The Silver Knight, a Lithuania Timeline

[Russian]

@Russian, @Augenis:
Both of you seem to forget about the oppressed nations of this federal state who lack any representation and recognition and are, IMO, the most disgrunted and most likely to rebel: the Romanians, the Ruthenes (Ukrainians), the Slovaks, the Serbs, the Croats, the Germans, etc.

Well, I don't forget about them. But they are the internal problems of the three 'big nations'.
That's the question to the topic starter -
which of the "big nations" has more suppressed 'ethnic' minorities to weaken them respectively?

 

[Augenis]

Well, I don't forget about them. But they are the internal problems of the three 'big nations'.
That's the question to the topic starter -
which of the "big nations" has more suppressed 'ethnic' minorities to weaken them respectively.

Bohemia has Germans, Poland has Ruthenians and some Germans (and also a lot of Jews - the second largest community in Europe, in fact, after Lithuania), while Hungary has Slovaks, Romanians, Romani, some Ruthenians, Croats and, since 1834, Bosniaks and Serbs.

You judge which one could have the most problems.

 

[Russian]

Hungary has Slovaks, Romanians, Romani, some Ruthenians, Croats and, since 1834, Bosniaks and Serbs.

You judge which one could have the most problems.

Well, from the top off my head... Hungary is the weakest 'big nation' considering the number of the oppressed ethnic minorities. And most of Hungary's ethnic minorities are Slavic (correct me if I am wrong).

So... if Poland wanted to leave the union because of being the disgruntled one, that might probably trigger the disturbance of the Hungarian Slavs; and the Bohemians (being Slavic themselves) might not join war against Poland and the Hungarian oppressed Slavs (Bohemians being Slavic prevent them fighting their 'ethnic brothers').
So Visegrad might be resting on a gunpowder keg - it might blow up any minute.

 

[Augenis]

So ye, Visegrad is resting on a gunpowder keg - it might blow up any minute.

Well, they have the positive of being a liberal constitutional monarchy, so that at least makes them more stable than the two of their eastern neighbours.

 

[Russian]

Well, they have the positive of being a liberal constitutional monarchy, so that at least makes them more stable than the two of their eastern neighbours.

Agreed.
Lithuania is resting on a dozen of gunpowder kegs being non-liberal, non-constitutional and having enormous quantity of the oppressed Slavs.

 

[Crying]

So, I first brought this up a long time ago [in respect to this TL's lifespan, that is] around the time you first asked for future predictions: If/When Lithuania breaks up in the future, it will be more thoroughly than Russia in OTL. Back then, Lithuania hadn't really started expanding yet so I had no idea how big it'd end up being and I was assuming it would be roughly as large as OTL Russia. There's no real reason to bring this up, but I re-read the TL recently and saw my post - and I also saw how poorly I explained myself, so I kind of feel like doing a better job now.

Anyway, you've kind of confirmed that Lithuania has a very, very strong chance of breaking up in the future and that it will most likely do so in a fairly substantial manner. I don't know quite enough about Lietuva's demographics to guess how it would break down if it were to do so next update, let alone what the demographics will be like in the future when it does (since I think there's a fairly good chance it will have expanded at least a little bit more before that point) so I can't predict what kind of nations would come into existence other than the obvious Russian one. Instead, I'll try to explain why I think it will be even more broken up.

At the time I originally posted, there had been no Stalin-esque figures trying to break up 'troublesome' ethnicities/nationalities and this is still true as of now - in fact, almost the exact opposite has happened with one of the leaders trying to create a new nationality by artifically creating a seperate identity for the northern/Novgorodian Russians. This alone would have significant impacts on the viability of independence movements, as they would be more 'whole' compared to the ones in OTL Russia. The other big thing, though, is that compared to the Russians of OTL, the Lithuanians of TTL can't solve their minority problems by drowning it in majority blood. OTL Russians simply had such a high population that any problems with seccession could be dealt with my settling a bunch of Russians in the area and calling it a day. The Lithuanians, however, don't have this option as they don't have the huge majority in their nation - they don't have enough "spare Lithuanians" to just go settle any troublesome area.

So yeah. Even if Lietuva ends up as big as OTL Russia/Soviet Union, unless something radically changes, they will have way more minority/secession problems than OTL Russia and will likely leave a lot more successor states than the Soviet Union did upon their collapse.

 

[Augenis]

Special Chapter

The Ruins of a French Party System
​

France entered and left the German Revolutionary Wars as a two-party republic, dominated by the aristocratic and protectionist Reds and the capitalist Blues, with any and all third parties beautifully silenced with the so-called "Spoiler Effect" and the trappings of an unreformed electoral system. All representatives to the Estates-General, the governing body of the nation, were elected from their constituency in a "winner takes all" format, which basically meant that, unless you were a regional party with strong support in one or two constituencies, you had no chance of winning a reasonable number of seats in the Estates-General without somehow gathering a landslide equivalent of the electoral vote. Both the Reds and the Blues actively fought against any potential third party, and Arthur Bachelot, the former Director of France, even called this "a political machine more invincible than Schwarzburg's army".

One of the events that began to show cracks in this political machine was the Rhineland Referendum, which took place in 1790. It was no mystery that the French government wished to see the Rhineland as a new province in France, and it's politicians hoped that the referendum would just be a "pretty show to fool the Germans" into making them join the Republic. The Director of the Estates-General at the time, Cedric de Calais, hoped to use the French military and administrative presence in the region to pull the referendum in his favor, smuggling in Frenchmen from Wallonia and other regions to vote for annexation, sometimes even destroying ballot boxes and harassing the locals in order to make them vote for the right choice. And yet, despite all the actions taken, over 64% of the voters voted in favor of unification with one of the German states, with only 19% voting for joining France and 17% for independence, and after a second round, the people narrowly voted in favor of uniting with South Germania - a surprising choice, considering that a portion of the region used to belong to the North German Communion before the Revolution. People cited the main reason for their choice - they perceived North Germania to be a French puppet state, unlike the somewhat more independent South, and many thus voted for the sake of getting away from France as much as possible.

News about French interference in the referendum, leaked by a number of Rhenish politicians, spread across the Republic like wildfire, and the public opinion was extremely negative. Proud of their ancient freedoms and often calling their country "the Bastion of Liberty", the French were staunch supporters of democracy, and the idea that their government was trying to undemocratically influence foreign referendums came as a huge shock to many. At least the German Revolutionary Wars were somewhat justified due to Schwarzburg's invasion of France, but this - this is just unjustifiable! Public support in the government was at an all-time low, but while the Estates-General had to endure public opinion fallouts many times before, this time the population was not just angry at the current cabinet - it was angry at the system itself. The people were starting to realize that the system under which they live is imperfect, corrupt and favors only two very similar bickering parties.

And around this time, the man who would do the most to destroy this party system, Constantin Gounelle, rose to light.

Constantin Gounelle
​

Gounelle was a noted lawyer and statesman, a member of the Blue Party and a respected person across the Republic, although he did not hold any government position. Hoping to calm the situation down and defend his party from the backlash, Director de Calais requested the lawyer to take a look into the case of the Rhineland referendum and produce enough evidence against any sort of interference in the process. This gave Gounelle access to many of the government's libraries and records, and not only did he confirm to himself the existence of widespread fraud in the Rhineland, but also many similar instances in France itself - corruption, bribery, redrawing constituency lines to guarantee seats in the Estates-General, harassing opposition parties, and all of this happening for decades, often even violating the laws of the Republic on the way. Despite his job being to "disprove" the interference in the Rhineland, Gounelle left his job and almost instantly "secretly" leaked the information to the public through a number of nationwide newspapers.

The hammer fell on the French party system, in what is known as the Black Weekend. Hundreds of politicians resigned their posts in light of the drama and leaked information about their misdeeds, both the Reds and the Blues were collapsing and splintering, both being compromised. Goumelle formed the first powerful third party movement in decades - En Avant (Forward), composed of many political outsiders, anti-corruption and anti-establishment activists and untouched politicians from both parties who were disgusted with the revealed information about their movements. The "Forwardists" campaigned for an end to political corruption, electoral reform, fighting political establishment and a renewal in French politics, and the movement managed to mobilize vast reaches of the French society. With both of the establishment parties only managing to launch a weak campaign in the upcoming 1792 election, the result did not surprise anyone.

​

As the new Director of the Estates-General with a friendly majority parliament, Constantin Gounelle pushed through a majority of his proposed reforms, including reforming the electoral system of the country under the rules of proportional representation, introducing the Department of Anti-Corruption, fighting against fraud, bribery and other types of corruption in the government, granting numerous freedoms to the media of the country over releasing information about the government and it's procedures. During his first term, the Red and Blue parties attempted to impeach him twice and even once called him to court, citing that the Black Weekend and leaking information about the government's processes is breaking the law and should be charged. Both times the impeachment failed, however, and the court ruled that Gounelle's actions were acceptable and applicable to the code of law and his duties as a citizen.

After Goumelle was reelected with a safe margin in 1796, he finished an even more ambitious project - the Constitution of the Republic of France. Before the approval of the Constitution, France worked under unwritten law, a sum of principles, decrees and codes of law that made up the rights and duties of a citizen and the government - and many more Protectionist members of the government fought against a Constitution, seeing it as "something un-French" and deeply connected with the Great German Revolution. The Constitution of 1798 was the first universal code of law in the Republic of France, and despite a number of amendments and changes, it remains in place to this day.

Despite the successes in the elections, En Avant collapsed as quickly as it arose, soon after Goumelle retired from politics in 1800, but it's impact remains visible. It marked the end of the First Electoral System and the start of the Second, and no longer did the same two-party system arise as it used to before Goumelle's service to the country.

---

The next chapter will be about a country in North Vespucia.

 

[Russian]

Hungary is the ruling nation, as was stated in updates before. That is where the Royal Family and the Convention of Three Nations reside. And yes, there is one federal Visegradian army...

As I understood the Hungarian language is the official language of the Visegradian Union, the language of the central government and the army.
But that is a very difficult to learn for a Slav, being unrelated, belonging to Finno-Ugrian linguistic group.

So we have a union where the majority of the population speak the Slavic languages:
Poland+Bohemia=32 million (56%)**
And the minority of the population speak Hungarian=25 million (44%)*

*actually it is even worse for Hungarian, as inside Hungary itself there are different Slavs (the Ruthenes (Ukrainians), the Slovaks, the Serbs, the Croats) - I guess about 3-5 million in all.
So overall in the Visegradian Union the Slavic languages are spoken by 36 million (63%) and Hungarian by 21 million (37%).
** here I understand that there are Non-Slavic minorities in Poland and Bohemia, but they already definitely use the Slavic language, so I included them as Slavic-speakers in this calculation.

We have to realize, that Slavic languages are mutually intelligible (more so if they are neighbors, which is a case here); a Slav doesn't have to learn anything to understand 30-80% of the the other Slavic language. (Me, being a Slav makes me an expert, before you ask).
So for a Slav learning Hungarian takes years; for a Visegradian Slav learning other Visegradian Slavic language takes months.

My point is that it's a matter of time when the Visegradian Slavs realize that the official language of the Union has to be some Slavic language, as the Slavic speakers are the majority - 63% of the total Visegradian population.
The Polish language is an obvious candidate for becoming the official Visegradian language of the central government, but as I said it might be any Visegradian Slavic language.

 

[Crying]

As I understood the Hungarian language is the official language of the Visegradian Union, the language of the central government and the army.
But that is a very difficult to learn for a Slav, being unrelated, belonging to Finno-Ugrian linguistic group.

So we have a union where the majority of the population speak the Slavic languages:
Poland+Bohemia=32 million (56%)**
And the minority of the population speak Hungarian=25 million (44%)*

*actually it is even worse for Hungarian, as inside Hungary itself there are different Slavs (the Ruthenes (Ukrainians), the Slovaks, the Serbs, the Croats) - I guess about 3-5 million in all.
So overall in the Visegradian Union the Slavic languages are spoken by 36 million (63%) and Hungarian by 21 million (37%).
** here I understand that there are Non-Slavic minorities in Poland and Bohemia, but they already definitely use the Slavic language, so I included them as Slavic-speakers in this calculation.

We have to realize, that Slavic languages are mutually intelligible (more so if they are neighbors, which is a case here); a Slav doesn't have to learn anything to understand 30-80% of the the other Slavic language. (Me, being a Slav makes me an expert, before you ask).
So for a Slav learning Hungarian takes years; for a Visegradian Slav learning other Visegradian Slavic language takes months.

My point is that it's a matter of time when the Visegradian Slavs realize that the official language of the Union has to be some Slavic language, as the Slavic speakers are the majority - 63% of the total Visegradian population.
The Polish language is an obvious candidate for becoming the official Visegradian language of the central government, but as I said it might be any Visegradian Slavic language.

Hmm... are there any barely spoken/existent languages in Visegrad that could serve as a 'neutral' language that serves as an administrative language? That might upset the Hungarians less than using a Slavic language, but I dunno. It would also be interesting if they tried to create an artifical Visegradian language that mixed all the major ones together. Something like that could probably be done today, but I'm not sure if such a thing would be possible in the 18th Century. It would depend upon how advanced linguistics are in this timeline, really.

Either way, I don't really imagine that it would work out. Both options would be interesting, though, in my opinion.

 

[Russian]

Hmm... are there any barely spoken/existent languages in Visegrad that could serve as a 'neutral' language that serves as an administrative language?

The German language is a candidate, I suppose.
But that would make both Slavs and Hungarians dissatisfied, I guess
The same goes for any artificial language - inconvenient for everybody...

 

[Augenis]

It would also be interestig if they tried to create an artifical language Visegradian language that mixed all the major ones together. Something like that could probably be done today, but I'm not sure if such a thing would be possible in the 18th Century. It would depend upon how advanced linguistics are in this timeline, really.

Well, there is historical precedent for this to be a possibility.

 

[Crying]

Well, there is historical precedent for this to be a possibility.

Creating a pan-Slavic language is a bit different than mixing Savic languages with Hungarian/Finno-Ugrian, but it does show that the idea of creating a united Visegradian language could possibly show up.

 

[Salvador79]

En Avant? Gaining the elections in a landslide which changes the French party system forever?
Sounds weirdly similar to last night`s news broadcast

 

[Youngmarshall]

As I understood the Hungarian language is the official language of the Visegradian Union, the language of the central government and the army.
But that is a very difficult to learn for a Slav, being unrelated, belonging to Finno-Ugrian linguistic group.

So we have a union where the majority of the population speak the Slavic languages:
Poland+Bohemia=32 million (56%)**
And the minority of the population speak Hungarian=25 million (44%)*

*actually it is even worse for Hungarian, as inside Hungary itself there are different Slavs (the Ruthenes (Ukrainians), the Slovaks, the Serbs, the Croats) - I guess about 3-5 million in all.
So overall in the Visegradian Union the Slavic languages are spoken by 36 million (63%) and Hungarian by 21 million (37%).
** here I understand that there are Non-Slavic minorities in Poland and Bohemia, but they already definitely use the Slavic language, so I included them as Slavic-speakers in this calculation.

We have to realize, that Slavic languages are mutually intelligible (more so if they are neighbors, which is a case here); a Slav doesn't have to learn anything to understand 30-80% of the the other Slavic language. (Me, being a Slav makes me an expert, before you ask).
So for a Slav learning Hungarian takes years; for a Visegradian Slav learning other Visegradian Slavic language takes months.

My point is that it's a matter of time when the Visegradian Slavs realize that the official language of the Union has to be some Slavic language, as the Slavic speakers are the majority - 63% of the total Visegradian population.
The Polish language is an obvious candidate for becoming the official Visegradian language of the central government, but as I said it might be any Visegradian Slavic language.

I think you overestimate pan slavism. Would a Croat really view Polish as less Alien than Hungarian, when they've lived in Hungarian lands for centuries?

 

[Bastiram]

Can't remember Silesia, which nation does that belong to? might just be a autonomous region, though if part of Bohemia, they certainly would have more than 5 million people?

 

[Augenis]

Can't remember Silesia, which nation does that belong to? might just be a autonomous region, though if part of Bohemia, they certainly would have more than 5 million people?

Silesia belongs to Bohemia and has been so since the 14th century.

I already stated the most likely guesses on Visegrad's population earlier in the thread, and I imagine Bohemia would have somewhere around 12 million.

 

[Russian]

I think you overestimate pan slavism. Would a Croat really view Polish as less Alien than Hungarian, when they've lived in Hungarian lands for centuries?

It has nothing to do with pan slavism actually.
It's all about convenience only; as I said, if you're a Slav it takes you years to learn Hungarian (belonging to Finno-Ugrian linguistic group), but it takes you months to learn the other (Visegradian) Slavic language.

So it's not about 'Slavic brotherhood' stuff no no; it's about ease of use of the official language, usability.
If you're a Visegradian Slav and you want to take a job in the Central Visegradian government or the central army, you have to waste years of your life learning the Non-Slavic Hungarian language. It is much, much easier for a Slav to spend just a few months to master some other (Visegradian) Slavic language.

Some Visegradian Slavic peoples may dislike some other Visegradian Slavic peoples; but it cannot take away the fact of life - if the official language is some Slavic, you don't even have to learn it to understand it (at least you'll get the essence with an ease). But if a Slav hasn't learned Hungarian, s/he won't understand a single word in it (those are mutually unintelligible linguistic groups).

 

[Augenis]

It has nothing to do with pan slavism actually.
It's all about convenience only; as I said, if you're a Slav it takes you years to learn Hungarian (belonging to Finno-Ugrian linguistic group), but it takes you months to learn the other (Visegradian) Slavic language.

So it's not about 'Slavic brotherhood' stuff no no; it's about ease of use of the official language, usability.
If you're a Visegradian Slav and you want to take a job in the Central Visegradian government or the central army, you have to waste years of your life learning the Non-Slavic Hungarian language. It is much, much easier for a Slav to spend just a few months to master some other (Visegradian) Slavic language.

Some Visegradian Slavic peoples may dislike some other Visegradian Slavic peoples; but it cannot take away the fact of life - if the official language is some Slavic, you don't even have to learn it to understand the essence of the text. But if a Slav is reading the official text in Hungarian, s/he won't understand a single word in it (those are mutually unintelligible linguistic groups).

Visegrad holds a so what liberal view on languages - the majority of all important documents and official texts are translated into all three languages (it would only make sense, of course), while the work in each of the nations' autonomous convention is done in their native language.

 

[Russian]

Visegrad holds a so what liberal view on languages - the majority of all important documents and official texts are translated into all three languages (it would only make sense, of course), while the work in each of the nations' autonomous convention is done in their native language.

But my point about taking a job in the Central government/army stands though.

 

[Bastiram]

Silesia belongs to Bohemia and has been so since the 14th century.

Aight, Bohemia might be the least populated, but the engine of the Visegrad industrielisation is the coal of upper Silesia, one could expect that on a per capita basis, that the Bohemian people are richer, giving them somekind of edge there!

I already stated the most likely guesses on Visegrad's population earlier in the thread, and I imagine Bohemia would have somewhere around 12 million.

My mistake did not see there was one more page