WI: Russification/Asification of Western Europe?

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/why-isnt-russia-part-of-europe-op-ed/524933.html

Why Isn't Russia Part of Europe? (Op-Ed)



It is no secret that many Western Europeans do not consider Russia a part of Europe. And they are right. They sometimes follow that statement with the atavistic idea that Russia is a country to both scorn and fear. However justified or debatable those ideas might be today, they are completely absurd from a historical perspective.

But that is how people are made: they tend to see only what is happening right now. They forget the past and cannot predict the future. And, of course, many ideas that gain currency are later relegated to the dust heap of history.

Who can say why and when Russia ceased to be part of Europe, or by what happenstance Western Europeans did not become Eurasians as Russians did? I'll tell you when it happened: the 13th century. It began with the Mongol invasion of ancient Rus, then Eastern Europe and, finally, Western Europe.

Both Rus and Europe were in a similar condition. Although Rus had once been a unified state, by that time it had split into warring principalities and was incapable of mounting a resistance to what was then the best army in the world. The Mongols had carried out military reforms. They had talented commanders, strict discipline, a brilliant cavalry, incredible archers and the world's most advanced siege machinery that they had borrowed from the Chinese.

And the same thing was happening in the rest of Europe. Centralized states were disintegrating. The Pope and the German emperor, the main power centers in Europe, were hostile to one another.

And the ponderous and poorly disciplined European army was no better than the Russian forces. In fact, despite its many shortcomings, the Russian army was at least able to regularly beat back the Teutonic Knights.

Knowing that Europe was incapable of putting up serious resistance, the Mongol leader Batu Khan, after subjugating Rus, split his army by continuing himself to Hungary while dispatching Baidar to Poland. The Hungarian Kingdom fell after a single battle. The same fate befell the Polish-German army.

After successfully completing the first phase of the campaign, the Mongols settled down to rest. Their plan was to transform the whole of Europe into an extension of Asia in one year's time.

Judging by the fact that all the calls for the unification of European forces produced no tangible results — as had happened earlier in Rus — Western Europe would undoubtedly have become Eurasia, if not for one chance event. Far to the east, the Great Ogedei Khan died, sparking a struggle for the throne. For that reason alone, Batu Khan cut short his European campaign and took his army home. Western Europeans simply lucked out.
...
Pyotr Romanov is a journalist and historian.
So what would happen if the light of Western European thought & philosophy is extinguished before it's prime and the whole continent is subjected to "Oriental despotism" suffers Russification? Without Renaissance how far is technology & philosophy regressed compared to OTL?
 
"vomits profusely"

Okay first Oriental Despotism is grade AAA bullshit. All of the so called Oriental Despots largely varied in how the state was organized, Richard Pipes use agri-despotism as a value but that doesn't hold up in most states anyway.

Second Russia never ceased to be apart of Europe, nor was it ever Asian, but a mixture of the two. After the Mongol Invasions you still saw the Rus principalities maintain their states.

Yet the Mongols changed the order of Rus in many ways. The Mongol house of Borjigin was considered a distinguished linage like the Byzantines, being called Tsarevichi and even having alliances with Rurikids princes. It led to a situation where the Rus principalities where tributaries who even adopting some aspects of Mongol administration but by no means entirely subject to the whims of the Khan.

Third the Mongols would have to a have a reason to conquer that far from the steppes, there is a reason why you never saw the Mongols settle down in the Rus states like you saw in the steppes. If they did it would basically Poland and Hungary as tributaries.
 
"vomits profusely"

Okay first Oriental Despotism is grade AAA bullshit.
Maybe to you but there are academics who would disagree. I can probably pull up recent Eastern European works using the term.
Second Russia never ceased to be apart of Europe, nor was it ever Asian, but a mixture of the two. [Snip]
So... you reach the same conclusion as the article's author except you still wan to claim Russia is "part of Europe" (in a cultural sense) despite saying yourself that it is not European but "Eurasian"? OK, whatever.
Third the Mongols would have to a have a reason to conquer that far from the steppes, there is a reason why you never saw the Mongols settle down in the Rus states like you saw in the steppes. If they did it would basically Poland and Hungary as tributaries.
Sadly, I can't find the reference now but I read that the Mongols had a kind of "manifest destiny" obsession with reaching the Mediterranean Sea.

Anyway even if they *only* turn the Western European kingdoms into vassals, what would be the effect on Europe and the world?
 
Weren't the Mongols getting bogged down in Germany and Hungary? Add that to the fact that Western Europe during that era wasn't worth the effort of conquering. The Balkans and Eastern Europe are within reasonable distance of the Eurasian step so it makes sense for the Mongols to reach does areas, at best they reach the Rhine and get beaten back. It would end up likely what happened in their attempted conquest of Egypt.

The above leaves the traditional Western European nations untouched. The Iberians, French, English would likely follow the similar development.
 
Top