until 1939). With this process being practically accomplished during the reign of Ivan III, the rulers of Moscowite state had been controlling a huge territory which allowed further successful (Eastward) or unsuccessful (Westward) expansionism but practically excluded the schemes of Brandenburg-Polish (it is up to you to sort out who would play Bohemia in that schema ) Novgorod, Scandinavian Perm, etc.

I think I understood you properly. That's why I tried to emphasise that expansion happened after said consolidation and (at least in my opinion) it was the expansion, which gave Russia a real strength. Consolidation alone couldn't lead to creation of such a monstrosity, which Russia was IOTL. And I'm not sure about Novogorod being inevitably concerned in the process of unification. While I see your point when it comes to Moscow, Tver, Ryazan etc. etc. - these lands had exactly the same culture, language, mentality and it's hard to imagine serious strife between them - Novogorod differed from them in many ways. Novogorod's political system was republican rather than monarchist, Novogorod was never subordinate to Mongols (and Mongolian occupation made a significant impact on Russian mentality) and even the language used in Novogorod differed in many ways from language used in Moscow, and the proof is in texts called "Birch bark manuscripts" - Old Novogrodian used in these texts differed from standard Old Russian in phonetics, morphology and to some extent vocabulary. If Novogorod was separated at some point, it was not guaranteed that it would join the rest of Great Russia again.

Could happen, even if it was quite unlikely because both Kazan and Astrakhan were quite weak (to change that you'd need PoD which "cancels" Tamerlan) and, unless Astrakhan is occupied by some major power like the Ottomans (they had such an idea but implementation was sabotaged by the Crimean Tatars and, anyway, it belongs to a much later period), annexation was going to happen, just as a matter of expanding into a power vacuum. Would not make a critical difference as far as the Muscovite state was involved: unlike the Crimea, it did not control enough of the nomadic population, was not protected by an extensive steppe and, strictly speaking, had a vested interest in Volga trade. Anyway, until well into the XVIII Muscovite/Russian state had been plenty of the problematic borders and somehow managed to survive and expand.

ITTL Ottomans don't exist anymore, it seems that the crusade finished them once and for all. And if we are speaking about this certain TL Poland is a candidate to replace Muscovy as a conqueror of Astrakhan. OP gave us the map, in which the territories under the rule of Polish king are reaching as far as Don river. What's more, Crimea was ITTL crusaded and nearly wiped out. Tatar raids won't be nearly as devastating as they were IOTL there. So Polish control over Wild Fields will be a lot more stable ITTL. And we should notice, that even IOTL Polish magnates were seeking for lands east of their border. A lot of Poles fighting for both False Dmitrys were promised a land gains in Russia (for them personally, not for the state), Maryna Mniszech (a Polish noblewoman and wife of both False Dmitrys) carved out a temporary state in Astrakhan for her and her son, using her father's Polish troops and swaying Ivan Zaruckyi, an important Cossack ataman to her camp. Even prince Adam Wiśniowiecki was quarelling with a tsar of Moscow for some border territories in his own right. ITTL, Astrakhan poses no threat to Poland. Border is reaching it's western extent. So what's stopping Polish magnates from taking the fertile land from Tatars?

 

[krieger]

A successful Crusade against the Crimea was IMO a technical impossibility in the XVI century and "integration of Silesia, Brandenburg, eastern Pomerania and Prussia" with Poland does not look as a realistic long term schema to me

But eastern Pomerania was and still is fully integrated into Poland, Kashubians don't consider themselves non-Polish, eastern half of Brandenburg (Neumarkt) still speaks Polish and Wendish (close to Polish) is still widely used among peasantry - of course it doesn't matter that much, but German-speaking nobility was numerous in Poland and they weren't any more disloyal than ethnic Poles - German Zyndram of Maszkowice was carrying Jogaila's banner in the battle of Grunwald/Tanneberg, Silesia had it's fair share of Polish-speaking nobility and it was still ruled by Piasts, who often didn't know any other language than Polish and Bohemian - for example prince of Opole, John II the Good didn't know German and was an proponent of close ties to Poland. It was Poles themselves who skewed up things.

 

[alexmilman]

My mistake, but you need to notice that Tver and Ryazan were still around as a separate entities from Moscow in 1402. Even if Grand Princedom of Moscow will still be centre of Russian consolidation, it is not guaranteed that central Russian state will be as strong as it was IOTL. Different path of develompent could lead Moscow to become what Ottoman Empire was in OTL XIXth century - a field of expansionism for foreign powers.

Who can "guarantee" anything, especially in AH when scenarios are not always based on knowledge of the existing situation and do not require serious traction with a reality (no offense to anybody is intended and I was guilty of the same sin more than once)? Of course, nothing can be guaranteed but in OTL raise of the unified Russian state was happening in almost the worst case scenario, which (IMO) indicates that the process was almost inevitable. To start with, in was led by the people majority of whom had been by all accounts mediocre, at best, and some of the most successful ones would be labelled "losers" if not the success of their reign. Take Vasili II: beaten and captured by the Tatars, beaten and blinded by his dynastic competitor, in 1451 Tatars went all the way to Moscow and burned a part of it, officially recognized Lithuanian sovereignty over the "Russian-Lithuanian" lands. Loser? Not quite: by the end of his reign practically all small semi-independent princedoms within Muscovite state disappeared and while Novgorod remained independent, it lost its right to conduct independent foreign policy and provide an asylum to the enemies of the Great Prince of Moscow. As far as I can tell,among all Moscow Rurikids probably only Ivan III and Ivan IV were noticeably above the "average" and in the case of Ivan IV it is a big question was it "above" or "below". Even Ivan III, "the Great" managed to do something that seriously handicapped Russian state all the way to mid-XVII: he was promoting the Asiatic style of a warfare with a resulting Russian lagging behind its Western neighbors.

Expansionism of the "foreign powers" did take place in OTL and was quite extensive: reign of Ivan IV and the ToT were, again, quite close to the worst case realistic scenarios of what could happen in that area. And, again, it was dealt with by the people quite average: while on the Polish side there were quite few outstanding commanders and Wladislav proved to be a capable military leader as well, they were stopped by the military "nobodies".

As far as the "path of development" is involved, in OTL the Muscovite state was developing along the pretty much worst lines possible and, rather unsurprisingly, was almost permanently in a lousy economic situation: a backward state with practically no useful mineral resources on its territory (shortage of pretty much everything from iron to the precious metals), not very good agricultural lands and a limited list of the export items (leather, furs, grain). Even the stone was in a short supply: construction of the stone walls of Smolensk became possible only by stopping all stone construction in the Tsardom. Add to this mostly hostile neighbors on all sides and very little in the terms of the "natural borders" that would make invasions difficult.

Plus, consolidation of the state ended up with a peculiar version of an absolutist state in which a seemingly all-powerful monarch could not make make military and administrative appointments outside the cumbersome system of the birth-based precedents and even then there would be a great probability that, instead of going to war the leaders (on all levels of command) would start a prolonged litigation about being humiliated by a "wrong" appointment and even a treat of Tsar's displeasure would not help because a precedent would redefine position of the whole family within Russian aristocratic hierarchy.

In general, OTL was almost as bad as it goes.

As I said before - the unified Great Russian state wasn't determined to achieve level of strength comaparable to OTL. It could choose many different paths and not every of them had to end positively for Russia. The link between Visconti and the Russian affairs is called butterfly effect - in this timeline neighbours of "Russia" are simply stronger than IOTL and have a lot more means to meddle in Russia. And Russia itself is weaker due to isolation.

You keep repeating the generalities which mean very little and, honestly, some of them do not make too much sense. Take "isolation". An ultimate isolation would mean a complete absence of contacts with the neighbors which is not realistic for both sides. In OTL Muscovite state already was as "isolationist" as practically possible. Contacts with the neighbor states had been strictly regulated, travel abroad was practically forbidden except for the embassies and the people getting personal permission from a Tsar (practice, which continued even during the reign of a great "westernizer" Peter I: people could be sent to study abroad but could not freely travel and refusal to return at Tsar's demand was a high treason). The foreigners, unless they converted into Orthodoxy, had to live in the special settlement and could not travel or trade within Tsardom without a special permission and the list is going on.

However, there were practical limits: Tsardom needed goods from abroad and had some valuable goods in which outside world had been interested. Take for example Baltic trade. Sweden cut Tsardom from a direct access to the Baltic ports but because neither GA nor his successors were idiots, this meant that the imports/exports had been passing through the Swedish held ports with the explicit arrangements regarding procedures, custom dues, trade houses in the border cities on both sides, etc. Neither did this isolation prevented massive hiring of the Western soldiers and specialists: even at the time of Ivan IV there were few thousands of the German mercenaries in the Russian army. Actually, at the time when Tsardom was at its weakest point, immediately after the ToT, hiring abroad drastically increased.

The main problem with isolation was the fact that it was self-inflicted and in that area Tsardom, again, opted for the worst case scenario (short of an explicit suicide).

I think I understood you properly. That's why I tried to emphasise that expansion happened after said consolidation and (at least in my opinion) it was the expansion, which gave Russia a real strength.

This is highly questionable statement because you have to start with clarification of what "real strength" means in your opinion.

Then, of course, "consolidation" involved "expansion": even during the reign of Vasili II (early consolidation stage) Moscow's territory increased from 600 square miles to more than 15,000 square miles.

Conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan simplified trade on Volga and allowed trade relations with Persia but AFAIK, these trade relations were not extensive or profitable enough to add significantly to Tsardom's strength. Upper Volga already was in the Muscovite hands which allowed further expansionism to the East but to a great degree it was done by the private entrepreneurs, Stroganov family, and they were mostly into the salt extraction.

Population wise conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan added little and well before it happened Russian state had a lot of the "service Tatars" with a vassal Khanate of Kasimov. It worth noticing that their appearance on the Russian service was predominantly a result of the problems within the GH.

Consolidation alone couldn't lead to creation of such a monstrosity, which Russia was IOTL.

You are stating the obvious: Russian empire included a lot of the non-Russian lands but the bulk of its expansion was on the East.

And I'm not sure about Novogorod being inevitably concerned in the process of unification. While I see your point when it comes to Moscow, Tver, Ryazan etc. etc. - these lands had exactly the same culture, language, mentality and it's hard to imagine serious strife between them - Novogorod differed from them in many ways. Novogorod's political system was republican rather than monarchist, Novogorod was never subordinate to Mongols (and Mongolian occupation made a significant impact on Russian mentality) and even the language used in Novogorod differed in many ways from language used in Moscow, and the proof is in texts called "Birch bark manuscripts" - Old Novogrodian used in these texts differed from standard Old Russian in phonetics, morphology and to some extent vocabulary. If Novogorod was separated at some point, it was not guaranteed that it would join the rest of Great Russia again.

I would not put too much emphasis upon Novgorodian republicanism because, while formally the city officials had been elected by the veche, city was ruled by the local oligarchy (Soviet Gospod led by Novgorodian Archbishop) which by the XV century usurped most of the traditional functions of the veche. The Mongols did not conquer Novgorod but it was subordinated to them, passed through the census and paid tribute.

Mentality part is OK but it had a negative impact as well: at the conflict with centralized state Novgorod lost. Not to push analogies too far, but there were certain similarities with the ancient republics where a popular demagogue could swing political course to a suicidal extreme.

Language part is correct by somewhat silly: regional dialects were quite common in Russia.

Novgorod was separated from main Russia during the ToT: it was occupied by Sweden in 1611 - 17, initially as a part of the Russian state of which King Karl IX was a "protector", however the city was ruled by the Swedish representatives and in 1614 - 15 Swedish governor was trying to arrange a direct submission of the region to the Swedish crown.

As for the rest, author of the OP has a right to define AH whichever way he wants but I can't make any meaningful comments on the things that far removed from the OTL realities and possibilities.

 

[krieger]

Who can "guarantee" anything, especially in AH when scenarios are not always based on knowledge of the existing situation and do not require serious traction with a reality (no offense to anybody is intended and I was guilty of the same sin more than once)? Of course, nothing can be guaranteed but in OTL raise of the unified Russian state was happening in almost the worst case scenario, which (IMO) indicates that the process was almost inevitable. To start with, in was led by the people majority of whom had been by all accounts mediocre, at best, and some of the most successful ones would be labelled "losers" if not the success of their reign. Take Vasili II: beaten and captured by the Tatars, beaten and blinded by his dynastic competitor, in 1451 Tatars went all the way to Moscow and burned a part of it, officially recognized Lithuanian sovereignty over the "Russian-Lithuanian" lands. Loser? Not quite: by the end of his reign practically all small semi-independent princedoms within Muscovite state disappeared and while Novgorod remained independent, it lost its right to conduct independent foreign policy and provide an asylum to the enemies of the Great Prince of Moscow. As far as I can tell,among all Moscow Rurikids probably only Ivan III and Ivan IV were noticeably above the "average" and in the case of Ivan IV it is a big question was it "above" or "below". Even Ivan III, "the Great" managed to do something that seriously handicapped Russian state all the way to mid-XVII: he was promoting the Asiatic style of a warfare with a resulting Russian lagging behind its Western neighbors.

Expansionism of the "foreign powers" did take place in OTL and was quite extensive: reign of Ivan IV and the ToT were, again, quite close to the worst case realistic scenarios of what could happen in that area. And, again, it was dealt with by the people quite average: while on the Polish side there were quite few outstanding commanders and Wladislav proved to be a capable military leader as well, they were stopped by the military "nobodies".

As far as the "path of development" is involved, in OTL the Muscovite state was developing along the pretty much worst lines possible and, rather unsurprisingly, was almost permanently in a lousy economic situation: a backward state with practically no useful mineral resources on its territory (shortage of pretty much everything from iron to the precious metals), not very good agricultural lands and a limited list of the export items (leather, furs, grain). Even the stone was in a short supply: construction of the stone walls of Smolensk became possible only by stopping all stone construction in the Tsardom. Add to this mostly hostile neighbors on all sides and very little in the terms of the "natural borders" that would make invasions difficult.

Plus, consolidation of the state ended up with a peculiar version of an absolutist state in which a seemingly all-powerful monarch could not make make military and administrative appointments outside the cumbersome system of the birth-based precedents and even then there would be a great probability that, instead of going to war the leaders (on all levels of command) would start a prolonged litigation about being humiliated by a "wrong" appointment and even a treat of Tsar's displeasure would not help because a precedent would redefine position of the whole family within Russian aristocratic hierarchy.

In general, OTL was almost as bad as it goes.



You keep repeating the generalities which mean very little and, honestly, some of them do not make too much sense. Take "isolation". An ultimate isolation would mean a complete absence of contacts with the neighbors which is not realistic for both sides. In OTL Muscovite state already was as "isolationist" as practically possible. Contacts with the neighbor states had been strictly regulated, travel abroad was practically forbidden except for the embassies and the people getting personal permission from a Tsar (practice, which continued even during the reign of a great "westernizer" Peter I: people could be sent to study abroad but could not freely travel and refusal to return at Tsar's demand was a high treason). The foreigners, unless they converted into Orthodoxy, had to live in the special settlement and could not travel or trade within Tsardom without a special permission and the list is going on.

However, there were practical limits: Tsardom needed goods from abroad and had some valuable goods in which outside world had been interested. Take for example Baltic trade. Sweden cut Tsardom from a direct access to the Baltic ports but because neither GA nor his successors were idiots, this meant that the imports/exports had been passing through the Swedish held ports with the explicit arrangements regarding procedures, custom dues, trade houses in the border cities on both sides, etc. Neither did this isolation prevented massive hiring of the Western soldiers and specialists: even at the time of Ivan IV there were few thousands of the German mercenaries in the Russian army. Actually, at the time when Tsardom was at its weakest point, immediately after the ToT, hiring abroad drastically increased.

The main problem with isolation was the fact that it was self-inflicted and in that area Tsardom, again, opted for the worst case scenario (short of an explicit suicide).



This is highly questionable statement because you have to start with clarification of what "real strength" means in your opinion.

Then, of course, "consolidation" involved "expansion": even during the reign of Vasili II (early consolidation stage) Moscow's territory increased from 600 square miles to more than 15,000 square miles.

Conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan simplified trade on Volga and allowed trade relations with Persia but AFAIK, these trade relations were not extensive or profitable enough to add significantly to Tsardom's strength. Upper Volga already was in the Muscovite hands which allowed further expansionism to the East but to a great degree it was done by the private entrepreneurs, Stroganov family, and they were mostly into the salt extraction.

Population wise conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan added little and well before it happened Russian state had a lot of the "service Tatars" with a vassal Khanate of Kasimov. It worth noticing that their appearance on the Russian service was predominantly a result of the problems within the GH.



You are stating the obvious: Russian empire included a lot of the non-Russian lands but the bulk of its expansion was on the East.



I would not put too much emphasis upon Novgorodian republicanism because, while formally the city officials had been elected by the veche, city was ruled by the local oligarchy (Soviet Gospod led by Novgorodian Archbishop) which by the XV century usurped most of the traditional functions of the veche. The Mongols did not conquer Novgorod but it was subordinated to them, passed through the census and paid tribute.

Mentality part is OK but it had a negative impact as well: at the conflict with centralized state Novgorod lost. Not to push analogies too far, but there were certain similarities with the ancient republics where a popular demagogue could swing political course to a suicidal extreme.

Language part is correct by somewhat silly: regional dialects were quite common in Russia.

Novgorod was separated from main Russia during the ToT: it was occupied by Sweden in 1611 - 17, initially as a part of the Russian state of which King Karl IX was a "protector", however the city was ruled by the Swedish representatives and in 1614 - 15 Swedish governor was trying to arrange a direct submission of the region to the Swedish crown.

As for the rest, author of the OP has a right to define AH whichever way he wants but I can't make any meaningful comments on the things that far removed from the OTL realities and possibilities.

No one can guarantee anything. But (as far as I understood OP) - try to imagine Moscow without Ivan's III legacy, for example without myth of Moscow being "Third Rome", which shaped Russian thought for centuries and gave early Muscovite state an ideology, to which nobles could adhere and could try to preserve it even without any meaningful centre of power - as it was during the Time of Troubles. When we're talking about OTL Muscovite Rurikids, you need to notice that they were mostly untouched by any foreign power from the west. Vasiliy II might be blinded by his dynastic competitor, but it didn't cause any loss for Moscow. Regarding Tatars - they could loot Moscow, sure, but they couldn't enforce they will over Muscovite prince anymore. If you want not to generalize - just look how Shah's Ahmad's troops tried to enforce Muscovite subordinacy to Horde once again in 1480 and how did it end. ITTL both Brandenburg-Poland and Scandinavia have a far more modern army than Muscoby and are willing to interfere in the Great Russian matters. That's the difference - OTL Casimir spent most of his time and resources fighting in Hungary and Bohemia - he even declined an Novogorodian call from help in favor of trying to get Bohemia and Hungary for his sons. ITTL there is no Casimir IV and Hohenzollern dynasty doesn't have any claim to Hungary or Bohemia. They can focus their attention on the East.

I need to disagree a bit. Conquest of Novogorod and gain in the form of acess to White Sea helped a lot in the establishment of Muscovite/Russian state as a great power. For example, during the rule of Ivan IV there was a thing called "Russo-English company" and it's task was to keep trade between Russia and England. ITTL, where Russia/Muscovy doesn't have any access to sea, it simply can't maintain trade relations with any other countries but her immediate neighbours. There will be no trade with England or Germany. And it weakens Muscovite military even more - there will be even less modern weapons in the Muscovite/Russian service.

As far as Novogorod is concerned - even oligarchy makes a serious difference where the state affairs in the rest of "Great Russian" principalities are solely in the hands of prince. The language was also supposedly the most different among Russian dialects and was influenced by Swedish and Finnish the most. Time of Troubles happened after purge of Novogorodian elites done by Ivan IV, that's why they wanted to stay under Tsar.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

I am on vacation so I unfortunately cannot respond substantively beyond saying that I appreciate the discussion. Nevertheless when I come back I think I will start writing again as the chapter has been gathering dust for long enough IMO and I've gotten a bit more inspiration as to how certain things will piece together.

As far as Russia goes-
One cannot ignore the trends and forces but one cannot ignore the human element either nor chance. Otherwise the Po Valley would have probably unified in one way or another during the Middle ages (hell it technically was unified for some of that time) and France would have permanently annexed part of Belgium. Part of history is appreciating that randomness does not preclude but indeed demand outliers every once and a while.

 

[alexmilman]

I need to disagree a bit. Conquest of Novogorod and gain in the form of acess to White Sea helped a lot in the establishment of Muscovite/Russian state as a great power. For example, during the rule of Ivan IV there was a thing called "Russo-English company" and it's task was to keep trade between Russia and England. ITTL, where Russia/Muscovy doesn't have any access to sea, it simply can't maintain trade relations with any other countries but her immediate neighbours.

Sorry, but except for the existence of the "Russo-English company", this has no traction with a history. As I keep repeating (without any visible impact), absence of the direct access to the Baltic Sea did not stop Russian foreign trade there and did not prevent flow of the mercenaries and merchants to and from Russia. Adam Olearius left a book about his two visits to Tsardom (and travel to Persia through Russia) as a member of the Holsteinian Embassy which contains a lot of information on the subject (BTW, the fact that an embassy from Holstein did travel through the Swedish-held territory also does not support your ideas about isolation.

There will be no trade with England or Germany.

Sorry, but this is nonsense on two accounts: 1st, trade with Germany was happening through the Swedish or Polish held ports (Tsardom did not have any at any point except for a short hold on Narva) and 2nd, English trade on the North would continue no matter who holds the Archangelsk area (not that I found OPs ideas on the subject too plausible to start with): it was too profitable for all parties involved.

As far as Novogorod is concerned - even oligarchy makes a serious difference where the state affairs in the rest of "Great Russian" principalities are solely in the hands of prince.

Yes, we know how well the 1st model worked in the PLC and how many European republics made it to the modern age.

 

[krieger]

Sorry, but except for the existence of the "Russo-English company", this has no traction with a history. As I keep repeating (without any visible impact), absence of the direct access to the Baltic Sea did not stop Russian foreign trade there and did not prevent flow of the mercenaries and merchants to and from Russia. Adam Olearius left a book about his two visits to Tsardom (and travel to Persia through Russia) as a member of the Holsteinian Embassy which contains a lot of information on the subject (BTW, the fact that an embassy from Holstein did travel through the Swedish-held territory also does not support your ideas about isolation.



Sorry, but this is nonsense on two accounts: 1st, trade with Germany was happening through the Swedish or Polish held ports (Tsardom did not have any at any point except for a short hold on Narva) and 2nd, English trade on the North would continue no matter who holds the Archangelsk area (not that I found OPs ideas on the subject too plausible to start with): it was too profitable for all parties involved.



Yes, we know how well the 1st model worked in the PLC and how many European republics made it to the modern age.

I exaggerated, of course, but having access to White Sea and having access to no sea is a difference. During the peace, trade could still happen, but - Russian merchants needed to pay a tariff in Swedish/Polish held ports. And it could affect a economy of a state rather seriously - for example, when Gustav II Adolph forced PLC to give him tarrifs from Prussian ports (modern-day Tolkmicko, Elbląg, Piława, Bfaniewo and Kłapejda) and obtained a right to gather 5,5% of tariff from Gdańsk (Danzing), it gave him extra money, needed to launch his campaign in Germany, and caused unrest in PLC where nobles were enraged that they had to pay extra tariff for a foreign monarch. In XVIIIth century, Frederick the Great after taking (most of) Pomerania set tariffs high enough to damage PLC's trade. Translating this to situation of TTL Russia - anyone who has influence over Novogorod can gather tariffs from Russian trade, which means - that this state obtains extra money, which can be used against Russia itself and that this state can influence Russian economy through tariffs. Yes, but the trade will be tariffed by whoever holds the Archangelsk area and will be also profitable for said state, not only for Russia. But it isn't a question how well it worked - if Novogorod differs from the rest of Great Russia in religion, language and political system and this situation is prolonged to XVIII/XIXth century, than we can have Novogorodian national identity separated from a "Great Russian".

 

[alexmilman]

I exaggerated, of course, but having access to White Sea and having access to no sea is a difference.

Taking into an account that consolidation of the Russian lands happened during the reign of Ivan III before the international trade on the North kicked in (time of Ivan IV) the difference for consolidation part did not exist and even at the time of Ivan IV trade through Archangelsk (or rather its precursor) was not big enough to make a critical difference for the Russian economy.

OTOH, if the coast is held by <whoever> it only means tariff arrangements: most of the English trade was not in the goods obtainable on the White Sea coast and because <whoever> would not be holding coast just for the purpose of pissing off everybody, there would be arrangements allowing normal trade.

During the peace, trade could still happen, but - Russian merchants needed to pay a tariff in Swedish/Polish held ports.

It may come as a complete surprise to you but this is exactly what they were doing between 1617 and at least 1700 by Stolbovoy Peace. Needless to say that within that period Russia, while having a lousy economy (which it continued to have well after getting a direct access to the Baltic coast), managed to do extensive hiring abroad (creation of the Western style army was started by Michael Romanov) and conduct rather extensive trade.

It also worth noticing that even after getting the access to the Baltic ports Russian merchants did a minimal foreign trade on their own and by the time of Catherine II practically all shipping had been done by the British merchants. The main difference was in a nomenclature of the exported goods: unlike Tsardom of the XVII, Russian Empire of the XVIII became a major producer of iron. To make the point clear, with Russia not having a big commercial navy of its own (in OTL, just as in AH), tariffs were a small potato because to a great degree the prices had been dictated by the carriers who did a direct access to the European markets.

And it could affect a economy of a state rather seriously - for example, when Gustav II Adolph forced PLC to give him tarrifs from Prussian ports (modern-day Tolkmicko, Elbląg, Piława, Bfaniewo and Kłapejda) and obtained a right to gather 5,5% of tariff from Gdańsk (Danzing), it gave him extra money, needed to launch his campaign in Germany, and caused unrest in PLC where nobles were enraged that they had to pay extra tariff for a foreign monarch.

Of course, not to pay anything is better than to pay something but AFAIK, Radziwills did not became beggars after Lithuania lost its ports to Sweden. OTOH, Russian state did not have Baltic ports before Stolbovoy Peace, which means that it had to pay custom dues one way or another and your parallel is not applicable.

In XVIIIth century, Frederick the Great after taking (most of) Pomerania set tariffs high enough to damage PLC's trade. Translating this to situation of TTL Russia - anyone who has influence over Novogorod can gather tariffs from Russian trade, which means - that this state obtains extra money, which can be used against Russia itself and that this state can influence Russian economy through tariffs.

No offense, but this is getting boring because you clearly don't know what you are talking about. Ivan III pretty much killed Novgorodian trade (not that Novgorod had its own ports or conducted its own overseas trade in the few previous centuries). Ivan IV was trying to build port in Narva and Peter I also started his fight for the Baltic coast with an attempt to take Narva (so did his father) and a simple look at the map should tell you that Narva has little to do with Novgorodian trade routes. Anyway, in OTL tariffs were collected by the 3rd parties until the early XVIII and by that time the worst-case scenario Russian state (Peter I was a big contributor to the "worst case") was kicking Sweden (state that was getting all these revenues) out of the region and positioning itself as a major regional power. All that while having a lousy economy, rather limited revenues (almost 90% of which had been consumed by the military efforts) and a ruler who had a talent of doing pretty much everything (with a possible exception of the teeth extraction, which was one of his hobbies) in the most wasteful and inefficient way.

You keep talking about potential worst case scenarios which are actually not worse than OTL realities that did not prevent raise of the Tsardom into a major power: the OTL Russian state was a byproduct of the numerous worst case scenarios. It is quite easy to come with the numerous PoDs which would make Russian history better but it is extremely difficult to come with a plausible scenario which would make it noticeably worse.

 

[krieger]

Taking into an account that consolidation of the Russian lands happened during the reign of Ivan III before the international trade on the North kicked in (time of Ivan IV) the difference for consolidation part did not exist and even at the time of Ivan IV trade through Archangelsk (or rather its precursor) was not big enough to make a critical difference for the Russian economy.

OTOH, if the coast is held by <whoever> it only means tariff arrangements: most of the English trade was not in the goods obtainable on the White Sea coast and because <whoever> would not be holding coast just for the purpose of pissing off everybody, there would be arrangements allowing normal trade

wha
I'm afraid you are misinterpreting what was said. I didn't describe Novogorodian distinctiveness as a cause of crippled consolidation, but rather as an effect of this. The cause of crippled consolidation is ITTL in my opinion the fact that Russia has stronger western neighbours than IOTL and they are willing to wage war against Muscovy. Not only Lithuania remains under Polish legal sovereignity, which means that the rule of Council of Lords (Lithuanian magnates de facto ruled the country during absence of Casimir IV Jagiellon) is not going to happen, which means that Lithuanian armed forces are not going to be as crippled as IOTL. Also, Scandinavia is united in this timeline - so no Denmark-Sweden division, which Muscovite princes were taking advantage - John of Denmark was an ally of Ivan III due to his attempts of reconquering Sweden, and it's not the case ITTL. United (and stable, which is a difference from OTL) Scandinavia (which also holds Livonia ITTL) has no interest in allying with Muscovite state/Russia in any form. In short - when Vasili's II and Ivan's III rule was far from the ideal they had the comfort of not being attacked from any side apart from East. On the West, they were the attacking ones - both in Russo-Lithuanian war and in Russo-Swedish war. They don't have this "priviledge" ITTL - both Poland and Scandinavia were attacking and looting Muscovite state ITTL, which prevented Ivan III from seizing the Novogorod - IOTL Novogorodians sent call for help to Lithuania, Lithuania didn't answer because Casimir IV was involved in struggle for Hungarian throne and sent 12 000 men under the command of Piotr Dunin and Dziersław of Rytwiany - now imagine what if they were sent to the East to aid Novogrodians in battle of Shelon - they were already outnumbering Muscovite forces, at least according to E. A. Razin, Istoriia boennogo iskusstva, (St. Petersburg, 1994) and the Polish troops will provide what Novogorodians were lacking - organization. They also had artillery - and according to the studies of William Monter and Janos Szendrei, Ivan III only started to purchase modern weapons from Hungary in 1485.

It may come as a complete surprise to you but this is exactly what they were doing between 1617 and at least 1700 by Stolbovoy Peace. Needless to say that within that period Russia, while having a lousy economy (which it continued to have well after getting a direct access to the Baltic coast), managed to do extensive hiring abroad (creation of the Western style army was started by Michael Romanov) and conduct rather extensive trade.

It also worth noticing that even after getting the access to the Baltic ports Russian merchants did a minimal foreign trade on their own and by the time of Catherine II practically all shipping had been done by the British merchants. The main difference was in a nomenclature of the exported goods: unlike Tsardom of the XVII, Russian Empire of the XVIII became a major producer of iron. To make the point clear, with Russia not having a big commercial navy of its own (in OTL, just as in AH), tariffs were a small potato because to a great degree the prices had been dictated by the carriers who did a direct access to the European markets.

Not in Arkhaganelsk and Arkhaganelsk trade will also be tariffed ITTL. But it is not only disadvantage, which comes with lack of Novogorod in Russian state. Ivan III started gathering yasak from Ugro-Finnic tribes living in so-called "Yugra" land. Yasak was a fur tribute exctracted by Russians from these people. So, if Arkhaganelsk and White Sea coast is held by <whoever> else than Muscovites/Russians that <whoever> can gather furs from natives without need for paying Russians for it.

 

[LordKalvan]

The discussion of the situation in Russia is certainly interesting, but the last few pages have somehow derailed the TL with walls of text.
I do trust that it is a temporary hiccup, and once @The Undead Martyr is back from his holiday it goes to end