The Political overview
The Imperium of St Stephen, also known as The Empire, the Magyar, Byzantine or Eastern Empire, is a political construct forged by the expansion of the Kingdom of Hungary in four phases - the initial consolidation of a Greater Hungarian homeland in the 11-12th centuries, the usurpation of the Byzantine Empire before the fifteenth century, the occupation of the Holy Lands, and a current struggle in central Europe.
The Empire is a complex instrument (Byzantine, one might say), but doesn’t have the kind of vast cast of elected/appointed officials in an OT democracy, at least not at the very top, because it is imperial/monarchical.
Because the Empire was created by conquest and the personal fiats of past Hungarian kings, there is no constitution per se, at least not anything that might be likened to the American RT version. There are ‘conventions’ and understandings, though, which are virtually impossible to bypass.
First is that, on the death of a previous Emperor, the new Emperor is Acclaimed. Just who does the acclaiming is one of the nebulous areas an unwritten constitution perilously leaves open, but the idea is that the senior figures in the Empire agree on who is the new Emperor, and he or she serves for life, or until voluntary retirement.
In practice, this has been circumvented by the ‘old’ Emperor creating an agreed successor before his/her death, naming a member of the Royal Family as King of Hungary (of which more shortly). It has been a while since a new Emperor was not the current King of Hungary, and one of the first priorities for a new Emperor is to appoint a new King of Hungary (the process for which follows). The current Emperor, Cziriak, achieved the Imperial Throne in this way, though his election as King of Hungary decades ago was controversial. The King of Hungary, therefore, is the political appointment that the major political fights are over.
Having the Emperor Acclaimed in this way has led to pretenders and multiple Emperors in the past, though this has been less likely in the modern era… It has even led to Emperors being deposed.
The Emperor governs through a ruling Council of the Elect, a small number of senior ‘cabinet’ positions, including a Chief of Staff/Chancellor, a Treasurer, a Magister of Justice and other posts of supra-national importance. These are the Emperor’s appointments, though he or she has to get them approved by the Imperial Senate. The Elect are the big players in our drama, and their appointment/elections are some of our biggest events. The government is based in Constantinople/Stamboul
The Imperial Senate is the unicameral legislative branch of the Empire, but it is largely unelected. The Hungarian royal family, some members of the Magyar noble class, senior clergy, provincial governors (who are elected but tend to be drawn from the noble class anyway) and some senior territorial nobles from non-Hungarian families make up the Senate.
The Empire’s remit is almost exclusively foreign affairs and defence. There is very little Empire-wide social or domestic policy.
Below the Empire, and potentially very important to our story, or aspects of it, are three supra-provincial bodies.
The most important is the Kingdom of Hungary. The Hungarians are the ‘root’ people of the Empire, whose astounding success from the late eleventh century onwards led to the current day. The Hungarian ruling family and noble class continue to make up the majority of the Imperial government.
The King of Hungary, also known as the King in the West, has firm control over domestic and Imperial policy in central Europe. He is the one, for example, leading the political and frequently military struggles in that region against competing states.
The King is elected, theoretically for life (but in practice until the King becomes Emperor), and confirmed by the Emperor. The electorate (the Diet) is a body of around 300 Hungarian nobles, prelates and other territorial leaders (such as the Mayor of Buda). Many of these are also Imperial Senators, of course, but focussed exclusively on Greater Hungary and the Military Frontier; most are hereditary, but many Free Cities elect Mayors, and the clergy elect Bishops (even if the Archbishops have to be approved by both Constantinople and the Pope – we’ll deal with the religious situation another time). Mechanisms exist to ‘depose’ a King, either through the agency of the Emperor changing his/her mind, or through the Diet. Details to follow.
The current King is Dénés Keblovski, a respected but not loved member of a cadet branch of the ruling family, and potentially as controversial a choice for Emperor as was (and is) Cziriak.
The second supra-territorial agency is the Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Kingdom of the Levant. This is a complex, messy, bloody area of the Empire, usually in a state of flux. It became part of the Empire following a series of Crusades, was held against repeated waves of eastern invaders (the Eastern Crisis, which almost brought down the fifteenth century Empire because of the enormous cost in lives and treasure involved), and has existed uncomfortably, a Catholic, European government sitting over peoples of Islamic, Jewish, Coptic and other faiths. Islam effectively got pushed east and south (a strong Persia is envisaged, for example).
At its head is the King of the Levant, who is also best described as the Dux Bellorum of the East - a military appointee. Technically an appointee of the Emperor, the King of the Levant is usually a senior figure in the army, and thus probably a member of the Hungarian ruling caste), but historically (and currently) has been something of an ‘outsider’, a ‘loose cannon’ whose de facto control of the area is simply recognised (however begrudgingly) by the Emperor.
Though powerful and quasi-independent in one sense, however, the King of the Levant is constrained by two major factors. One, he only exists at the pleasure of the army, and plots and coups are not unknown. Two, his governance (outside of the military sphere) is only effective when approved by the major religious leaders, and especially the four senior Christian Archbishops of Cairo, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Damascus.
The third supra-national agency, much weaker and non-influential than the other two, is that of the President of Italy. When northern Italy fell under the dominance of the Hungarians in the eighteenth century, its fractious and disputatious provinces continued to squabble, and so the position of President was created. He or she is elected every four years by a College of Sixteen, four Electors each from the provinces of Lombardy (Milan), Venice, Genoa and Florence, these worthy being chosen by various methods in the different provinces. The Presidency has, during periods of stability, rotated among the four provinces, but a mechanism exists whereby any tie in the election of a President is broken by the Pope, even though the Vatican/Papal States lie outside of the Empire. In practice, Italian politics is quarrelsome and troublesome, not least because there exist movements both for Italian and provincial independence, especially the powerful and violent Venetian Front.
Below these institutions are the Imperial Provinces, territorial entities of varying complexity. At the Imperial level, each of these has a Governor (some are called Voivodes, or Comtes), who contributes to the Imperial Senate, and a Lieutenant-Governor who stays at home to run the province. It is at this level that most domestic policy is run, state-by-state. Different provinces work in different ways, though the default is for a unicameral Parliament (they have varying names) drawn from a wide (or even universal) electorate; thus, the government of Greece, for example, has elections every four years, with universal suffrage for all citizens of the province, directly electing their Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, and a House of 100 members. Greece is not ‘controlled’ in any way by any of the supra-provincial entities, but directly by the Empire, and its Hungarian/Magyar upper/governing class has been heavily inter-mixed with the local Hellenic population.
States’ Rights (over domestic politics, in any case) is a huge thing.
The provinces can get into disputes between themselves, often over economic matters, matters of faith, or petty political disputes. These have even turned violent, requiring Imperial intervention. In Italy, this is almost a given.
Finally, a recent move (particularly in the last fifty years) has seen pressure for an Imperial second chamber, a House of Representatives in Constantinople, capable of representing ordinary people at an Imperial level. Revolutions around this concept were fought in 1830, 1848, 1905 and 1968, creeping forward the concept. ‘Elections’ have been held in some provinces, especially Greece, the Ukraine, Anatolia and Armenia, though these representatives have had nowhere to go.
Curiously, though, this has led to what can best be described as political parties, and most office holders will describe themselves as being aligned with one of the major political movements, such as the Imperial Democrats, the Social Reform Party, the Liberals, the Christian Republicans, or more territorial movements such as the League of the Levant. One should presume that words like Democrat and Republican have some ironic application here.
One last word about ruling classes, in respect particularly of nationalism. The big guns throughout the Empire are the Magyar/Hungarian noble class, though in many stable areas (like Greece), these have inter-married and mixed with local populations. It is illustrative, for example, that one of the minor branches of the royal family, the Fehévar clan, are core land-holders in Hungary; have territorial properties in Anatolia, Cyprus, Alexandria, have provided army commanders in the Levant, governors in six provinces over the last two hundred years or so, bishops in Wallachia, Rhodes and Cyprus, and so on. This kind of dynastic politics is big in the Empire.
Nationalism was in vogue in the nineteenth century, especially around the 1848 revolutions, but largely died out in the Empire in favour of other social movements. Most provinces have a thin skin of Magyar nobles above a broad ‘national’ population, but it tends to be that it is only in those provinces which allow for less democratic provincial government that what might be called a ‘nationalistic movement’ exists. Some Poles in Silesia, for example, are prone to advance nationalistic arguments about a return of that province to the Kingdom of Western Poland, though this is considered unlikely right now.