Altered Ethno-Religious Identities

Just a question our of idle curosity from someoine who has too little time to read scenarios: Do you guys screw with enthno-religious identities? What I mean is the idea that X ethnicity stereotypically is Y religion. By way of the simplest example, the idea that Irish or Polish people are Catholic. Historically, that is a relatively young development stemming from the fact of them developing that identity against an Anglican respectively Lutheran/Orthodox dominant Other. In 1600, you could be a Lutheran and a Pole and nobody would find it strange. Does anyone here deliberately change these things?
 
Depends on how far back the PoD is really...

I'm currently working on (among other things) a scenario with a Christian Persia... ;)

It'll take a while before that's ready, though...
 

Philip

Donor
Do you guys screw with enthno-religious identities? What I mean is the idea that X ethnicity stereotypically is Y religion.

I am a big fan of this.

In 1600, you could be a Lutheran and a Pole and nobody would find it strange.
I would dispute this, but I understand you point.

Does anyone here deliberately change these things?
I am currently working on a timeline where Arabs convert to Judaism, the Turks retain (a modified version of) their native Tengriism, and Western Christianity is not (mostly) monolithic through the Middle Ages. Japan may even end up Hindu.

I also have some ideas for a time line where Luther flees to Bohemia. He joins with the Calixtines and eventually becomes Orthodox. In this I have largely followed the New Finnish interpretation of Luther's writings.
 
In my Angevin timeline (yet to be reincarnated on AH.com) I'm messing with the Little Schism and Reformation to produce a slightly different Christian split: German Catholicism, (theocratic) Clergism etc.
 
Along a long enough timeline, you can backtrack and find a different ethno-religious identity for everyone. In the context of your post, what comes to mind-to me- are instances where one groups identity was a close run thing. Or, where the identity has changed to a point that the old identity is starkly contrasted to the present. Some things that come to mind are...

Western North Africa, as well as Egypt, was one of the heartlands of Christian thought and development. So what's your ethnic group there....Berbers? Punic types? To be honest I still can't look at "Arab" Egypt's identity and NOT think of the Copts....they're still very much around.

Spain could have remained an Islamic country semi-permanently had things gone differently. Not sure of the numbers on how much of the population was Muslim, though.

The inhabitants of Anatolia, pre-Turks, were very Christian. Again, it was a center of the faith- Paul, Nicaea, Constantinople, etc. Today, the genetic basis of those individuals is still of virtually the same stock as it was then, but they have been Turkicized culturally and the Christian element is nill. When does anybody ever think of a Turk as a Christian? (though personally I've met some).

Maybe the state of Massachusetts? It's changed BOTH it's ethnic and religious identity. Used to be an Anglo, Puritan, reactionary breeding ground. Not really a friendly place for Catholics. Now, thanks to the Irish and Italians, it's THE Catholic state. And with California, probably THE liberal state, too.

How about the identity of the Europeans as a whole? Its brand of Christianity got exported to the world and is looked back on as the heartland of Christianity (even if this is wrong). Now, the majority of it is pretty heavily secular, and it's the place Benedict bitches about whenever he wants to criticize "materialism and relativism".

The staunchly Catholic nature of Latin America is changing rapidly as we speak. Personally, I find this the most interesting of all.
 
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Just a question our of idle curosity from someoine who has too little time to read scenarios: Do you guys screw with enthno-religious identities? What I mean is the idea that X ethnicity stereotypically is Y religion.

I am a damned addict for doing this :cool: Always like the ideas like the emergence of a sizable Muslim Jewish group, Protestant Hungary and/or Italy, and Christian kingdoms/states in India and Indonesia.
 
I'd like to see some of the Eastern religions take hold amongst the Native Americans. (But that requires some intense PoD's)

If Constantinople retained a greater influence on the European Mainland, Orthodoxy could have been geographically competing with Catholicism...would have made for a very interesting reformation.
 

Hendryk

Banned
I'd like to see some of the Eastern religions take hold amongst the Native Americans. (But that requires some intense PoD's)
I did that in The Chinese discover America in 1435. By the 1500s, Mahayana Buddhism was beginning to spread among Mesoamerican cultures, while a syncretic blend of Taoism and Native American shamanism called the Way of the Spirit Breath caught up among North America's nomadic tribes.
 
Candidates for Catholicism: Bulgarians, Dutchmen, Englishmen, Japanese, north Germans, Russians, Swedes.

Candidates for Protestantism: Austrians, Belgians, Czechs, Hungarians, south Germans.

Candidates for Eastern Orthodoxy: Czechoslovaks, Hungarians.

Candidates for Islam: Balkan peoples, Russians.
 
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Could we have a Zoroastrian Britian as the British are a nation of dog lovers and zoroastrianism regards dogs as sacred
 
Whatabout Pagan Western Empire?

In the 4th Century, there was a last gasp by pagan roman senators against Christianity. Essentially, the depredations of the Christian zealots had lead to sackings of temples, which lead to an attempted coup and the 'martyrdom' of various Christians. In reality, the coup didn't last very long, but...

What if their coup did work, and Christianity was expunged, thereby leading to a recovery in the west? You would then have a Christian East and a pagan West...
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Just a question our of idle curosity from someoine who has too little time to read scenarios: Do you guys screw with enthno-religious identities? What I mean is the idea that X ethnicity stereotypically is Y religion. By way of the simplest example, the idea that Irish or Polish people are Catholic. Historically, that is a relatively young development stemming from the fact of them developing that identity against an Anglican respectively Lutheran/Orthodox dominant Other. In 1600, you could be a Lutheran and a Pole and nobody would find it strange. Does anyone here deliberately change these things?
I've been toying around with an idea about the Portuguese rivalry with the Ottomans in the Gulf. One of the ways that they insinuated themselves was by cultivating conversions among the Mandaeans, a number of whom actually converted to Catholicism (although the sincerity of their conversions was doubted at the time and continues to be doubted to this day, a number of Mandaean priests lamented these converts in the colophons of the manuscripts that they wrote at the time).

At one point there were so many converts that the Portuguese plotted to build an army of them and invade the Maldives. Some of their priests went renegade as well, so my POD would be the Catholic Church accepting these newly converted "Christians of St. John" en masse as a sort of proto-Uniate church, allowing them to retain their religious hierarchy, their language, and some of their rituals (such as their unique baptism) in return for adopting a more "orthodox" form of Christianity. Some of the Carmelites who traveled to Basra with the Portuguese became scholars of the Mandaean language and might even have translated some key texts into Mandaic for the benefit of the Sabian Catholic Church of Basra.
 
Just a question our of idle curosity from someoine who has too little time to read scenarios: Do you guys screw with enthno-religious identities? What I mean is the idea that X ethnicity stereotypically is Y religion. By way of the simplest example, the idea that Irish or Polish people are Catholic. Historically, that is a relatively young development stemming from the fact of them developing that identity against an Anglican respectively Lutheran/Orthodox dominant Other. In 1600, you could be a Lutheran and a Pole and nobody would find it strange. Does anyone here deliberately change these things?

I'm a fan of Calvinist Hungary, which was a strong possibility in OTL.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
I'm a fan of Calvinist Hungary, which was a strong possibility in OTL.

I have always found that a interesting idea,, but I think it would be necessary to make Hungary a Ottoman vassal rather than a Ottoman possesion, and letting Austria go Lutheran*, to make the sure that the Austrian won't try to "free" Hungary.

*Quite possible if we change Ferdinands personality a little bit and/or give him a reason to do so, beside Lutheranism popularity in Austria.
 
I have always found that a interesting idea,, but I think it would be necessary to make Hungary a Ottoman vassal rather than a Ottoman possesion, and letting Austria go Lutheran*, to make the sure that the Austrian won't try to "free" Hungary.

Abdul's said a lot of times that the Ottomans made a mistake conquering Hungary. At one point I even argued with him that they couldn't afford to leave it alone after the Battle of Mohacs.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Abdul's said a lot of times that the Ottomans made a mistake conquering Hungary. At one point I even argued with him that they couldn't afford to leave it alone after the Battle of Mohacs.


It wasn't meant as a attack on Abdul, it was the necessary steps for the creation of a Calvinist Hungary.

Beside that, do you have any ideas for making Hungary a vassalstate?
 
It wasn't meant as a attack on Abdul, it was the necessary steps for the creation of a Calvinist Hungary.

Beside that, do you have any ideas for making Hungary a vassalstate?

Well the Transylvanian princes (who were Turkish vassals) controlled part of Hungary proper and some of them had ambitions to take the crown from the Habsburgs. But if you're refering to the 1526 Hungary then you need a John Zapolya weak enough that he has to accept Ottoman suzerainty while keeping the Habsburgs busy elsewhere so they'll leave him alone.
 
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