AHC : slavic peoples up to Elbe nowadays.

The challenge, if you accept it is to make slavic people present on what is baltic coast of Germany OTL and as deep in land as Thuringia.

1)The slavic people here does not have to be historical wendish confederations (Abodrites, Lusacians, Sorabians, Veleti, etc), but it's all bonus points.

2)Integration into HRE allowed

3)Christianization allowed

4)Integration into non-slavic countries in 2010 allowed but they still have to represent the first population (absolute or relative majority).
 

Arrix85

Donor
I'm not informed enough to meet the challenge, but I don't think the HRE existing would help much the slavs.

Initially I though about preventing the carolingian empire itself, but maybe if it survives it would keep the center of power in the Rhine valley and the baltic coast would be very peripheral. Possibly the german colonozation towards the east would be prevented?

I'm just guessing (and the survival of the carolingian empire seems unlikely given the Franks succession rules).

edit: maybe as a PoD having only one surviving child to adulthood for Charles? (but the problems would represent itself probably in the following generation).
 
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I wonder if the theorical 'Drag Nach Often' (of infamous germanic rightwing ideas) could be ironically countered - the germanic ones like in Sudentens assimilated into the slavic nations, or if a... How would the reverse be called in Polish, by example - could happens?
 
I wonder if the theorical 'Drag Nach Often' (of infamous germanic rightwing ideas) could be ironically countered - the germanic ones like in Sudentens assimilated into the slavic nations, or if a... How would the reverse be called in Polish, by example - could happens?

Parcie na zachód (the equivalent to Drang nach Osten but to the west). I think, if my polish isn't to rusty.

I think a larger emmigration to the west is possible, but there should be a less organized germany. So probably no Carolingian Empire. And maybe an incitation to go west, like a barbarian invasion.
 
The Slavic populations were somewhat thinner than the Saxon ones, but I think they could have persisted with a POD as late as the 11th c.
 
Would it be possible to redirect German expansion? I don't know how populated the Pannonian Basin was at the time, but it seems like a decent enough place to emigrate to. Perhaps an early conquest of the whole Avar Khaganate that leaves the Carolingian Empire overextended*, with a German successor polity inheriting the region (and the overextension) later? That might keep them occupied for a while, and see German expansion into the Basin instead of the Baltic.

During this time, the formation of stronger polities on their border might see the Slavs coalesce into a single polity, like how Denmark was a catalyst for the creation of Sweden. To secure their borders, Christianization seems like an obvious choice, at least for the rulers. Could be a bit like how Scandinavian rulers adopted Christianity personally, without forcing anyone else to join them, depending on the political circumstances. If the Slavs were anything like the Scandinavians, the conversion of their rulers would eventually trickle down to their general populace until a king would be in a strong enough position to begin enforcing Christianity.

Not an expert at all on the period, just throwing some ideas out there.

*Now the challenge becomes to make that happen. :p
 
You don't really need anything that grand. An earlier conversion of the Wendish tribes will do it. There are still likely to be German settlers, but there were German settlers in Poland, Bohemia and Moravia and they did not displace the Slavic-speaking population. IOTL, with a military conquest and a society baseds on a German ruling class and a wendiash underclass that you could escape by assimilating, no Wendish national identity and no political influence, you had Wendish speaking communities surviving all the way to the Elbe until the seventeenth century. With a Wendish state (as part of the HRE or otherwise) and a native Wendish church, they would most likely remain the majority.
 
You don't really need anything that grand. An earlier conversion of the Wendish tribes will do it.
So what you're saying is that I'm proposing to use dynamite, when just shooing the cows will clear the road? That doesn't surprise me honestly, I have a habit of going for the drastic solutions. :p

Still, I think my idea has potential as well. The Germans would become much more focused on the south-east, reducing their influence on the Scandinavians, which would be further exacerbated by the Slavs breaking the physical connection between the two. Though admittedly, that's a big change if you just want the Slavs on the Elbe.
 
Is there a good way to strengthen the pagan Saxons? That may sound counter-intuitive, but there was a longstanding Frankish-Obotrite alliance against the Saxons. At one point, the Daxon territory north of the Elbe (later Holstein/Holsatia) was given by the Franks to the Obotrites.
So a longer resistance by the Saxons might lead to a stronger and organized Obotrite state, with the capital in Reric or Liubic, perhaps traditionally allied with the Frankish and the Swedish state against Saxons and Danes.

For the southern area of the Sorabians and Lusatians, an early alliance with a Bohemian or Polish (or Moravian?) state seems the best way.
 
Actually, this is possible if Bohemia completely conquered Poland before it's Christianization or Poland retains Bohemia, I think a push to the lands between Elbe/Laba and Odra by a Poland-Bohemian entity is possible.
 
We're up to the Elbe(ows) in Slavs!

What you need is to convert them early, as has been mentioned. If the Saxons stayed pagan you coul have Slavonic Knights conquering Germans, rather than Teutonic Knights doing it to Slavs.

The other thing is western monasticism, actually. So it wouldnt help to have them Orthodox. Monks would go into a lightly inhabited area, drain the swamps, make the land usable, then German peasants would come in and settle, and the poles or wends or whoever who didnt have the heavy agricultural techniques to support a large population like the Germans did.

So if the Wends go catholic, THEY could be the ones making full use of what used to be swamps.

Its actually amusing reading Bahlow's book on german placenames. The thousands of places where the name comes from the german/archaic german/slavic word for marsh/swamp/fen/wetland/bog/... one gets the impression they had as many words for swamp as the Inuit do for snow....
 
The other thing is western monasticism, actually. So it wouldnt help to have them Orthodox. Monks would go into a lightly inhabited area, drain the swamps, make the land usable, then German peasants would come in and settle, and the poles or wends or whoever who didnt have the heavy agricultural techniques to support a large population like the Germans did.

I can assure you most heartily that Russian Orthodox monks did the very same thing though generally started a bit later chronologically because of that whole business with being invaded from the steppe and burned to the ground.

So it doesn't matter whether they go Byzantine or Roman, same result.
 
I can assure you most heartily that Russian Orthodox monks did the very same thing though generally started a bit later chronologically because of that whole business with being invaded from the steppe and burned to the ground.

So it doesn't matter whether they go Byzantine or Roman, same result.

Other than becoming the target for any Catholic warmonger looking for an excuse to expand his territory eastward. Orthodox Wends would be interesting, but I fear for the continued existence of their state in the 900-1100 timeframe.
 
I can assure you most heartily that Russian Orthodox monks did the very same thing though generally started a bit later chronologically because of that whole business with being invaded from the steppe and burned to the ground.

So it doesn't matter whether they go Byzantine or Roman, same result.

Orthodox monks went into the wilderness, yes. Did they actively prepare land for cultivation? Do you have a reference? I'd like to follow up on that.

My understanding was the Benedictine style 'laborare est orare' monasteries were very different from orthodox eremetical/mystical ones.
 
Orthodox monks went into the wilderness, yes. Did they actively prepare land for cultivation? Do you have a reference? I'd like to follow up on that.

My understanding was the Benedictine style 'laborare est orare' monasteries were very different from orthodox eremetical/mystical ones.

There were coenobitic monasteries too, and about half the towns in the Russian North (Vologda, Kostroma regions etc.) started their life as monasteries.

Not only that but because monasteries moved into largely empty areas, they claimed a lot of land that later got settled by peasants and was worked and taxed under monastic supervision.

So Orthodox monks could be useful for colonization too, is all I'm saying. Is it realistic that the Wends be orthodox? Not really. Is it better than having Benedictines? Also no.

But if someone really wants to go that route, there's no real reason to say that the Orthodox monks will not be useful in opening up new places for settlement.
 
They would be Greek Rite not Orthodox, they can't convert to Orthodoxy after the Great Schism, perhaps Greek Rite Wends could butterfly the Schism.
 
Maybe the division of the East Frankish Kingdom among the sons of Louis the German leads to the usual fraternal wars and so the EFK is weakened decisively while the Kingdom of Great Moravia grows stronger. As in OTL, King Rastislav has invited Byzantine monks, Methodius and Cyril, the inventor of the (predecessors of the) cyrillic script. With a weakened Frankish neighbor, the Moravian erect a strong orthodox state that suffers when the Magyars arrive, but loses only Pannonia and clings to its Moravian, Bohemian, Sorbian, Slovakian, Silesian and maybe even Wislan areas.

A Great Moravian kingdom that also rules over Sorbia/Lusatia and has the power to convert Veleti and Obotrites to orthodox christianity would certainly fit the challenge.
 
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