WI: The Mongols never invaded Russia. Would the Russian language be divided into more languages?

[I_am_Unk]

I was recently thinking about an alt hist TL where the Mongol Empire as we know never forms and one of the key points of such TL is the repercussion in Russia, specifically the Kievan Rus'. I think it's most likely that the Rus' countries eventually completely split apart and each goes on their way independently, with perhaps the center of power switching from South (Kiev) to North (Novgorod, Vladimir-Suzdal, etc), and I also think Poland would have the time of its life expanding east in TTL, probably absorbing most parts of the West of Rus' into its sphere of influence. With all that laid out, there some safe assumptions that can be made:
1- The East Slavic Languages would still split into Russian and Ruthenian and evolve accordingly;
2- Russia most likely doesn't form out of the Northeastern part of Kievan Rus', with various independent duchies/principalities.
3- We have a Russia more connected with the rest of Europe.

(For the sake of illustrating, here's what Russia currently looks like by the year of 1789 in TTL)

Now, I was thinking to myself: Would those countries have an impact in the development of the Russian language? Specifically, would the East Slavic language split into more languages than in OTL? I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

 

[Nivek]

Of course no Mongol Empire butterfly a lot of things

 

[Arkenfolm]

Depends on a lot of things, including your definition of language vs dialect. Look at divided nations like Italy or Germany for examples of how this might work. Or unified nations like France, given the huge variety of "patois" in northern France alone. Now given that there was some level of unity within Kievan Rus (a single religious head and a senior prince, not too dissimilar to Poland), I think it's very likely that there would be greater, rather than lesser, linguistic unity. At most you'd have more local dialects like Old Novgorodian which are never "elevated" to the status of full language because all government and church officials are using a standard Russian and there are few, if any, local literary or cultural figures who bother to use the language. Or any local sense of nationalism because the nationalistic impulse is devoted toward pan-Russian nationalism and creating a single nation (once again, Italy/Germany).

1- The East Slavic Languages would still split into Russian and Ruthenian and evolve accordingly;

IIRC that's mostly because of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which TTL would lack the power vacuum to expand into.

2- Russia most likely doesn't form out of the Northeastern part of Kievan Rus', with various independent duchies/principalities.

Odds are there will be attempts to centralise the Kievan Rus arrangement. Sure, maybe it's from Kiev itself, but Kiev and its hinterlands are vulnerable to raids from the southern steppes and relatively close to Poland so it is possible another area to the north or east would rise as a major power. Settlement of the Zalesye goes back to the early 12th century due to these factors.

3- We have a Russia more connected with the rest of Europe.

Why? Disunity makes Russia more likely to ignore Europe and focus on its own affairs. Foreigners would be less attracted to the area. The only exceptions might be the occasional innovative ruler in the western peripheries like Novgorod or Galicia who might invite in outsiders but otherwise there's no real incentive. Although periods of disunity do allow for experimentation and a sort of "natural selection" of ideas/culture (i.e. Greek city states), they also lead to on the whole an inward focus.

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

A Russia with no experience of the tartar yoke is also more likely to be cooperative with steppe peoples, so a more porous boundary in terms of architecture and social divisions seems not unimaginable, especially if the Kipchaks settle in Christianity.

 

[I_am_Unk]

Depends on a lot of things, including your definition of language vs dialect. Look at divided nations like Italy or Germany for examples of how this might work. Or unified nations like France, given the huge variety of "patois" in northern France alone. Now given that there was some level of unity within Kievan Rus (a single religious head and a senior prince, not too dissimilar to Poland), I think it's very likely that there would be greater, rather than lesser, linguistic unity. At most you'd have more local dialects like Old Novgorodian which are never "elevated" to the status of full language because all government and church officials are using a standard Russian and there are few, if any, local literary or cultural figures who bother to use the language. Or any local sense of nationalism because the nationalistic impulse is devoted toward pan-Russian nationalism and creating a single nation (once again, Italy/Germany).

Thanks for the example, it does certainly help with the thought process, but now that you've mentioned German, isn't its dialects a bit dissimilar from one another? Like, an Upper German or a Central German (which, if memory doesn't fail, it's the one dialect that Standard German is more heavily based upon) speaker won't necessarily be able to fully understand a Low German speaker. Isn't the situation not dissimilar to the Ibero-Romance languages? Like how Portuguese speakers may be able to understand a good portion of Castillian and an even greater portion of Galician. For once, Standard German is more akin to a written language when it was first thought about, before it Low and High German had been drifting apart for quite some time.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the dialects of Northern and Southern Italy evolved from entirely different branches of Romance? (Italo-Dalmatian and Gallo-Italic) I don't know much about Italian and its dialects to say much, but isn't that supposed to at the very least provide some significant differences? I guess an argument can be made that some of those dialects (both German and Italian) are languages of their own and only turned into dialects due to nationalistic movements.

IIRC that's mostly because of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which TTL would lack the power vacuum to expand into.

Why is that necessarily? Could you explain it to me a little better?

Why? Disunity makes Russia more likely to ignore Europe and focus on its own affairs. Foreigners would be less attracted to the area. The only exceptions might be the occasional innovative ruler in the western peripheries like Novgorod or Galicia who might invite in outsiders but otherwise there's no real incentive. Although periods of disunity do allow for experimentation and a sort of "natural selection" of ideas/culture (i.e. Greek city states), they also lead to on the whole an inward focus.

I'd say this because Russia before the Mongols generally sang a very similar tone with the rest of Europe, so they'd probably be much similar to the rest of Europe TTL as opposed to having a very distinct East Slavic paranoid culture that constantly pumps authocratic leaders like a factory. Before the Mongols, Russia had more significant ties with the lands to the west of it. Perhaps Russia would develop more effective democratic institutions when compared to OTL. Also, there probably isn't a need from Russian society to expand beyond the urals, much because of what is said right above by another user. Here's a quote:

A Russia with no experience of the tartar yoke is also more likely to be cooperative with steppe peoples, so a more porous boundary in terms of architecture and social divisions seems not unimaginable, especially if the Kipchaks settle in Christianity.

Also, I must ask... Kipchaks christians? Care to talk a bit more about that? I'm kind of interested on that idea e.e

 

[alexmilman]

I was recently thinking about an alt hist TL where the Mongol Empire as we know never forms and one of the key points of such TL is the repercussion in Russia, specifically the Kievan Rus'.

For the Kievan Rus the repercussions would be zero because the term lost its meaning in the last quarter of the XII century when Grand Duchy of Vladimir became the senior among the Russian princedoms.

I think it's most likely that the Rus' countries eventually completely split apart and each goes on their way independently, with perhaps the center of power switching from South (Kiev) to North (Novgorod, Vladimir-Suzdal, etc),

This center already moved north more than 50 years prior to the Mongolian invasion. Going independently would not happen at least for Novgorod: it was critically dependent upon the grain supplies from the Central Russia (Vladimir and its dependencies).

But the South became de facto independent before the Mongoks: Grand Duchy of Galitz-Volynia.

and I also think Poland would have the time of its life expanding east in TTL, probably absorbing most parts of the West of Rus' into its sphere of influence.

This would be extremely difficult by a very simple reason: absence of a common border: Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in between.

With all that laid out, there some safe assumptions that can be made:
1- The East Slavic Languages would still split into Russian and Ruthenian and evolve accordingly;
2- Russia most likely doesn't form out of the Northeastern part of Kievan Rus', with various independent duchies/principalities.

Centralization around Vladimir already was going on so “no” on that one.

3- We have a Russia more connected with the rest of Europe.

Based upon which considerations? Any serious facts or just because you think so?

 

[alexmilman]

A Russia with no experience of the tartar yoke is also more likely to be cooperative with steppe peoples, so a more porous boundary in terms of architecture and social divisions seems not unimaginable, especially if the Kipchaks settle in Christianity.

Russian princedoms already cooperated with the pre-Mongolian nomadic neighbors (not that they had any “architecture”) and cooperated even more after Mongolian conquest with the noticeable administrative, architectural, military and linguistic impact.

 

[I_am_Unk]

For the Kievan Rus the repercussions would be zero because the term lost its meaning in the last quarter of the XII century when Grand Duchy of Vladimir became the senior among the Russian princedoms

Indeed, I just used the term for the sake of convenience to refer to the region as a whole.

I must confess that I kind of forgot the details about Vladimir and Galitz-Volynia and that I'm not that much knownledgeble in Russian history to be really talking about that much stuff, so I'm very open to corrections and asking questions for the sake of the scenario.

This would be extremely difficult by a very simple reason: absence of a common border: Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in between.

Didn't the Mongol invasions play some part into making an opening to Lithuania to take this land? Also, without the Mongols we also butterfly a significant part of the history of medieval Poland. Isn't it possible that the King of Poland (from a Dynasty originated from Silesia, I think) be able to consolidate power much earlier in TTL.

Based upon which considerations? Any serious facts or just because you think so?

Probably talking out of my ass on that one, not gonna lie. I was under the impression that Russia worked similarly to how the other European countries to the west, but that's probably not the case, just an ignorant assumption.

It also makes me think, perhaps in the Rus' (now refering to the people of the region as a whole) that perhaps the East Slavs don't expand much to the east like OTL, but instead the west? Anyway, perhaps the language doesn't even split into Russian and Ruthenian, like said before.

 

[alexmilman]

Indeed, I just used the term for the sake of convenience to refer to the region as a whole.

I must confess that I kind of forgot the details about Vladimir and Galitz-Volynia and that I'm not that much knownledgeble in Russian history to be really talking about that much stuff, so I'm very open to corrections and asking questions for the sake of the scenario.


Didn't the Mongol invasions play some part into making an opening to Lithuania to take this land? Also, without the Mongols we also butterfly a significant part of the history of medieval Poland. Isn't it possible that the King of Poland (from a Dynasty originated from Silesia, I think) be able to consolidate power much earlier in TTL.

This is rather hard to tell. The events definitely could be interpreted that way but, OTOH, I’m anything but sure that the Grand Duchy of Vladimir had a real power over the Western Russian lands. The whole point of moving from Kiev to Vladimir was security and isolation but the obvious downside were the lousy communications.
As for Poland, if it is unified earlier, then, in theory, it can conquer Galitz. OTOH, if Galitz did not suffer from the repeated Mongolian invasions, it may successfully resist such an attempt. You may chose any option you prefer.

Probably talking out of my ass on that one, not gonna lie. I was under the impression that Russia worked similarly to how the other European countries to the west, but that's probably not the case, just an ignorant assumption.

AFAIK, ties with the West weakened considerably since the time of Yaroslav the Wise and the Dnieper being the major transport route. Warfare became distinctively “east-oriented” and the marriages were mostly with the nomadic neighbors. The only region directly exposed to the”west” was Novgorod-Pskov and that ‘west’ was Europe’s backyard. On the South Galitz was much more exposed having Hungary and Poland as its neighbors but I wouldn’t make too much out of it.

It also makes me think, perhaps in the Rus' (now refering to the people of the region as a whole) that perhaps the East Slavs don't expand much to the east like OTL, but instead the west?

Expansion to the west (Lithuania?) would be not impossible but more difficult than to the east and less profitable.

Anyway, perhaps the language doesn't even split into Russian and Ruthenian, like said before.

I’m not a specialist in the area but how about a reverse situation? To start with, modern “classic” Russian is a product of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries. OTOH, the regional dialects existed “forever” so it may be not “split” but “not unified” even within “Russia proper”. And, AFAIK, Belorussian (Ruthenian?) is different from Ukrainian and Western Ukrainian used to be more polonized than the Eastern one.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

This would be extremely difficult by a very simple reason: absence of a common border: Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in between.

That is not accurate map for border around the time of Mongolian invasion, Silesian Piasts controlled most of Poland (tho Mazovia was outside of their control) and Grand Duchy of Lithuania didn't expand southwards yet and it's really hard to tell whether it'd do so ATL too, Lithuanians profited from the wreckage Mongols did to Kievan Rus'. I am not saying Poland would expand eastwards either, Silesian Piasts were mostly entangled in western conflicts, so if anything, given the fact that they often intermarried with Premyslids and that Polish and Bohemian elites around XIII/XIVth centuries shared distaste for German influence and belief in cultural closeness between these two countries, which was enough for Polish nobles to call Bohemian king Wenceslaus II - "lord of our blood and tongue", Poland could form lasting personal union with Bohemia ITTL, which would be Hungary's biggest rival. If that rivalry was resolved, Poland-Bohemia maybe would turn it's attention east, but mostly as support for Teutonic Order.

 

[I_am_Unk]

AFAIK, ties with the West weakened considerably since the time of Yaroslav the Wise and the Dnieper being the major transport route. Warfare became distinctively “east-oriented” and the marriages were mostly with the nomadic neighbors. The only region directly exposed to the”west” was Novgorod-Pskov and that ‘west’ was Europe’s backyard. On the South Galitz was much more exposed having Hungary and Poland as its neighbors but I wouldn’t make too much out of it.

Well, thanks for this insight. I'm certainly editing the map I used as a basis up there.

I’m not a specialist in the area but how about a reverse situation? To start with, modern “classic” Russian is a product of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries. OTOH, the regional dialects existed “forever” so it may be not “split” but “not unified” even within “Russia proper”. And, AFAIK, Belorussian (Ruthenian?) is different from Ukrainian and Western Ukrainian used to be more polonized than the Eastern one.

A great compromise, in my opinion. Now, should I use the division between Northern, Central and Southern we use today or should I go start searching for Old Russian dialects? I saw this thing called Old Novgorodian just the other day and it was actually one of the things that opened this can of worms and I'm now obsessed with this question about the Russian language.

That is not accurate map for border around the time of Mongolian invasion, Silesian Piasts controlled most of Poland (tho Mazovia was outside of their control) and Grand Duchy of Lithuania didn't expand southwards yet and it's really hard to tell whether it'd do so ATL too, Lithuanians profited from the wreckage Mongols did to Kievan Rus'. I am not saying Poland would expand eastwards either, Silesian Piasts were mostly entangled in western conflicts, so if anything, given the fact that they often intermarried with Premyslids and that Polish and Bohemian elites around XIII/XIVth centuries shared distaste for German influence and belief in cultural closeness between these two countries, which was enough for Polish nobles to call Bohemian king Wenceslaus II - "lord of our blood and tongue", Poland could form lasting personal union with Bohemia ITTL, which would be Hungary's biggest rival. If that rivalry was resolved, Poland-Bohemia maybe would turn it's attention east, but mostly as support for Teutonic Order.

Oh boy! You just gave me a bunch of really cool ideas and now I am more than sure I'm going to be editing my map!!! But hey, didn't the Teutonic Order and the Poles clashed quite a bit? I'm not sure if Poland would be so kin into helping them without perhaps adding them under their influence.

 

[DJjablonski]

I remember hearing from a russian linguist friend that a novgorodian language was in the early stages of forming before the state was destroyed.
The Pomore dialect should also be a good example to look at.

 

[I_am_Unk]

I remember hearing from a russian linguist friend that a novgorodian language was in the early stages of forming before the state was destroyed.
The Pomore dialect should also be a good example to look at.

I'll be looking into it too. In any case, does someone happen to know Russian? Because I have no idea what it says here.

 

[alexmilman]

That is not accurate map for border around the time of Mongolian invasion,

As I said, “Poland” of that period had been bordering with Galitz-Volyn. Which was, for a while, quite strong and without the Mongols may remain that way.

Silesian Piasts controlled most of Poland (tho Mazovia was outside of their control) and Grand Duchy of Lithuania didn't expand southwards yet and it's really hard to tell whether it'd do so ATL too, Lithuanians profited from the wreckage Mongols did to Kievan Rus'.

I wonder how many times is it necessary to repeat that there was no “Kievan Rus” at least half a century prior to the Mongolian invasion before people stop using the wrong terminology… 😥

 

[alexmilman]

I'll be looking into it too. In any case, does someone happen to know Russian? Because I have no idea what it says here.

It lists dialects of the Russian language in, as I understand, central part of the European Russia.

 

[Codae]

I'll be looking into it too. In any case, does someone happen to know Russian? Because I have no idea what it says here.

Most of the labels are geographical (e.g. the division into northern (green), southern (pink), and central (yellow/brown) dialects, or naming a city where a dialect is spoken). One distinction of purely linguistic significance is that 16, 17, and 20 (as opposed to 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, and 24) okayut.

 

[I_am_Unk]

I wonder how many times is it necessary to repeat that there was no “Kievan Rus” at least half a century prior to the Mongolian invasion before people stop using the wrong terminology… 😥

You're probably doing it for as long as this thread remains active lmao. How about we call the region as a whole Rusia for the sake of convenience. Drop an "s" just to try and not make any possible Ukrainians mad (damn, this is barely an effort). I think it was one of the names used for the region too, so...

Anyway, here's a partically updated map of TTL (not finished) considering everything in the thread so far. If any of these additionals Rusian Countries doesn't make sense, tough shit, I'm using the "fiction card" (also, I think giving names to territories might facilitate further comments about the map for future edits), they aren't all that important to the discussion anyway. According to how things have so far being discussed there's, potentially, at least 2 centers of power in Rusia: Vladimir and Halych-Volhinia. Additional information is that Halych to the south is interacting a lot more with Poland and Hungary than the rest of Rusia, but one shouldn't read too much into it (certainly not Polonization happening), plus the Novgorodian dialect may have been developing into its own language even tho its proximity with Vladimir.
Considering the dialect map that I posted earlier and that the Rusian dialects will continue to drift apart without the centralization of the language, does that mean that it's possible to develop a similar 3-ways division of dialects: One in the Southern Rusia; One in Northern Russia; One in-between the two. Also, considering the Novgorodian might be a thing and these dialects may follow the same logic as the German ones (like how an Upper German speaker may not easily understand a Low German speaker), is it pertinent to say that we may have 3-4 Rusian languages/dialects?

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

View attachment 856069
As I said, “Poland” of that period had been bordering with Galitz-Volyn. Which was, for a while, quite strong and without the Mongols may remain that way.

I wonder how many times is it necessary to repeat that there was no “Kievan Rus” at least half a century prior to the Mongolian invasion before people stop using the wrong terminology… 😥

Yes, it will border with Galitz-Volyn and as I said eastern expansion is not a given, tho dukes tried it even before Mongols, for example he took border settlements, Stopie, Komow, Ugrowsk and Wereszczyn.
"Kievan Rus'" was just a shortcut on my part, how should I say "lands who belonged to Kievan Rus' pre-collapse" otherwise?

 

[I_am_Unk]

Yes, it will border with Galitz-Volyn and as I said eastern expansion is not a given, tho dukes tried it even before Mongols, for example he took border settlements, Stopie, Komow, Ugrowsk and Wereszczyn.
"Kievan Rus'" was just a shortcut on my part, how should I say "lands who belonged to Kievan Rus' pre-collapse" otherwise?

I recommend the use of Rusia without the second "s".

 

[alexmilman]

Yes, it will border with Galitz-Volyn and as I said eastern expansion is not a given, tho dukes tried it even before Mongols, for example he took border settlements, Stopie, Komow, Ugrowsk and Wereszczyn.
"Kievan Rus'" was just a shortcut on my part, how should I say "lands who belonged to Kievan Rus' pre-collapse" otherwise?

The generally used term is “Vladimir-Suzdal Rus”.