AHC: Make Ukraine stronger than Russia
- Thread starter leopard9
- Start date
FillyofDelphi
Banned
This. If Kiev becomes the predominant Slavic power east of Poland, then we'd be talking about Russia/Rus and, say, it's poor north-eastern neighbor Muscovy
That all depends on when a distinctively "Ukrainian" culture develops, instead of just another regional Russian culture.
Which is at its most generous a 17th c. development (with the first Hetmanate), and late 19th c. more realistically (developed within the context of Austrian domination over part of modern Ukraine).
The word "Ukraine" is derived from "Krai", meaning borderland. So, the name Ukraine is really only useful in terms of reference to a larger culture. If Ukraine is the dominant power in East Europe, it would assume the name "Kiev" or "Russia" (or anything along those lines), and any minor, peripheral states would be called Ukraine instead (maybe Bessarabia or Minsk).
It is possible for a borderland to become a great power and keep its border-referent name.
For example, Castile (Castilla/"Castle"), Mercia (Mierce/"March/Border people"), Austria (Österreich/"Eastern Realm"), all of which originated on volatile frontiers, yet had their times of being a dominant power.
Hmmm, I was thinking that the POD could be which capital the Mongols decide to let collect tribute from the other Russian city-states. So instead of Muscovy, Kiev gets the honor and can skim off the top. The theory on why Russian government is so brutal says that Moscow is not on fertile land and so needed to exert extreme control over the more fertile lands and its expansive hinterlands. But if the center of power is also where the best agricultural land is, perhaps Russia's culture is less coercive and brutal.
Sorry but there was no today's notion of "Ukraine" (which literally meant "border land" applicable to any border territories) until relatively modern time and by that time it was already belonged to somebody (the PLC and/or Russia).
If you are talking about the "Ukrainian" portion of Kievan Rus, it lost its power well before the Mongolian conquest. Which leaves the only candidate, Galitz principality. It is highly questionable if it had a realistic chance to grow into a dominating Russian state even without the Mongols: it was surrounded by too strong enemies (Poland, Lithuania, Hungary). But if the miracle happened, its geography was too peripheral for the task and it would have to defeat Lithuania to get Belorussian lands.
Would not work: Kiev was too geographically peripheral for the task and too destroyed even before the Mongolian conquest. The Great Princedom of Vladimir (of which Princedom of Moscow was a part) was the only practical candidate.
Center of power hardly could be within a spitting distance of the border with a much stronger neighbor (the Golden Horde) or even just the nomadic raiders. The rest is a very interesting theory but it is hardly confirmed by any available facts as far as European experience goes and as far as brutality is involved experience of "the best agricultural land" was not very encouraging.
Again, important not to understate this point about nomadic neighbours: people were captured en masse all the way into the late 19th c. and in the 15th/16th c. yearly losses from frontiers were in the tens of thousands, some years much higher. Some of the prisoners were recovered or ransomed, but most were sold onwards into slavery elsewhere.
I mean, there are cases of Peter's soldiers who got captured and enslaved by Crimeans or Nogays from right under Kiev into the 1730s.
I think you overestimate the stability of medieval governance in general (overlords in Europe could be absolutely brutal and predatory too) or the reliability of the Horde as an overlord. Moscow (and other cities in the Vladimir Grand Principality) might have won the yarlik and even supported the Great Horde on occasion but that didn't stop it being raided and attacked every time some internal politics in the Horde made that politically feasible.
What I describe above was obviously the case in the high "Kievan" middle ages too and in fact despite the complex and sometimes cooperative relations with the Cumans and the Black Hats, their constant disruptive activity led to Russian settlers from the Kiev/Chenigov/Seversk region to migrate northwards into the supposedly "not fertile" Zalesye, long before the Mongols appeared on the scene. And in the 14th-15th cc. that pressure still continued and people were migrating towards the White Sea away from the Zaseka line/Wild Fields.
Only constant government effort and a booming population reversed the situation and kept the expansion of 16-19th c. Russia going INTO the steppes against the Kazakhs, Nogays, Kyrgyz, Kumycks, Kalmycks, Oirats, Crimeans and other Tatars and Caucasian peoples , as opposed to the other way around. If you want to know what the impetus for early centralization was, you should probably look there.
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So we need a Cossack-wank. A way to keep the Hetmanate independent of both Poland and Muscovy, and also to paralyze Moscow and keep it from dominating the Cossacks. You also want to break the power of the Crimean Khanate, to stop the bleeding of manpower over through slave raids.
A tall order to have all of them happen in quick succession. I might suggest that perhaps having Sweden turn its attention east and smash both the PLC and Muscovy would help—Gustavus Adolphus tries to pull off a vision of uniting all the countries bordering the Baltic under his rule. A combined Time of Troubles and Deluge that leaves everything from the Urals to Silesia in flames. The Cossacks take the opportunity to carve out a Ukrainian state and, with Swedish help perhaps, win some decisive victories over the Tatars (or maybe become vassals to the Ottoman Sultan and sell Poles into slavery?).
A sort of Cossack Republic emerges, that gradually absorbs what’s left of Muscovy and the Orthodox parts of the PLC.