Make a Pax Russiana ATL with Russian as a global lingua franca.

[Centauris]

Hello!

As Russia today is still the number one country by area, and Slavic people were rather hidden in the forests of Central-Eastern Europe and Balkans before The Early Middle Ages, what makes all the debate on The Iron Age history of the group heated to its bounds, I am quite interested in an Alternate Timeline of Russia's successful development into a peaceful giant polity with the cruel history behind. I would love if Russia would be nicknamed "The Northern Stronghold", which keeps to its borders vehemently and never gets itself landed in any international scandals.

Here are some requests:

1. Make Russia stable at its modern borders plus at least the continuous area reaching and including Bayan Obo (rare earth metals mining area - exceptionally needed to dominate);
2. Russian is the number one language of the world. Only very closely related nations inside Russia would speak a different-than-official language to communicate;
3. To make the scenario rather realistic, I put the PD limit not earlier than 500 AD. Russians still need to get the name they have in OTL, and their language formation must be 80% identical to what we have in reality; the titullar nation must be at least 50% of the total population of the country in 2000; the genetic pool of Russians must be at least 50% identical to what is present now in terms of inherited genes;
4. Population of Russia by the year 2000 must be not less than 600 million, any expanded Russian timelines must have the population density of the country not less than 25 people per sq. km at the turn of the current millennium;
5. Russian GDP is the number one for an extended period of time, at least beginning in 1900, and should be sustained till at least 2050.
6. Modern Russian politics is peace-oriented, science-focused and as optimistic as possible;
7. Russia does not lose any war from at least 1800, and battle failures or ambiguous results do not matter;
8. Russia leads in science and in the top three what concerns its cumulative sports performance.
9. The name of the country includes "Russia" in one or another form, so USSR option is not accepted, while, let's say, "Russian Communist Federation" is alright;
10. Russia is not at the brink of collapse by the beginning of the 21st century and have to be conserved as one of the most steady countries in terms of internal sustainability - be it a democracy or a digital totalitarianist state, the nation must be satisfied by and relying on their homeland;
11. No genocide conducted by the country from at least 1700;
12. Pure totalitarianism is not welcomed as an option and the character of internal relations should be evincing as weak detrimental, extreme nationalism as possible.


P.S. I started to wonder about this because I speak Russian fluently from my early childhood. I enjoy watching Soviet science documentaries and movies, but I wish the country was not a ruddy totalitarian prison for its people, what now turned into an oligarchy exploiting the people suppressed by the red tranquilisation.

 

[Pax_Nihil]

Holy Empire I think from GURPS was illustrated by @B_Munro and fits the bill for the Russia that you're looking for.

 

[holycookie]

The capitalist side wins the Russian civil war, without the communist threat the German government will not be so crazy so instead of the Nazis we have a right-wing dictatorship. This would give more time for russia to industrialize organically, after russia really industrializes normally, after that russian will be one of the lingua francas by necessity.

 

[Lalli]

The capitalist side wins the Russian civil war, without the communist threat the German government will not be so crazy so instead of the Nazis we have a right-wing dictatorship. This would give more time for russia to industrialize organically, after russia really industrializes normally, after that russian will be one of the lingua francas by necessity.

How does that makes Russian as global lingua franca?

 

[holycookie]

How does that makes Russian as global lingua franca?

With a russia that do not to fall into economic and cultural decay due to communism. Russian becomes one of the most important languages side by side with English.

 

[WhatSantayanaSaid]

With a russia that do not to fall into economic and cultural decay due to communism. Russian becomes one of the most important languages side by side with English.

That still doesn't get Russian to be the #1 language. Once the British colonize the Eastern Seaboard, Canada, India, and Australia, you'd be hard pressed to make English not the most spoken language in the world. India alone gives the demographic edge to English, especially since it's the language of administration and the only language both North and South Indians will both learn (the South resents attempts to enforce Hindi on them and the North doesn't bother with the Dravidian languages).

Anyways, we saw Japan as the #2 largest economy for some decades and it's still mostly limited to the Japanese Isles. China likewise hasn't seen Mandarin spread especially quickly or widely. You'd have to break the Anglo-sphere's global military+economic dominance and demographic advantage to get any language to surpass it in number of speakers or as the global lingua franca.

7. Russia does not lose any war from at least 1800, and battle failures or ambiguous results do not matter;

11. No genocide conducted by the country from at least 1700;

7 and 11 are kind of big asks.

7 demands an entirely different political outlook to the one we've seen historically, seeing as no Great Powers managed to go 200 years without defeat. The nature of imperial expansion and competition with other imperial powers predisposes those nations towards subjugating strategic lands, whether for resources, geographical advantages like defensible borders or strategic waterways, or to simply deny other imperial powers those lands. That's borne of the paranoia that power brings (that one must keep growing or prevent rivals from growing to not be eclipsed and absorbed like how the empire eclipsed and absorbed the lands it conquered and used to become an imperial power), so you'd need a different set of geopolitical philosophies and outlooks towards power for that one.

11's also rather difficult because all the imperial powers had at least 1 major set of genocides since 1700. The US had the Natives, the British had the Bengalese and Irish, the Qing the Dzungar, and so forth. If the nation is expanding into lands of peoples that don't share the same heritage, culture, religion, etc. and there are conflicts over resources or nationalist separatism or just a war goes wrong and people need a scapegoat, then tribalism kicks in and atrocities unfold. It's not guaranteed, but the larger the empire and the more peoples it has conquered and hasn't assimilated, the greater the chance it'll occur eventually. And technically forceful assimilation (forcing a language and culture on others) is also a form of genocide.

You'd need the Russians to pretty much stop expanding by 1700 and have nearly the people within be Russian while still being absolutely massive, which is a big ask before the advent of mass media helped accelerate assimilation across vast regions and improved infrastructure allowed for faster travel and communication (being remote encourages the formation of new identities and cultures. Look at China with all its dialects that are pretty much different languages. And the separation of the Eastern Slavic languages into Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian, Rusyn...not to mention the culture). And for Russia to not be threatened by other nations and not be threatening to others to avoid war (there's a reason none of the Great Powers were neutral nations and why none of the neutral nations managed to become Great Powers).

 

[Lalli]

With a russia that do not to fall into economic and cultural decay due to communism. Russian becomes one of the most important languages side by side with English.

That Russian wouldn't be even close of English. At best Russian would be third important language after English and French and even then pretty far behind.

 

[WryWren]

If you can stretch the already overstretched Russian colonial project to its absolute limits in the 17th and 18th centuries you may be able to get the Pacific Northwest to be Russian-speaking. It's unlikely to be a true settler colony (which would also I assume violate one of your rules), but Russified Haida or other tribes in the area may if properly armed and with a small allied population of Russian military advisors and fur traders, be able to spread some new and unique mixture of Russian culture and religion across much of western North America, overrunning the small number of British and Spanish forts and creating an independent and powerful Russophone nation that can assist in the project of global Russification.

You will also want to spread the other Slavic languages as much as possible in the rest of Europe, as their speakers would be naturally inclined towards learning Russian over more distant languages, all else being equal. If you can get other Slavic nations to establish overseas colonies as well, that's even better, though that would in itself require some wacky scenario like a Maurice Benyovszky-type adventurer claiming Madagascar in the name of Poland. Lastly you need to spread the Orthodox faith into Manchuria, Korea, and Japan, from where it will be poised to eventually enter China, either peacefully or in the form of some Taiping style religious upheaval.

In short, the way to get a peaceful Russian-led world without Russia having to ruthlessly and cruelly conquer most of it is to get foreign Russian-speakers, other Slavs, and overseas Orthodox Christians to ruthlessly and cruelly conquer most of it instead, and then decide that Russian language and culture is the nearest common denominator binding them all together. This of course violates the spirit of your request, if not the letter, but I can't think of any other way to achieve this without going back so far as to make the whole world unrecognizable.

 

[Tosa Inu]

POD:
Ivan the Terrible never killed his eldest son and "Merely" punish him for his wife's inappropriate dress by ordering him to lead an invasion against the Crimean Tatar or his wife's life would be forfeit. Much to everyone's surprise, Tsarevich Ivan actually managed to took Crimea quickly (because most Tatars were away in the Balkans doing bidding for their Ottoman Overlords.

In later 1580s, MASSIVE Ottoman-led Land and Sea invasion to punish the Muscovites happened. Tsarevich Ivan, now governing the recently conquered Crimea, ended up managed to hold the initial counterinvasion by the Angry Tatars, and Tsar Ivan IV himself managed to arrive just in time to relieve his Son from Eastside attack from the Ottoman Navy and their Circassian Allies. This is a much earlier, and pretty different Start to the alternate "Crimean War.

Sensing Ottoman Weakness, Austrian-led HRE offered Russia an alliance. At the Measly cost of helping Austria got Croatia and Hungary, the Russians were promised that they could get Constantinople and all Orthodox Lands in the South. Tsar Ivan accepts and they managed to push South. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was also invited initially, but they're busy with Sweden at this time.

This Austro-Russiam alliance timed well with the Serbian uprising, and Celali Revolt in Anatolia at the same time. The Ottoman soon found themselves Fighting a losing battle as Russia supported the Serbians and buddies Greek Revolt led by Dionysus the Philosopher, who invited Russiam Tsar to took the position of Eastern Roman Emperor, while Austria used their Spanish cousin to have their Navy coordinate a massive attack of North Africa.

In response of the threat of Habsburg Ascendancy, France, England, and Sweden allied themselves with the Ottomans to keep the Habsburgs Austria and Spain from expanding too much. This bogged down the Holy Roman Empire as well as the Spanish Empire, but at the same time, Swedish foray into Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth made the PLC finally join the Austro-Russian Alliance.

Ottoman got some breathing room, but found the Orthodox Serbs and Greeks rose up in Rebellion. This cause Tsarevich Ivan to be able to "liberate" Bulgaria before he besieged Constantinople, while the Greeks inside the City also rioted against their Ottoman Overlord.

1593, after a a year long siege, Tsar Ivan IV ordered a massive assult on Constantinople, with he himself leading the attack (since he wanted the Glory), this ended rather... Mixed... Tsar Ivan IV managed to lead the attack, breached the defenses, and managed to reach the Steps of Hagia Sophia when a stray shot struck and killed him. Then Sultan Murad managed to rally his soldiers for massive counterattack, leading to the Russians almost break and rout, yet at the last time, Tsarevich Ivan, now proper Tsar Ivan V, managed to rally the Orthodox Christians to have a final push to vanquish the Muslims. Long story short, Constantinople ended up liberated bu the Russians.

Tsar Ivan V the Liberator ended up crowned as Eastern Roman Emperor in Hagia Sophia, 140 years after the fall of Constantinople. Serbians, Thessaly, Peloponnese, Western Anatolia, Pontic Coast, all the way to Armenia swore themselves to Emperor Ivan I of Eastern Roman Empire. Ironically enough, at the same time HRE and Spain plunged into Civil War and broke up.

This is an unashamed Russian Wank. Sure, Moscow will ended up as backwater... Again, as the Rurikovs will definitely move the Capital to Constantinople, but as Russian would be seen as neutral language between ressurected Eastern Roman Empire territories and nationalities, they'll use that instead of Greek.

 

[Centauris]

Hi!

I like your comments. It is now certain to me that Russia needs to pretty much end its colonial expansion by the late 17th century to be capable to abstain from genocides from the year 1700 and on. Yet, internal conflicts between two conquered ethnic groups, arguendo fighting for no reasons induced by the government power, might be "designed" in the scope of our discussion, but that is a peculiar, rather unobtainable scenario.

Another circumvention occurs if the explorers mix with locals, as suggested by @WryWren, to later organize their own Russian-speaking countries/polities and conduct mass repressions independent of the Empire. Then, Russia could step in at the end to not let foreign nations take these weaker, russified territories, and also reinforce its image of a peacemaker, who cancels the genocide policy of locals. Note that I mean a targeted destroying of aborigens not by just newcomers, but by alliances of them with local supporters.

@WhatSantayanaSaid properly pointed out that making Russia suffer no war losses from the year 1800 is hardly achievable. What if, we again turn to Slavic buffer states in Europe on the western border of Russia? I wanted to only include at least Russia in its modern borders and land at the east to include Bayan-Ovoo mining area. Sacrificing European conquers (even Crimea) of the OTL Russia to build-up a reality-like configuration of Slavic states in the Central-Eastern Europe could be what might fix Russia's position in this macroregion as "The Eastern Wall", which could not conquered by the union of European states, because there is barely any way to devise a stable way of sharing the gains of the projected victory, and Slavic states may be less inclined to betray their numerous neighbours. What is more, the Souther Caucasia was also a nightmare for Russia. Keeping its current borders with a historical occurrence of extended concessionary rights in Azerbaijan for the oil industry could be used to redirect the country's powers to other areas. Further, local population of an increased diversity could turn to use Russian as their second language over time, in face of standing against Persian and Ottoman Empires, looking at the area with greed.

It might be too far fantasizing, but the earlier fall of the Golden Horde and the buttressing of the unified Russia, which prevents Kazakh and Dzhungar expansions of the 16th to the 18th centuries to firmly set its roots in Central Asia could be an option for it to make the country able to sponsor anti-colonial efforts of India. Shaking the Qing Empire at its earliest stage to expand its possessions as much as possible (allying with Koreans or Han Chinese could be the way to expand here) is another lucky event in the chain of a very successful, alternate Russia.

Returning to the second body paragraph, an earlier onset of explorations in Siberia, first by Novgorod Veche, reaching Western Siberia in, let's say, 1420; then by the Russian Tasrdom reaching Central Siberia in 1480 and the North-East edge of Eurasia around 1550, a century earlier as compared with Semyon Dezhnev in OTL to find itself the ruler of all the mentioned areas before 1700, is a far-fetched, but still attainable timeline. If Russians had got to Baotou county area in the late 16th centur, reaching the borders of the Ming Empire, what would have happened in your opinion? Of course, for the sake of making Russia no 1, China and Russia could agree to get rid of nomadic tribes around the area to establish long-term borders between the two sedentary civilizations. Ceding of the north-eastern regions, populated by Manchu could be justified later by the revolting character of the locals and maybe a projected miscalculation of the Ming Emperor, who presumed the future successful separatism movement in the area.

So by the turn of the 20th century, Russia is a nation, which covers roughly the northern half of Eurasia, has buffer states in the North-west and Western coast of North America, acts as a primary force behind most anti-expansionist powers of Asia, is populated with lots of people thanks to medicine advancements, holds the eastern two-thirds of Europe together, promotes Russian as the international language all around the world. The quest is to further keep Australia for a different foreign nation, maybe even for South and East Asian mixed population with some Russian components, who later adopt Russian as the local language (rather hard to believe)? Making Francophone Canada and possibly Anglophone Southern South America and less likely, a Russophone small state around Panama or Nicaragua Channel, together with designing an absolute popularity of Russian among Slavic nations, who need to be somehow incentivized to migrate to the New World more to make it possible to incline the language equilibrium more to the side of Russian - are the two advanced tools of rising the language's popularity. The only continent with the only distant connection with Russia is Africa.

Excuse me for any dream-like turns in my proposed scenario. I yet have not find a way to make Russia begin industrializing much earlier. Population bomb of the country in the 19th and the 20th century (or earlier?) also needs some attention and skillful approach to be justified.

There are some thoughts about Islamic Russia - www.oeaw.ac.at. But will that change give an additional impetus to the Russian expansion or not? This alternative might run into the problem of genetic compliance criteria of the 3rd point.


P.S.
Mining area's name has been corrected. It is Bayan-Obo.

P.S.S.
I have reformulated the genetic requirement. Inherited genes need to be saved for at least half of Russians. Most Europeans are identical, but the assimilation processes could be changing the genetic pool seriously.

 

[Centauris]

This is an unashamed Russian Wank. Sure, Moscow will ended up as backwater... Again, as the Rurikovs will definitely move the Capital to Constantinople, but as Russian would be seen as neutral language between ressurected Eastern Roman Empire territories and nationalities, they'll use that instead of Greek.

What a nice timeline. Are you thinking of making the second wave of crusades, this time Orthodox one?

As for my proposal, I doubt this Empire could take both Constantinopole and Bayan Obo. But it could satisfy most of the requests set in this thread. Russia, "The Resurrected Byzantium" is, perhaps, a cool nickname for this Alternative Russia, if it does not lose the City on the Seven Hills.

 

[Tosa Inu]

What a nice timeline. Are you thinking of making the second wave of crusades, this time Orthodox one?

As for my proposal, I doubt this Empire could take both Constantinopole and Bayan Obo. But it could satisfy most of the requests set in this thread. Russia, "The Resurrected Byzantium" is, perhaps, a cool nickname for this Alternative Russia, if it does not lose the City on the Seven Hills.

Honestly it's the reverse in my story (that currently stuck because I'm busy this Ramadan).

Ottoman Empire during the peak of Sultanate of Women is very corrupt and divided, they're lucky Europeans of this time still thought them as the real menace and avoid angering them too much.

 

[Thomas Lloyd]

Russia is more active in Asia and Russian becomes the major lingua franca in China and therefore the APAC region as well. An earlier or more active Siberian expansion could do the trick. The Russian economy is very strong and there are more trade and cultural connections with the West. Finally, for some reason there is a larger immigration wave from a Russia with a larger population, and a large Russian diaspora leads to Russian being more widespread. Still, a Russian lingua franca is pretty ASB given its a rather peripheral country.

 

[Snaut]

A lasting union between Poland-Lithuania and Russia seems like a promising starting point. It gives us an approximately Russian Empire-shaped state which runs on the much more liberal Polish-Lithuanian software at a relatively early date. This software will help with the avoiding genocide and liberalism-related points. The vast majority of such a state's population will be East Slavs so I think it is entirely concieveable that the state could be considered as de facto Russia, the way continental Europeans often do not distinguish between the UK and England. It could definitely have Russia in its name in some way, as in "Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia-Russia", or "Poland and all the Russias". "Great" Russian could develop into the lingua franca due to the greater number of users who speak it natively or can find it easier to master than Polish, which might be regarded as French is in OTL - a language which snobs learn to successfully impress others but is no longer as useful for doing business as certain others are in 2023. So, at a stretch, this might fulfil the points about the state having a Russian identity. I guess a single state can be #1 in terms of GDP for a century or so, the USA seems close to this if it hasn't done it already. IDK about the population of Russia part, on one hand one should not underestimate the ability of 300 years of divergent history to change a country beyond all recognition, on the other hand we seem to be talking about a ~500% increase here which is rather a lot. The "no lost wars after 1800" part seems impossible for any state.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

Either Lithuania converts to Eadtern Orthodox Christianity and unites Russia instead of Muscovy or Grand Duchy of Lithuania collapses no later than during 16th century and is swallowed by Muscovites. As result:
-Ukrainians and Belarusians do not exist, there is one united East Slavic nation.
-Russia has more intense contacts with the West, earlier than IOTL.

 

[Ed of the Pueblos Libres]

View attachment 701820​

This was not yet the pinnacle of the size of the Russian Empire, but it was getting progressively closer (after all, not as much territory could be annexed as in the time of Tsar Alexander III, and even Russia can't grow into infinite territory).

View attachment 723042​

I am not doing yet a World Map, but here you have a map about the Covenant of Nations and some other countries, so you understand the scale of various thing like Nicholas II campaigns across Eurasia.
Black: Covenant of Nations proper members.

• Blue: African territories (aka Russian colonial empire in africa).
  **Now I take into account, I forgot to put Novaya Gvineya, which is also a colony like the African territories.
• Mustard with black: Observer status countries (yeah, I did retcon some things, now Ethiopia is observer).
• *It does not include minor members in sphere of influence, like Cambodia (in Thailand influence)

Red: The Euro-Communists (the European Socialist Unions + the un-official member, the SR of Ireland - It does not include other socialist projects of the world).
Green: The continental states of the United States of America (it does not include territories or sphere).
Purple: Proper states of the Imperial Federation (it does not include colonies, allies or others).
Yellow: The Emirate of Ha'il (pan-arabic project)

I think I kinda did this in my TL, yet unfinished tho.
It would fill at least 1 to 10.

• Aside from the map, Russia would integrate at least Romania and Bulgaria into the Russian Empire.
• N1 in GDP at least since 1950, for what I have planned.
• Russia has over 1 billion people, with a population only comparable in India (China is another matter of it's own)
• Russia would be one of the winners of WW3 (and it has not lost a war since Crimean war I think)
• The TL is planned at least until the 2020s-40s, and Russia still strong and mantains most of the sphere of knfluence showed (except probably some minor parts of the Balkans like Albania and Macedonia)

Not 11 because the Circassian genocide did happen ITL. And 12 is arguable, Russia is authoritarian but they have different concerns and definition of "democracy".

Probably is cheating because the TL is a double SI into Alexander III and Nicholas II

Overall, -3/10 I would not recommend my own TL (?)

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

liberal Polish-Lithuanian software at a relatively early date. This software will help with the avoiding genocide and liberalism-related points.

But that software was what led Poland-Lithuania to collapse, so why while doing Russia-wank even think about incorporating it, if Russia IOTL prevailed over Poland-Lithuania? Like not every non-parliamentarian government is genocidal and absolute monarchies were commonplace, if anything Russia adopting PLC method of "governing" would be a hard screw not a wank, anything would not be done and people would waste their time on arguing about pointless questions + the nobility of said state would not be willing to lose a war only to maintain their privilege.
I think what @Jan Olbracht suggested is better for Russia wank, tho I cooked something even better - Kievan Rus under Svyatoslav Igorevich keeps Bulgaria, and than conquers Hungary and Poland essentially creating pan-Slavic Rus' led empire, they also get warm farmlands (Danube valley) and biggest gold deposits in medieval Europe (Slovakia) they have no Polish rival, and could expand even more (taking Bohemia for silver mines, maybe all the way to Elbe + eastern expansion).

 

[Snaut]

But that software was what led Poland-Lithuania to collapse, so why while doing Russia-wank even think about incorporating it, if Russia IOTL prevailed over Poland-Lithuania? Like not every non-parliamentarian government is genocidal and absolute monarchies were commonplace, if anything Russia adopting PLC method of "governing" would be a hard screw not a wank, anything would not be done and people would waste their time on arguing about pointless questions + the nobility of said state would not be willing to lose a war only to maintain their privilege.
I think what @Jan Olbracht suggested is better for Russia wank, tho I cooked something even better - Kievan Rus under Svyatoslav Igorevich keeps Bulgaria, and than conquers Hungary and Poland essentially creating pan-Slavic Rus' led empire, they also get warm farmlands (Danube valley) and biggest gold deposits in medieval Europe (Slovakia) they have no Polish rival, and could expand even more (taking Bohemia for silver mines, maybe all the way to Elbe + eastern expansion).

The 1791 constitution demonstrates that the software could fix itself despite extensive outside meddling. I suggest that if such reforms had been achieved at a more opportune moment and the state had survived, consensus among modern historians would have been that the Polish-Lithuanian system was not semi-anarchic and destined for inevitable collapse, but a clear step forwards on the road towards modern liberal republicanism.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

The 1791 constitution demonstrates that the software could fix itself despite extensive outside meddling. I suggest that if such reforms had been achieved at a more opportune moment and the state had survived, consensus among modern historians would have been that the Polish-Lithuanian system was not semi-anarchic and destined for inevitable collapse, but a clear step forwards on the road towards modern liberal republicanism.

It doesn't demonstrate anything, it was too late and PLC already underwent first partition, also the response of PLC's political class was to rebel with help of Russia (Targowica confederation), so nothing of that sort would be achieved if things appeared to be at least superficially good, Augustus III tried to introduce reform and to no avail, because PLC's higher-ups were convinced that they are great power to be reckoned with.
Polish-Lithuanian system could be semi-anarchic and destined for inevitable collapse and be step forward towards modern liberal republicanism at the same time, it doesn't contradict itself, also republicanism doesn't always equal benefits for the country and bringing more needed parts of liberal society (like legal equality of all citizens, industrialization, urbanization etc.) could be done more efficiently by reformed englightened absolutism slowly transitioning into semi-constitutional monarchy like Prussia did and then created pretty much modern, capable state in form of German Empire, who achieved considerable industrial success and provided rather high standards of living for it's citizens.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

Russia OTOH demonstrated, that it would survive even the most idiotic and self-destructive political systems thanks to sheer size.