AHC: Samiwank

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to make the Sami a significant presence in modern Europe. The minimum is to have an independent and fairly prosperous Sami nation.
 
What about a Red Finland in 1918, eventually becoming a SSR inside Soviet Union, having a Sami autonomous republic.
*SU pulls a Winter War on Sweden that joins Germany's side as Finland did, and SU gets more of Scandinavian land (eventually coming within Sami ASSR)

With a fall of this SU, not only Finland comes out as an independent country, but the Sami ASSR declares independence due to relative ill-treatment during soviet period and its immediate aftermath.

How does it works?
 
Wish I could contribute, but my knowledge of the history of the Sami is practically non-existant. Obviously, you'd have to screw large parts of Scandinavia.
 
Since you didn't specify any limits for how early the POD can be, I suppose hypothetically you could have them migrate southward to more fertile lands.
 
Alternatively, and I'm speaking from ignorance here because I know little of how the process actually went but this was my first idea, if you get a situation where The Swedes or Norwegians remain Pagan but the Sami convert to Christianity, then you could have some major support for them becoming the local power holders.

Give them the support of a Catholic Denmark and maybe a Catholic Poland and I imagine they could carve out a pretty nice Kingdom for themselves.
 
Alternatively, and I'm speaking from ignorance here because I know little of how the process actually went but this was my first idea, if you get a situation where The Swedes or Norwegians remain Pagan but the Sami convert to Christianity, then you could have some major support for them becoming the local power holders.

Give them the support of a Catholic Denmark and maybe a Catholic Poland and I imagine they could carve out a pretty nice Kingdom for themselves.

The Sami peoples are spread also north of Finland and Russia (Permian Peninsula?), so maybe you have other options there... 'Crusade to the Karelians'?
 
Aren't "Sami" and "Suomi" the same word? Aren't Finns, to oversimplify, those Sami who took up agriculture?

You can not build a significant power in mediaeval times with a herding economy, so if the Sami settle down and become 'modern', then they're just Finns. No?
 
Aren't "Sami" and "Suomi" the same word? Aren't Finns, to oversimplify, those Sami who took up agriculture?

You can not build a significant power in mediaeval times with a herding economy, so if the Sami settle down and become 'modern', then they're just Finns. No?

Not completly, related cultures and languages perhaps yes, but they may predate Finns actually.. maybe.. or the reverse... Finns's closer parents are karelians, Estonians(?) and those fading smaller groups in Russia close by St. Petersburg, I believe.

They speak of one a language (with dialects) I believe of another branch of the Finno-Ugric(?) familly.

And it's true that they may asimilate to the larger finnish majorities in time...
 
Aren't "Sami" and "Suomi" the same word? Aren't Finns, to oversimplify, those Sami who took up agriculture?

No.

The languages are distantly related, being Uralic laguages. They separated almost 5000 years ago. The Saami language only displaced the previous/original laguage of the Saami about 1500 years ago. Previous to that, they most likly spoke a laguage isolate. The Finns seem to have a continuity with the Finnish language.

Genetics indicate that the Saami went through a period of genetic isolation that may have exceeded 10 000 years at some point.

As for the OP, the Saami suffered far less in the Black Death than the Scandinavians. It may be the point in time where the demographics best favored the Saami.

However, I would cosider something more modern. The Saami are disadvantaged by a very low popolation density. Basically the old nomad/agricuturalist problem still persisting in an area of Europe where the climate prevents the agriculturalists from getting a decisive advantge.

Borders here have been fluent and rather theroretical up to not quite modern times, and its not been unknown for three nations to try to tax the inhabitants.

I would think the best option is to have a greater power set up some kind of buffer or vassal state initially. Russia or Britiain, to counter the other, or restrict Sweden or Norway at something. Maybe a different Napoleonic wars.

Then have the Saami expand more into the Scandinavian ecological niche of potato farming, as well as expand the fishing. That sustains a higher population density. Whaling followed by extraction of mineral resources fuels modernization.
 
Alternatively, and I'm speaking from ignorance here because I know little of how the process actually went but this was my first idea, if you get a situation where The Swedes or Norwegians remain Pagan but the Sami convert to Christianity, then you could have some major support for them becoming the local power holders.

Give them the support of a Catholic Denmark and maybe a Catholic Poland and I imagine they could carve out a pretty nice Kingdom for themselves.

Who would convert them if the Norse would remain pagan (which would require a HRE-screw)? The English ships sailing the Barents Sea for fur didn't happen until the 1500s.

Aren't "Sami" and "Suomi" the same word? Aren't Finns, to oversimplify, those Sami who took up agriculture?

You can not build a significant power in mediaeval times with a herding economy, so if the Sami settle down and become 'modern', then they're just Finns. No?

Yes, they are the same words. To oversimplify, they are not the same. Finns inhabit the eastern Gulf of Finland, and the Samu inhabit the area of north Scandinavia. Finns are sedentary, while the Sami depend on reindeer herding and fishing. The Sami inhabited northern Scandinavia long before the Finns did the Gulf. They spoke different languages as others pointed out, making them linguistically distinct.

With that, when you take up your neighbors lifestyle, you don't become a member of your neighbors group. For example, the British of the Hudson Bay Co. did the same thing (fur trapping) as my New French ancestors, yet they were, and are, different. That really only applies when the 2 groups are same in everything but lifestyle.

The Sami peoples are spread also north of Finland and Russia (Permian Peninsula?), so maybe you have other options there... 'Crusade to the Karelians'?

The only way that would be is if the Turks go northwest and inhabit that area after picking up Islam, the Pope only called serious Crusades against Islam, as the Teutonic and anti-Orthodox ones aren't considered that major.
 
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birdboy2000

Banned
Might there be a way for them to develop a raiding tradition like some other pastoral nomads - and with it an elite military? Then again, they're pushing up against the vikings to the south, who are no pushovers, and reindeer aren't going to give them the military advantage of horses.
 
Harald Sigurdson II The only way that would be is if the Turks go northwest and inhabit that area after picking up Islam said:
Was thinking something more like anti 'pagans', like the.. 'smaller' Northern crusades and Teutonic efforts against the Pagan Balts originally. Not sure when christianity arrived to Karelia, Estonia(?) and related groups, exactly - probably along said knights...
 
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