AHC:Slavic language in Western Europe

samcster94

Banned
What can be done to have a Slavic langauge be spoken in Western Europe{as in the land that would later be west of the Iron Curtain})??? The POD can be any point after about the fall of the Western Roman Empire but can be earlier. It doesn't have to be a state, but my minimum would be a clearly defined region that speaks the language(like a Breton peninsula type deal).
 
Well, Italy has a Slovenian-speaking minority in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region and a Croatian-speaking community in the Molise region.
 
There was a small group of Bulgars who settled in Italy during the 7th century after they fled near-massacre by the Frankish king Dagobert. An idea might be diverting the Bulgar leader Kuber from not migrating southward into OTL Macedonia and instead head west towards the Italian peninsula where they seek protection from the Lombards or seize territory from them. For the latter option, they could be courted by the Byzantines to assault northern Italy and take it as a prize.
 
There was a small group of Bulgars who settled in Italy during the 7th century after they fled near-massacre by the Frankish king Dagobert. An idea might be diverting the Bulgar leader Kuber from not migrating southward into OTL Macedonia and instead head west towards the Italian peninsula where they seek protection from the Lombards or seize territory from them. For the latter option, they could be courted by the Byzantines to assault northern Italy and take it as a prize.
Yep, but they wouldn't be Slavic speakers back then, their language was almost certainly still Turkic.
 
Yep, but they wouldn't be Slavic speakers back then, their language was almost certainly still Turkic.

Kuber's Bulgars may have still been Turkic-speaking but not everyone was Turkic. He lorded over and headed a population mixed with Slavs, Avars and Roman Christians who also participated in the migration. So there would be a Slavic element.
 
Perhaps a slavic minority could exist in Western Europe as part of the Slavic diaspora.

It did and it does (Ruhr Poles anyone?). Long term, the language would be lost. In the area of Italy where I live, you might easily meet local people who have clearly Polish (or Lithuanian) surnames. I personally know six or seven people with such names (in a town of about 30k people), and none of them speaks any Polish. This is a legacy of the role of a Polish unit in the liberation of our region during WWII. Several Polish soldiers chose not to return to Poland, I would suppose, because of the Red Army. So some stayed and got married. I don't think such things count for OP purposes.
 
Kuber's Bulgars may have still been Turkic-speaking but not everyone was Turkic. He lorded over and headed a population mixed with Slavs, Avars and Roman Christians who also participated in the migration. So there would be a Slavic element.
Fair enough, but the Slavic linguistic element is unlikely to remain dominant and be preserved in this context. In all likelyhood, they would ultimately assimilate linguistically to local Romance (well, this would probably happen even if they all spoke something Turkic).
 
Easy, but this may not be what you’re looking for. Just have the allies decide to liberate all of Italy before invading France. This means that the Soviets stomp through Germany at least to the Rhine. Even after the fall of the Soviets, there would likely still be a substantial Slavic minority in Germany west of OTL’s Iron Curtain
 
I mean wouldn't the definition of Eastern Europe organically expand if an area adjacent to it becomes Slavic? Of course that's considering the binary definition of western and eastern but still if we aren't given a definition then one could say the Poles in Western Poland and the Sorbs, Czechs and Slovenians all are already in Western Europe.
 

Toraach

Banned
I mean wouldn't the definition of Eastern Europe organically expand if an area adjacent to it becomes Slavic? Of course that's considering the binary definition of western and eastern but still if we aren't given a definition then one could say the Poles in Western Poland and the Sorbs, Czechs and Slovenians all are already in Western Europe.
There are countless definitions what is Western and Easter and Central Europe.

In Poland Western Europe usually means what in the west from Poland, richer and was in the EU prior 2004.
But culturally you could tell that Poland is western european country, contrary to Russia.
Yet, Russians and Poles are similar in a way that Poles are diffrent from example Frenchmen. Some deap cultural similarities between Slavs, and linguistic proximinity.
 
There are countless definitions what is Western and Easter and Central Europe.

In Poland Western Europe usually means what in the west from Poland, richer and was in the EU prior 2004.
But culturally you could tell that Poland is western european country, contrary to Russia.
Yet, Russians and Poles are similar in a way that Poles are diffrent from example Frenchmen. Some deap cultural similarities between Slavs, and linguistic proximinity.
But that's the point, if Eastern Germany and Austria are Slavic, they would be by that last definition Eastern European, thus making the AHC a self-defeating endeavour.

This is why defining the definition is important.
 
What can be done to have a Slavic langauge be spoken in Western Europe{as in the land that would later be west of the Iron Curtain})??? The POD can be any point after about the fall of the Western Roman Empire but can be earlier. It doesn't have to be a state, but my minimum would be a clearly defined region that speaks the language(like a Breton peninsula type deal).
Maybe a eveneven we Byzantine Empire. The Slavic migration to Greece leads to the construction of Slavic kingdom/s on Greek soil. Byzantine emperor remains formal Overlord but cannot so much. Instead of Assimilation into Greek culture, Greece become majority slavic speaking.
 
What can be done to have a Slavic langauge be spoken in Western Europe{as in the land that would later be west of the Iron Curtain})???
Yugoslavia was west of the Iron Curtain according to some models...

Anyways, if Carantania some how avoids being subjugated by Bavaria (*cough*) then what would be in OTL southwestern Austria could remain Slavic.
 
Slavs conquer Scandinavia, then take over the Viking mantle and conquer England, there's little of Europe more western than that :)
 
What can be done to have a Slavic langauge be spoken in Western Europe{as in the land that would later be west of the Iron Curtain})??? The POD can be any point after about the fall of the Western Roman Empire but can be earlier. It doesn't have to be a state, but my minimum would be a clearly defined region that speaks the language(like a Breton peninsula type deal).
Sorbian state in the HRE. Sorbians settled even further west than Thuringia and Saxony OTL. Sorbian independence movement existed until the Nazis took power.
 
I would Argue that Czechia is always a western Europe Country, and as so Czechia is a Slavic speaking country in western Europe, is Historically counted as part of the German(s) Reich and the HRE is was a Catholic Kingdom and not an Orthodox one(first division between east and west) The only reason we don´t consider ti as a West country is because it was under the Communist domain during the cold war, but politically, cultural, historically and development standard is a western Europe country
 
I would Argue that Czechia is always a western Europe Country, and as so Czechia is a Slavic speaking country in western Europe, is Historically counted as part of the German(s) Reich and the HRE is was a Catholic Kingdom and not an Orthodox one(first division between east and west) The only reason we don´t consider ti as a West country is because it was under the Communist domain during the cold war, but politically, cultural, historically and development standard is a western Europe country

Is Germany Western Europe? By some definitions it would be counted as Central Europe.
 
Prevent the formation of the HRE and you could see Slavs migrating into Northern Italy at the very least. IMO the HRE was the principal agent in stopping Slavic expansion.
 
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