AHC/WI: Greek Caucasus and Ukraine

Albert.Nik

Banned
Greeks in OTL dominated Anatolia,North Africa,Balkans and large parts of Levant in the West and Afghanistan,North Pakistan and India and parts of Uzbekistan in the East. However there was no connecting land. In this timeline,the AHC is for a Greek dominated Ukraine and parts of Caucasus which could be easily settled from Anatolia and Greece where they already had a foothold. So in this timeline,we will imagine they would be connected through Ukraine and Southern Steppes. How would this Greek world take shape in future for India,Central Asia,Europe and ME-NA. How would it affect the later events of Christian Byzantines,Islamic Arabs and Persia? How would the demographics of India look like? Would White Greek Hindus also contribute a significant percent of Hindu community(around 35-40%)? And hence,how would interactions of Indians and Western powers be like in the later years? How would Tocharians and Scythians who lived in neighbouring regions react? How would the modern era look like? How would central Asia be like with Greek Hindu/Buddhists dominating it along with other Iranian, Indo-Aryan and Dravidian Hindus/Buddhists living together? Would the world be a better place with more settled,stronger,larger and more diverse empires?
 
Easiest problem I could see, at least in Ukraine, would be the difficulty of holding it against whatever nomads or tribal groups roll through the area. How might they be able to hold it?
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Easiest problem I could see, at least in Ukraine, would be the difficulty of holding it against whatever nomads or tribal groups roll through the area. How might they be able to hold it?
Scythians were in Ukraine at that time and Caucasian peoples. I think Scythians would be hostile a bit but Caucasian peoples would welcome and join the Greek colonies I think.
 
Well, those eastern populations of Greeks were created by Alexander's conquests. So, really, the best way to connect them to the motherland of Hellas is by recreating Alexander's conquests and further hellenizing them...

That said, the Greeks OTL did colonize Crimea, parts of the Black Sea coast of Ukraine (like Tanais and Olbia) and Georgia (Gorgippia) so they could theoretically settle there. However, they would need greater incentives to colonize further inland. Almost all Greek colonies were coastal for a reason: maritime trade provided a bulk of prosperity for the people. Hellenizing them could be an alternative; that is what happened to Anatolia in the Byzantine era. But, with Ukraine's steppes, even if they hellenized the local nomads it certainly won't step the next horde from trampling them over and undo their work. A Greek Caucasus would be more sustainable, but again, they would need a reason to hellenize the area and retain it for a long period of time.
 
Easiest problem I could see, at least in Ukraine, would be the difficulty of holding it against whatever nomads or tribal groups roll through the area. How might they be able to hold it?

I know that this thread is almost a month old, but... we know that Slavic languages evolved in what is today Ukraine and, despite being spoken originally by a bunch of woodland tribespeople, somehow came to dominate Eastern Europe and much of Asia despite all the waves of nomads that came through the area that one would think would have absorbed them.

So, I don’t think it that tall of an order to see Ukraine eventually Hellenized. A fun POD for this might be a Pontic victory at Chaeronea, which could, if Mithradates plays his cards right, lead to the Romans losing Greece and Asia permanently. Down the road, we could see the Dnieper trade route with the Baltic developing sooner due to some fashion craze for amber pendants in Greece/Anatolia, and further settlement up the river with Greek trading posts could spread Greek further north as the lingua franca.
 
What could happen is that you had Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast. Due to cultural attractiveness, the neighbouring steppe poeples adopt Christianity and a)Greek language. In the end, you could have the whole of Crimea and the Ukrainian coast hellenic
 
What could happen is that you had Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast. Due to cultural attractiveness, the neighbouring steppe poeples adopt Christianity and a)Greek language. In the end, you could have the whole of Crimea and the Ukrainian coast hellenic

I think we would need to change things up a bit more, considering that there were Greeks at the time of the adoption of Christianity in the region and the people didn't adopt the Greek language.
 
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