Actually, ITTL it's more possible that Poland will end as part of HRE, and before that it'll be too busy on its western border to conquer any part of OTL Rus. Also, if the part of Plains Empire were made of Magyars, it'd mean surviving Great Moravia - in this case ther'll be long struggle between it and Poland.
A Russia-less world?
- Thread starter Hominid
- Start date
If you're looking for unity of crowns, Poland for a while was unified with Vladimir/Halych
In the absence of Russia, you would still have either SOME Rus, or Polish principalities on the edge - Poland was often far from unified
Its also not at all certain that Poland would unify as per OTL - the counties, principalities etc could well coalesce in a different fashion
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
In the absence of Russia, you would still have either SOME Rus, or Polish principalities on the edge - Poland was often far from unified
Its also not at all certain that Poland would unify as per OTL - the counties, principalities etc could well coalesce in a different fashion
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
Old Airman
Banned
Yeah, as in OTL Poles ignored depopulated lands left after Mongol invasion. 5 centuries of Polish rule over Ukraine is just a figment of imagination. Riiight. And cows fly, do they?
Seriously, it escapes my mind why should Poland suddenly ignore endless vacant lands at it's Eastern border ITTL to embroid itself into endless squabble for tiny pieces of land in Europe. Poles weren't as stupid IOTL.
Forget Halych. Something as powerful as to eliminate Eastern Slavs is bound to destroy this puny Carpatian principality.
It is not. Even IOTL there's, if not for religion, no defined border between Poles, Belorussians and Russians. It is single Slavic palette with slowly changing tones... But OP idea was to eliminate Russians (i.e. Eastern Slavs) specifically.
Yeah, my monies are on Polewank ITTL. Khazars - not so much, as much as it grieves me.
Yeah - I can`t see logical reason in Poland being absorbed into HRE without strong Rus`, later Muscovy. Actually, it would be other way around IMHO - with Poland focusing on keeping Pommerania, Kustrin, and Silesia.
True - there`s a lot butterflies possible, but I can`t see a connection between lack of Rus` and HRE. How would it lead to more unified and centralized Germany?
Old Airman
Banned
By eliminating Russian part of shield protecting Europe from nomadic raids and leaving only small and weak Polish and Hungarian one, for example. Without Rus to keep Cumans at bay for centuries and bear the brunt of initial Mongol attack, it is possible that Germanies would be forced to unite just to survive. After all, IOTL Hapsburg integration had been very influenced by wars with Ottomans.
And one more comment. I don't see an irrecoverable contradiction between fighting a war in West and slowly settling "empty" East. That's how Rus got Central Russia, that's how Muskovy got Siberia. So Poles can settle Central European Plain without much trouble.
Yeah, that would be correct if we magically remove all east Slavs at a specific date. However, I think that some other people will settle area of Rus` creating semi urbanized states (Finno-Ugric people mixed with some steppe nomads?). I can`t see how these lands would remain empty.
An East Slavic state need not be a Russian state. The Rus were a fusion of East Slavic and Scandinavian peoples and cultures. Remove the Scandinavian strain...a much easier proposition...and you no longer have the Rus, or later, the Russians.
Agreed with the first part but not the second. The East Slavs could have successfully repelled the Norse, preventing the emergence of the Rus as a separate ethnic and cultural group. The region was sufficiently isolated in the 9th century that it would certainly NOT require an alteration of mainstream Europe's then existing political structure to accomplish.
If you manage to keep the Goths in the Ukraine, you could end up with an East Germanic-speaking Russia... 
Golden Horde manages to take the place of Russia instead of collapsing ? Thing of how much more SCREWED Christendom was, if we have an Islamic state where OTL Orthodox Russia was .
The second possibility I can think right of the bat is that Poland-Lithuania expands into Russia , and effectively replaces Russia .
Unless of-course , what you want is a OTL European Russia divided into multiple states . Is it even possible , I wonder? Then who controls Siberia ? What about the Crimean Khantate and Central Asian Khantates? Could we have an Islamic Ukraine and Siberia today? Even an Islamic OTL Russia ?
The second possibility I can think right of the bat is that Poland-Lithuania expands into Russia , and effectively replaces Russia .
Unless of-course , what you want is a OTL European Russia divided into multiple states . Is it even possible , I wonder? Then who controls Siberia ? What about the Crimean Khantate and Central Asian Khantates? Could we have an Islamic Ukraine and Siberia today? Even an Islamic OTL Russia ?
Old Airman
Banned
Disagree. Experience of Slavic North- and Eastbound expansion (at very least 6-7 centuries of it) showed that Ugro-Finns of great European forests (and later Siberian tribes) were unable to create statehood of their own (or, rather, didn't need it). Slavs were bringing "civilization" (as far as triad of farming, Christianity and feudalism qualifies to be called "civilization") to 16th century Siberia in much the same way as to 9th century forests of what is now Central Russia. So, if some magic intervention removes Slavs, areas East of Poland and North of OTL Kiev would likely wait for some alternate wave of farming settlers.
P.S. There's one important (and often overlooked) exception from this rule. Volga Bulgaria. That's the only successfull attempt of non-Slavic modern (by standards of the day) stable civilization in the region. So, would the Slav-exterminating event spare Bulgars (or if The Event happens before Bulgars come into the region), Bulgaria can spread into Upper Volga basin (a.k.a. heartland of modern Russia), basically everything North of Samara on map http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Volgarivermap.png It gives them good chance to become *Russia of this alt-TL.
Valdemar II
Banned
Semi-nomadic if I remember correctly, and they had some trouble with Islamic scholars, they insisted on only praying 4 times a day (because of the differencies in the length of the day between summer and winter) and used co-gender saunas, and was quite stubborn about keeping it that way. My guess are that if they go full settled, they will begin to produce alcohol and pork, and tell anyone whom insist it's un-Islamic to go to Hell.
Of course if we see them spread in the Volga-basin, we may see Scandinavians settle the Norvograd area (through they may adopt the "Finnish" language). While Ukraine stay a weird mix of "Tartars", Magyars, Alans, Goths and Greeks until someone end up dominating.
They did convert to Islam in the end though, and before Mongols did IIRC. I know there are some more permissive schools, Abu Hanifa's school for instance, originally said that wine from grapes and dates was banned but that grain alcohol could be consumed as long as it was in non-drunk moderation. This was eventually changed to the more stringent rules.
The pork thing continues to stymie me. I have never found any evidence that it's Indonesian Muslims (that aren't Muslim in name only, i.e. agnostic) who eat the pork. I think someone somewhere said it was okay if it was a choice between that and starvation in an emergency but that you'd be unclean and need to fix that.
Valdemar II
Banned
Those problem I mentioned was after their conversions, and the Volgar Bulgars are both isolated and pragmatic enough that I can't see Islamic rules come between the common sense of eating pork and drinking alcohol in Russia. So likely they will create a new school which ignore those limitations.
I've run into this in other threads. Why is pork seen as a must-have for a Northern European civilization? I understand Russia is hardly olive oil country, but surely some mixture of tallow, butter, goose fat, chicken fat, etc could fill the role. Hell, using goose/chicken fat is what Ashkenazi Jews did anyway - they called it schmaltz.
I don't think you can just ignore those provisions they are pretty solidly embedded into Islam from an early period, though obviously I think you can finesse certain provisions (i.e. see my latest RoS update for one way mosques and churches got around usury). But that is part of an old discussion on this board.
To go on with the main topic I agree that some sort of Scandinavian rule over a Finnic-Slav population would occur in Novgorod before they just started speaking whatever it was the Finns spoke. (Would it still be known as Novgorod?)
No, that's Slavic for "New Town".
There's some information about Finnic topography in the area but I don't know exactly who inhabited the Ilmen area before the Ilmen Slavs.
Getting rid of the Slavs is a very daunting task, you know. They hardly needed the Scandinavians to become dominant over the local population, they were well on their way themselves.
As to the Scandinavians - Slavs or none, they will still come. The routes to Perm, Caspian and Dnepr are too good to pass up.