Goths in the Crimea

Well i was trolling the internets of late and have found something rather interesting, there was an independent gothic kingdom in the south crimea until the 15th century and the language survived until at least 1700.

what about a gothic kingdom/state in the crimea (or even the southern ukraine) that survives to the present day.
 
yeah, but the POD is a long time before the unification of russia. image potyemkin subjugates the goths rather than the tartars
 
A possibility is that the Golden Horde makes the kingdom a vassal state,and the Horde stays stronger,this would probably require no Black Death and no Tamerlane.
The state could probably resist till the 16-17th century, i do not know how to make it survive till the present day.
 
mabye if it takes over modern Ukraine and lives under Russia for a while then demands independence after the fall of Russia.
 
how about Genoa manages to extend its Crimean territory further up into Theodoros (The Crimean Gothic kingdom), and manages to hold on to it until the late 18th century, while protecting the Goths? not sure where to go from there though
 
A possibility is that the Golden Horde makes the kingdom a vassal state,and the Horde stays stronger,this would probably require no Black Death and no Tamerlane.
The state could probably resist till the 16-17th century, i do not know how to make it survive till the present day.

I think that a surviving and fairly strong Byzantine Empire which controls the Black Sea would be a better bet.

During the Comnenian period, the Byzantines did control several cities in the southern Crimea, and the Gothic principality of Theodoros was a vassal of the Byzantines. But after the 4th Crusade, the Byzantine territories in the Crimea came under Trebizondian influence, and the Empire of Trebizond was too weak to make a difference.

But a strong Comnenian Byzantium would have what it takes to hold on to the Crimea, and since the Crimean Goths were Orthodox, the Byzantines would also have a good reason to support the Crimean Goths againest the pagan (and later Muslim, provided that the religious developments remain similar to OTL) Qipchak and Mongols.

All you need then, is to throw in a strong and ambitious Crimean Gothic prince or king who has the support of the Byzantines, and then make sure that the Crimean Gothic kingdom conquers the central and northern regions of the Crimea, perhaps along with some coastal cities/city states near the Crimean Peninsula.

Then the Byzantines would have a strong ally/vassal in the north, and the Crimean Gothic kingdom could very well become a buffer state between Byzantium and the Russians later on.
 
What if the Crimean Goths decided to embrace Islam to evade destruction by the Ottomans ?

Though I kinda know what would your answers be, but I'm rather curious.....
 
What if the Crimean Goths decided to embrace Islam to evade destruction by the Ottomans ?

Though I kinda know what would your answers be, but I'm rather curious.....

1) the Ottomans didn't destroy them as a people - the Russians did.

2) the Ottomans or the Crimean Khanate would either absorb them or conquer them regardless, and the leader of the Crimean Goths would become nothing more than just another bey or amir within the Crimean Khanate.

3) they'd be assimilated by the Crimean Tatars within one or two centuries.

The one thing that kept them distinct from the Crimean Tatars was their religion and religious identity.

If converted to Islam, they would be *much* more exposed to the culture and religious-political influence of the Crimean Tatars, and having no strong national identity, they would, like I said before, be assimilated very quickly.

Just look at what happened to the Islamized Armenians in eastern Anatolia and Vaspurakan - they were assimilated by either the Turks or the Kurds. Almost all Armenians who were Islamized in this region were assimilated by the Turks or Kurds within several generations, and only a few small isolated Armenian Muslim communities retained the Armenian language and culture to any degree.

And the Armenians had a much stronger cultural and national identity than the Crimean Goths...
 
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1) the Ottomans didn't destroy them as a people - the Russians did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Gothic
Crimean Gothic was a dialect of Gothic that was spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea perhaps until as late as the 18th century.

There is no russian in Crimea in 18th century.

The namely Ottoman was those who destroy them as people.


Convertion into islam by force, enslavety and ejection of land by ottomans destroy them as people.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Gothic


There is no russian in Crimea in 18th century.

The namely Ottoman was those who destroy them as people.


Convertion into islam by force, enslavety and ejection of land by ottomans destroy them as people.

Since we're using wikipedia as divine truth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Goths said:
Crimean Gothic language texts from this region exist as late as the late 1500’s and Gothic communities appear to have survived intact until the late 1700’s, when many were deported by Catherine the Great.

I have a feeling you're not going to last for too long around here, BTW.
 
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