The OTL expulsion of the Circassians springs to mind as a ready analogy here I think, I suspect the Syrians may well end in a similar role with Ottoman Circassians in the polities they find refuge. Which IMO is one more reason friendship with Persia... if there is such a thing is not going to last.
An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
Has Athena made provisions to appoint an Orthodox Bishop of Rome? Or maybe plans to hold a Ecumenical Council with the Avignon Papacy with a view to solve the question of Rome (and possibly score a diplomatic coup) in the future? On the matter of the papacy, is Clement VIII, Pope in the HRE still ruling in Prague? Does that make him Archbishop of Prague by default?
A chilling and well written update. Really drives home how much the Rhoman sphere has lost all patience for minority populations that don't assimilate. Between the Egyptian genocide and now this centuries and millennia old cultures have been crushed and scattered. I don't see the Syrians maintaining much of a distinct culture; the update makes clear that even in states that are taking them in there is mistrust of them and they are being broken up into penny packets and scattered throughout the realms. Syrian culture in the modern day likely consists of little more than a couple family recipes passed down and the names of the people themselves.
Speaking on Bishop of Rome for the first time in over 1000 years the pentarchy (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem) are not only all under the control of a single Christian denomination but are fully under the control of a single power. At a time when states get a fair amount of legitimacy from religion I do wonder how controlling all 5 of the original Bisphorics will impact not only Rhoman cultural development but how the other Christian powers will react as well over the medium to long term. Good things are often chalked up to "God's favour" while bad things happening are due to "God's punishment" so how will various Catholic states explain the continuing split between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. It doesn't need to be a fully coherent answer or even a great one but some sort of explanation of how Rhomania has been able over the last 400 years to recover all of them would need an explanation to prevent a pious population from wondering if they are perhaps on the wrong side of the split.
Speaking on Bishop of Rome for the first time in over 1000 years the pentarchy (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem) are not only all under the control of a single Christian denomination but are fully under the control of a single power. At a time when states get a fair amount of legitimacy from religion I do wonder how controlling all 5 of the original Bisphorics will impact not only Rhoman cultural development but how the other Christian powers will react as well over the medium to long term. Good things are often chalked up to "God's favour" while bad things happening are due to "God's punishment" so how will various Catholic states explain the continuing split between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. It doesn't need to be a fully coherent answer or even a great one but some sort of explanation of how Rhomania has been able over the last 400 years to recover all of them would need an explanation to prevent a pious population from wondering if they are perhaps on the wrong side of the split.
Eh, I am an Orthodox Christian and I have to admit that the idea of “the Pentarchy” as this sort of ancient ring of power a la the CK2 “men the schism” decision is sort of post-hoc. Those five were probably *the* most important early sites, but “Latins” have always maintained Rome is preeminent and even if Rome itself is occupied the “rightful” bishop resides elsewhere. And cities like Lyon, Milan and Canterbury (as well as non-western sites like Axum) have very venerable sees as well. Controlling the cities of the Pentarchy is more of a prestige boost to Orthodoxy than anything.
Oh my. I guess the Reddit and the interwebs ITTL would be clogged up by controversial comments of Roman apologists.
Which reminds me of the quote often mentioned by apologists, which I don't quite remember all but ends with "Even if we did it, they deserved it."
This reminds me of the Japanese nationalists and their stance towards Korea and China. Misdirections, whataboutisms, and outright revisionisms to remove Japan's crimes from history.
This is a very realistic update, one that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Great writing @Basileus444.
This is a very realistic update, one that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Great writing @Basileus444.
Closer to the Russian stance over the Circassians than what's going on with the Armenians methinks. Although the Empire at least acknowledges it was a bad thing apparently, the Russian official stance last time I had seen was it was part of their "civilizing mission "
1. Wow, the Great Crime was messed up.
2. Just curious, is technology more or less advanced than OTL?
2. Just curious, is technology more or less advanced than OTL?
Ethnic cleansing always is.
Technology is moving slightly faster in this timeline, helped in part by the extensive university system established throughout the empire,
It's interesting how the scale of it has resulted in it being remebered - many crimes of the same type from the medieval/early modern periods are just ignored today as a function of them time. Really, it's only till you get to the 1800s/Victorian Era that most people OTL consider it a shameful act undertaken by people they are connected to.
Evilprodigy
Donor
You can probably blame a lot of that on recency bias. Some people in 2021 actually know who their great-grandparents are and how they interacted with it, rather than being of uncertainty relation to an atrocity from the more distant past. Furthermore the nations, states, and nation-states of that time still exist today and potentially benefit from it. Jews certainly remember the Babylonian Captivity for example but there is no Babylon to be upset at. Even the expulsion from Spain rings with a nebulous tone because modern people are not sure how or if they were affected by it.
It really was standard practice for most of recorded history. If you had rebellious people in your territory you kept the territory and removed the people. Methods included suppression of culture, immigration from loyal populations, deportations, and murder/enslavement. What got remembered was a factor of what got written down, which in turn was a factor of scale. One rebellious village being eliminated and resettled is often overlooked. An entire country like Syria was going to leave some records.
It's not to say it was ever right, but it was never really questioned until really post WWI, when the idea of self determination really took off.
Cryostorm
Monthly Donor
And even then all one needs to do is look at the post WWI population transfers in the Balkans/Anatolia region or the post WWII expulsions/transfers in Eastern Europe/India/East Asia/Africa to see it never really became something opposed internationally until really recently.
Hell, to a degree the idea of self determination itself is highly rooted in xenophobic/exclusionary nationalism which often resulted in ethnic cleansing, the most recent being the short war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
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True. The interwar and immediate post WWII years were full of "humane" population transfers in place of genocides to make sure everyone had compact and homogenous ethno-states.
Please refrain from current political commentary.
The OOC reason for not having a Syrian Sunni diaspora community was that it would be a locus for anti-Roman sentiment (quite reasonably) and would, for logistical reasons, be in Persia, and that would change my planned Romano-Persian arc. For an OTL comparison, I’m thinking of the Moriscos that emigrated to North Africa and were a major impetus behind retaliatory raids on the Spanish coast. So some prominent Syrian-descended Muslims are a possibility, but as individuals rather than a community.
As for reaping benefits, that’s the OOC reason for why I mentioned that the benefits go to the various minority populations of Syria. When the Sunnis rebelled, it was they who received the brunt of it, so it seems fitting to me that they get the gains. There were suggestions earlier in the thread of how after expelling the Sunnis the Romans could flood the area with settlers and intensely develop and populate the area. Yes, that has happened IOTL (see the colonization of the American West and the Russian East), but it doesn’t have to happen that way, especially since the context here is different (larger surviving native population resistant to disease and a relatively small settler pool), and I don’t feel like rewarding this ethnic cleansing.
In essence, the Romans sold their souls and didn’t even get a cookie for it. (Which is a pity, because the cookies from Hell’s Bakery are really good.)
Orthodox stuff is going to be coming up in the next update. Catholic stuff will be in a later update, position undetermined.
I’m going to be touching on the Catholic response to Roman Pentarchy at some point, when the TL shifts focus back to Latin Europe to deal with the hanging HRE thread.
But the Patriarchs were all of them deceived, for another See was made.
One See to rule them all, One See to find them,
One See to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Latium where the shadows lie.
There was a bad taste in my mouth writing it. One refrain I had consciously running through my head was ‘get rid of passive voice’. The Romans may try to absolve/justify themselves with various arguments, but I don’t have to help them.
Mix of Americas and various Mediterranean households and estates.
It varies from field to field, but somewhat more advanced than OTL. The most noticeable areas are military tech (flintlock muskets for example) and astronomy (astronomical discoveries like Saturn’s rings are known now ITTL when IOTL it took another few decades). OOC, it’s because those are the areas that I’m most knowledgeable about and most interested.
It’s entirely due to scale. Massacring 10,000 rebellious peasants wouldn’t bat an eye in the 1600s. The concept here is the same, but when it’s scaled up to a million plus and across such a big reason, it gets attention. The numbers would be huge today, and this is in a much less populated world.
Plus it is a pivotal moment in Syrian history, which completely changes course afterwards. The TTL future of Syria makes no sense without the Great Crime and the demographic aftereffects. It’s the historical equivalent of the layer of iridium at the end of the Cretaceous geological layer.