these update are great!.
but somebody must be balkanised (how is writed balkanised?)
but somebody must be balkanised (how is writed balkanised?)
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You got it right. Someone will be dismantled, because just 16 nations in the entire world makes things a bit boring.
Does it mean that some of Reich allies\rivals will be ruined by war\revolution\transdimensional unbidden culture?
P.S.:About culture from another dimension I said,meaning Ukrainians in Tsardom\PLC\Reich`s Ukraine(Taurica or Carpathia) or Dixie\Yankee in Fox\Chinese Eimerica
P.P.S.:It could be a touch point of Vic2 with Stellaris!
P.P.P.S.:I understand,that all highly highlighted is just joke and speculation , and that "who_knows_would_it_work_in_game_?" .
At HOI wiki was explained,that in standart map all Germany is dense urban(8 building slots),metropolis(10) and megalopolis(12 slots) regions.Will it work for all another Roman Reich?
Hey all, the ACAs are now live! Go and vote for your favorite AARs of the year!
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Goodness I've missed a bunch, but apparently the notification system doesn't want me to keep up with this AAR. No Paradox, I will not go along with your "feature." I will keep up with this AAR, and you're gonna like it!
Good news everybody! As I have just returned from my vacation, expect the next world update (likely on Russia) to come within the week! I have a few more world updates (which I might consolidate into one or two multi-country/religion/cultural ones), and then we can get on with the story. I've got some twists coming up that I can't wait to share!
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Chapter 232: The World in 1900 - The Tsardom of Russia
Россійская Имперія (Pre-reformed Russian)
Российская империя (Russian–Cyrillic)
Rossiyskaya imperiya (transliteration)
Русское царство
Рускае царства
Рус патшалыгы
Росії імперія
орос эзэнт гүрэн (Russian Mongolian: oros ezent güren)
Rusijos imperijos
Venäjä
Rússneska keisaradæmið
Russland
Flag
Coat of arms
Anthem
“All the Russias”
Capital(s)
Tsarberg (official)
Kiev (secondary)
Official language
Russian (Kievan dialect)
Recognized regional languages
Russian (northern dialects)
Norse
Mongol
Ruthenian
Lithuanian
Finnish
Religion
Reformed Slavic pantheon
Government
Absolute autocratic bureaucratic monarchy
Tsar
Sbyslava I Rurikovich (first)
Volodar II Rurikovich (current)
Legislature/Advising body
Duma
History
Consolidation: c. 12th century
Formalization of Slavic Patriarchate: 1450s
Liberal revolution: 1848
Absolutism restored: 1860s
Currency
Ruble
Motto
"S nami Bog!"
Съ нами Богъ!
"The gods are with us!"
Introduction
The Russian Empire (also All-Russian Empire or Russia) was a state that existed from the eleventh century. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the Pagan Resurgence and the decline of neighboring rival powers: other Rurikid principalities, Scandinavia, the Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth, and the Saray Empire.
Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, and religion. There were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts; they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Finland.
Economically, the empire was heavily rural, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs, until they were freed in 1861. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of Roman investments in railways and factories. The land was ruled by a nobility called Boyars from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and then was ruled by an emperor. The tsars of the thirteenth century laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged. They tripled the territory of their state, ended the dominance of the Mongol Empire, renovated the Kiev Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsaritsa Rogneda the Great fought numerous wars and built a huge empire that became a major European power. She moved the capital from Kiev to the new model city of Tsarberg, and led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political system with a modern, scientific, Roman-oriented, and rationalist system.
Rogneda presided over a golden age. She expanded the nation rapidly by conquest, colonization and diplomacy. Tsar Yeremey promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs during the Imperial Century. His policy in Eastern Europe was to uphold his alliance with the Reich against first Lithuania and Scandinavia and then against China.
History
The history of Russia began with Isiaslav I Rurikovich. Iziaslav was the oldest son of Yaroslav I the Wise by his second wife Ingigerd Olafsdottir. Iziaslav succeeded his father, after Yaroslav's oldest child, Vladimir (the only child by Yaroslav's first wife), had predeceased his father. Iziaslav was one of the authors of "Pravda Yaroslavichiv" – a part of the first legal code of Rus, called Russkaya Pravda, which eventually became the legal code of the Russian Empire.
Iziaslav was born an Orthodox Christian and was baptized as Demetrius, though he was never firm in his faith and ultimately abandoned it during the Pagan Resurgence, becoming one of the first Rurikids to convert to reformed Slavic paganism.
In 1043 his father Veliki Kniaz (Grand Prince) Yaroslav made an agreement with King Casimir I of Poland that recognized Cherven as part of Kiev. The agreement was sealed with a double marriage—Casimir to Dobronega, Yaroslav's sister; and Iziaslav to Gertrude, Casimir's sister. From this marriage were born three children: Iziaslav's son Yaropolk, Mstislav and Sviatopolk. Upon the death of Yaroslav the Wise, his realm was divided between three of his older sons (Vladimir of Novgorod died before that), Iziaslav, Sviatoslav, and Vsevolod, creating the Yaroslavichi triumvirate that ruled the country for the next 20 years. However, in the first few days of the Pagan Resurgence, Iziaslav refused to acknowledge his brothers’ legitimacy and proclaimed himself King of Rus and Ruthenia, forcing Sviatoslav and Vsevolod to surrender their titles to him. He also demanded that other Rurikid princes swear fealty to him. Most did, and those who refused were subjugated by his troops. Due to his conversion to Slavic paganism, which had yet to be readopted by the majority of nobles and commoners in his realm, he was widely despised by all except his closest friends, family, and vassals who had converted to Slavic paganism with him. While his death on 7 March 1068, about two years after he had elevated himself to kingship, was declared officially to be of natural causes, recent scholarly analysis suggests that he had been the target of a conspiracy by the remaining Christian Russian nobles of his realm to depose him and install a Christian Rurikid on the throne, though whether the plot was actually carried out is still debated. In any case, his son and successor Yaropolk Izyaslavich “the Holy” was also an adherent of Slavic paganism, helping to reinforce the resurgence of the faith throughout Russia.
King Yaropolk I “the Holy” consolidated the realm of his father and enforced worship of Slavic paganism, forcing many devout Christian Russians to flee to the Eastern Roman Empire. He reigned for just 26 years before the stress of holding the realm together overwhelmed him, prompting him to commit suicide in 1094 (though this did nothing to prevent his canonization as Slavic saint). His son and successor Yelisey I “also the Holy” reigned for just six years before being assassinated in 1100 by Ecumenical Patriarch Polyeuktos “the Wise” for his continued attempt to crack down on Christians within his realm. Yelisey’s murder threw the young kingdom into turmoil as his seven-year-old daughter, Sbyslava, was proclaimed his successor and the Queen of Ruthenia. Immediately the nobles elected one of their own as an independent King of Rus, rejecting Sbyslava’s claim to the kingdom. Eager to demonstrate her authority as a ruler, her regents led the weakened Kingdom of Ruthenia through multiple holy wars against the steppe nomads in the eastern regions of Russia. After managing to defend against a pagan crusade waged by Mongol and Finnish tribes, she became known, while still underage, as “the Sword of Jarilo,” further boosting her legitimacy and popularity.
When Sbyslava came of age in 1109, she immediately took steps to consolidate and reinforce her grip on power. Looking to the early Reich, which had been reunified in 1104, for inspiration, she sought to elevate herself above the ranks of mere kings and fully stabilize her realm to prevent the northern and southern halves from splitting again. Reforms of the administration were carried out over the next nine years, culminating in her coronation on 5 January 1118 as the first empress of a Russian Empire, or the Tsardom of Russia, putting her on equal footing (symbolically) with the Kaiser of Rome. Although her reign as Tsaritsa would be cut short after thirteen years by her untimely death, she left a lasting impact on Russia’s history, establishing what would eventually evolve into the modern nation’s institutions.
Her immediate successors presided over a decades-long golden age occurring concurrently with the Pax Wilhelmina, in which Russian culture flourished. This period of peace was abruptly ended with the Thirteenth Century Crisis as the Mongols stormed across the steppes, sweeping away the Saray Empire like dust under a broom. The destruction of Saray, a major trading partner with Russia because of its control over much of the Silk Road, caused turmoil for the Russian economy, sowing unrest and divisions within the empire which severely weakened it, especially militarily as druzhina infantry deserted when they realized they would no longer be paid their wages. The Mongols under Temur Khan then invaded. Although the Russian armies put up fierce resistance, they were no match for the disciplined Mongol hordes owing to low morale, corruption, and noble generals scheming to undermine the power of the Tsar, and Ruthenia was lost in 1223 to Genghis Khan, and twenty years later Genghis Khan’s son Chagatai Khan invaded northern Russia to finish the job after Tsar Gleb I “again the Holy” managed to recover Ruthenia in 1240. On 5 September 1247, with his levies depleted and nobles mutinous, Gleb officially surrendered and swore fealty to Chagatai Khan in what remained of Tver after it had been thoroughly sacked and pillaged by the Mongols (occupied Kiev had suffered a similar fate). The Khan of Khans then proclaimed himself the Khagan of Russia and set about enforcing his rule over all of Russia with an iron fist.
Resistance to the Mongol occupation sprung up all across Russia, and Chagatai Khan’s administration used increasingly brutal methods to crush the opposition, soon resorting to razing the cities of Pskov and Smolensk to the ground and sending in Mongol settlers to colonize the southern and eastern Russian territories. Gleb’s son and heir, Viacheslav, then three years old, was held hostage in Karakorum to be raised as a Mongol, while countless Russians were enslaved and scattered throughout the Mongol domains (one eventually became a concubine to a Ghaznavid Padishah, another Mongol vassal, and converted him to Slavic paganism). However, the Mongols could not hold on to Russia forever.
Gleb came into contact with the Ghaznavid and Yavdi courts and began planning a rebellion to restore all three realms’ independence from Karakorum. After Viacheslav was rescued from Mongolia, the three rulers declared their independence while taking advantage of disorder in the Mongol court. Gleb again declared himself Tsar of Russia, and future Tsars would make sure that in building up the Russian army no enemy could again conquer Russia. By 1900, Russia had the third-largest (or second by some accounts) military in the world, despite being much smaller than other global powers such as India and China. In addition, the Rurikid dynasty, now firmly in power, pursued an aggressive foreign policy, putting aside their rivalry with the Hohenzollern Kaisers and waging wars of conquest against the Norse. Much of Russia's expansion occurred in the 16th and 17th century, culminating in the conquest of Finland from Scandinavia, the Commonwealth Wars that incorporated portions of Lithuania, and a couple wars with Yavdi.
Rogneda I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing her country to the Roman nation-state system. However, her realm had a population of 14 million. Grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the Reich, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns. The class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until Rogneda’s ascension to the throne, upon which she converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation. Russian agricultural kholops were formally converted into serfs a bit earlier by Rogneda’s father.
Rogneda’s first military efforts were directed against the Lithuanians. Rogneda still lacked a secure northern seaport, except at Archangelsk on the White Sea (which would itself later be lost to Yavdi), but the harbor there was frozen for nine months a year. Access to the Baltic was blocked by Lithuania and Scandinavia, whose territories enclosed it on three sides. Rogneda’s ambitions for a "window to the sea" led her to renegotiate the terms of her alliance with the Reich allowing for Russia to claim land in Lithuania before declaring war on the Baltic kingdom. The war ended quickly when a thoroughly defeated Lithuania asked for peace with Russia. Rogneda acquired the city of Neva from Lithuania as well as some more provinces in Finland from Scandinavia. The coveted access to the sea was now secured. There she built Russia's new capital, Tsarberg, to replace Kiev, which had long been Russia's cultural center.
Rogneda reorganized her government based on the latest political models of the time, moulding Russia into an absolutist state. She replaced the old boyar Duma (council of nobles) with a nine-member “Senate” (it was also called the Duma), in effect a supreme council of state. The countryside was also divided into new provinces and districts. Rogneda told the new Duma that its mission was to collect tax revenues. In turn tax revenues tripled over the course of her reign. As part of the government reform, the Slavic Church was partially incorporated into the country's administrative structure, in effect making it a tool of the state. Rogneda reformed the Slavic patriarchate and supplemented it with a collective body, the Synod, led by a government official. Meanwhile, most vestiges of local self-government were removed. Rogneda continued and intensified her predecessors' requirement of state service for all nobles.
Russia was in a continuous state of financial crisis during the Commonwealth Wars. While revenue rose from 9 million rubles in 1724 to 40 million in 1794, expenses grew more rapidly, reaching 49 million in 1794. The budget allocated 46 percent to the military, 20 percent to government economic activities, 12 percent to administration, and nine percent for the Imperial Court in Tsarberg. The deficit required borrowing, primarily from Berlin; five percent of the budget was allocated to debt payments. Paper money was issued to pay for expensive wars, thus causing inflation. For its spending, Russia obtained a large and glorious army, a very large and complex bureaucracy, and a splendid court that rivaled Berlin. However, the government was living far beyond its means, and early 18th century Russia remained "a poor, backward, overwhelmingly agricultural, and illiterate country."
As Russia entered the Imperial Century with one of the finest armies in the world, liberalism quickly overturned the autocracy of Tsar Yeremey I, installing a constitutional monarchy which ran Russia into the ground with poor judgment. This regime lasted from the 1840s to the 1870s, during which Yeremey was forced to renounce all claims to Scandinavian territory, before Yeremey successfully launched his own revolution against constitutionalism and reinstated autocratic rule. His son Volodar continued his autocratic policies while also modernizing the Russian state to maintain its relevance in the new geopolitical order. The centuries-old alliance with the Reich continued, even as the threat of war with China and Scandinavia continued to loom over both nations.
Territory
The administrative boundaries of Russia, apart from Finland and its portion of Lithuania, coincided approximately with the natural limits of the East-European plains. In the North it met Yavdi in Bjarmaland (Arkhangelsk). Novaya Zemlya and the Kolguyev and Vaygach Islands also belonged to it. To the East it had the the Ural Mountains, the Ural River and the Caspian Sea — the administrative boundary, however, partly extending into Asia on the Siberian slope of the Urals. To the South it met the Roman province of Taurica.
It is a special feature of Russia that it has few free outlets to the open sea other than on the ice-bound shores of the Arctic Ocean (which were then lost to Yavdi). It is only at the very head of the Gulf of Finland that the Russians had taken firm foothold by erecting their capital at the mouth of the Neva River. The Gulf of Riga and the Baltic belong also to territory which was not inhabited by Slavs, but by Baltic peoples.
Following the Norse defeat in wars in the 1880s, the eastern half of Scandinavia, the area that then became Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire as an autonomous grand duchy. The tsar eventually ended up ruling Finland as a semi-constitutional monarch through the Governor-General of Finland and a native-populated Senate appointed by him. The Emperor never explicitly recognized Finland as a constitutional state in its own right, however, although his Finnish subjects came to consider the Grand Duchy as one.
Newly discovered Arctic islands became part of the Russian Empire as Russian explorers found them: the New Siberian Islands from the early 18th century; Severnaya Zemlya ("Tsar Volodar Land") first mapped and claimed as late as 1913.
Government and administration
From its initial creation, the Russian Empire was controlled by its tsar/emperor as an absolute monarch, under the system of tsarist autocracy. From 1848 to the 1870s, Russia developed a new type of government which became difficult to categorize. In the Almanach de Gotha for 1910, Russia was described as "a constitutional monarchy under an autocratic tsar." This contradiction in terms demonstrated the difficulty of precisely defining the system, essentially transitional and meanwhile sui generis, established in the Russian Empire after 1848. Before this date, the fundamental laws of Russia described the power of the Emperor as "autocratic and unlimited." After 1848, while the imperial style was still "Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias", the fundamental laws were remodeled by removing the word unlimited. While the emperor retained many of his old prerogatives, including an absolute veto over all legislation, he equally agreed to the establishment of an elected parliament, without whose consent no laws were to be enacted in Russia. Not that the regime in Russia had become in any true sense constitutional, far less parliamentary. But the "unlimited autocracy" had given place to a "self-limited autocracy." Whether this autocracy was to be permanently limited by the new changes, or only at the continuing discretion of the autocrat, became a subject of heated controversy between conflicting parties in the state. Provisionally, then, the Russian governmental system may perhaps be best defined as "a limited monarchy under an autocratic emperor." This confusing system was then abolished with the return of autocracy several decades later.
Tsar
Prior to the issuance of the October Manifesto, the Emperor ruled as an absolute monarch, subject to only two limitations on his authority (both of which were intended to protect the existing system): the Emperor and his consort must both belong to the Russian Slavic Church, and he must obey the laws of succession (Sbyslavan Laws) established by Sbyslava I. Beyond this, the power of the Russian Autocrat was virtually limitless. After the October Manifesto, a further limitation was introduced, namely that the Tsar must belong to the Rurikovich family.
Council of Ministers
By the law of 18 October 1900, to assist the Emperor in the supreme administration a Council of Ministers (Sovyet Ministrov) was created, under a chancellor, the first appearance of a chancellor in Russia. This council consists of all the ministers and of the heads of the principal administrations. The ministries were as follows:
Ministry of the Imperial Court
Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
Ministry of War;
Ministry of Navy
Ministry of Finance;
Ministry of Commerce and Industry (created in 1905);
Ministry of Internal affairs (including police, health, censorship and press, posts and telegraphs, foreign religions, statistics);
Ministry of Agriculture and State Assets;
Ministry of ways of Communications;
Ministry of Justice;
Ministry of National Enlightenment.
Most Holy (Slavic) Synod
The Most Holy (Slavic) Synod (established in 1721) was the supreme organ of government of the Slavic Church in Russia. It was presided over by a lay procurator, representing the Emperor, and consisted of the three metropolitans of Tver, Tsarberg, and Kiev, the archbishop of Rus, and a number of bishops sitting in rotation.
Senate
The Senate (Pravitelstvuyushchi Duma, i.e. directing or governing senate), or just “Duma,” originally established during the Government reform of Rogneda I, consisted of members nominated by the Emperor. Its wide variety of functions were carried out by the different departments into which it was divided. It was the supreme court of cassation; an audit office, a high court of justice for all political offences; one of its departments fulfilled the functions of a heralds' college. It also had supreme jurisdiction in all disputes arising out of the administration of the Empire, notably differences between representatives of the central power and the elected organs of local self-government. Lastly, it promulgated new laws of rejecting measures not in accordance with fundamental laws.
Administrative divisions
For the purposes of administration, Russia was divided (as of 1900) into 59 governorates (guberniyas) and 1 oblast (in the Don). Eight Governorates were in Finland, 10 in Lithuania. The Don Oblast was under the direct jurisdiction of the ministry of war; the rest had each a governor and deputy-governor, the latter presiding over the administrative council. In addition, there were governors-general, generally placed over several governorates and armed with more extensive powers usually including the command of the troops within the limits of their jurisdiction. In 1900, there were governors-general in Finland, Pskov, and Smolensk. The larger cities (Tsarberg, Kiev, Rostov, Tver, etc.) had an administrative system of their own, independent of the governorates; in these the chief of police acted as governor.
Judicial system
The judicial system of the Russian Empire, existing from the mid-19th century, was established by Tsar Yeremey I, by statute. This system — based on Roman models — was built up on certain broad principles: the separation of the judicial and administrative functions, the independence of the judges and courts, the publicity of trials and oral procedure, the equality of all classes before the law. Moreover, a democratic element was introduced by the adoption of the jury system and—so far as one order of tribunal was concerned—the election of judges. The establishment of a judicial system on these principles constituted a major change in the conception of the Russian state, which, by placing the administration of justice outside the sphere of the executive power, ceased to be a despotism.
The system established by this law was significant in that it set up two wholly separate orders of tribunals, each having their own courts of appeal and coming in contact only in the Senate, as the supreme court of cassation. The first of these are the courts of the elected justices of the peace, with jurisdiction over petty causes, whether civil or criminal; the second are the ordinary tribunals of nominated judges, sitting with or without a jury to hear important cases.
Local administration
Alongside the local organs of the central government in Russia there are three classes of local elected bodies charged with administrative functions:
the peasant assemblies in the mir and the volost;
the zemstvos in the 34 Governorates of Russia;
the municipal dumas.
Municipal dumas
Since 1870 the municipalities in Russia have had institutions like those of the zemstvos. All owners of houses, and tax-paying merchants, artisans and workmen are enrolled on lists in a descending order according to their assessed wealth. The total valuation is then divided into three equal parts, representing three groups of electors very unequal in number, each of which elects an equal number of delegates to the municipal duma. The executive is in the hands of an elective mayor and an uprava, which consists of several members elected by the duma. Under Volodar, however, by laws promulgated in 1892 and 1894, the municipal dumas were subordinated to the governors in the same way as the zemstvos..
Baltic provinces
The formerly Lithuanian-controlled Baltic provinces (Courland, Livonia and Estonia) were incorporated into the Russian Empire after the defeat of Lithuania in 1836. Under the Treaty of Vaasa, the Baltic nobility retained considerable powers of self-government and numerous privileges in matters affecting education, police and the administration of local justice. Laws were declared in 1888 and 1889 where the rights of the police and manorial justice were transferred from Baltic control to officials of the central government. Since about the same time a process of Russification was being carried out in the same provinces, in all departments of administration, in the higher schools and in the Imperial University of Dorpat, the name of which was altered to Yuriev. In 1893 district committees for the management of the peasants' affairs, similar to those in the purely Russian governments, were introduced into this part of the empire.
Railways
The planning and building of the railway network after 1860 had far-reaching effects on the economy, culture, and ordinary life of Russia. The central authorities and the imperial elite made most of the key decisions, but local elites set up a demand for rail linkages. Local nobles, merchants, and entrepreneurs imagined the future from "locality" '(mestnost')' to "empire" to promote their regional interests. Often they had to compete with other cities. By envisioning their own role in a rail network they came to understand how important they were to the empire's economy.
Religion and Culture
The Russian Empire's state religion was Russian Slavic paganism. Its head was the tsar, who held the title of supreme defender of the Church. Although he made and annulled all appointments, he did not determine the questions of dogma or church teaching. The principal ecclesiastical authority was the Holy Slavic Synod, the head of which, the Over Procurator of the Holy Slavic Synod, was one of the council of ministers and exercised very wide powers in ecclesiastical matters. All religions were freely professed, except that certain restrictions were laid upon Norse. According to returns published in 1905, based on the Russian Empire Census of 1897, adherents of the different religious communities in the whole of the Russian empire numbered approximately as follows.
The ecclesiastical heads of the national Russian Slavic Church consisted of three metropolitans (Tsarberg, Tver, Kiev), fourteen archbishops and fifty bishops (actual Russian term varies), all drawn from the ranks of the monastic (celibate) clergy. The parochial clergy had to be married when appointed, but if left widowers were not allowed to marry again; this rule continues to apply today.
With the exception of Mongol communities in eastern Ruthenia, the vast majority of Russian citizens identify as Russian and primarily speak Russian.
Military
The Russian Empire's military consisted of the Imperial Russian Army and the Imperial Russian Navy. Despite being the second or third largest in the world since 1836, the Russian forces fell further and further behind in technology, training and organization of the Indian, Chinese, and particularly the Roman militaries, relying on the Reich for equipment and training.
Society
The Russian Empire was, predominantly, a rural society spread over vast spaces. In 1900, 80% of the people were peasants. Mironov assesses the effects of the reforms of latter 19th-century especially in terms of the 1861 emancipation of the serfs, agricultural output trends, various standard of living indicators, and taxation of peasants. He argues that they brought about measurable improvements in social welfare. More generally, he finds that the well-being of the Russian people declined during most of the 18th century, but increased slowly from the end of the 18th century to 1900.
Estates
Subjects of the Russian Empire were segregated into sosloviyes, or social estates (classes) such as nobility (dvoryanstvo), clergy, merchants, cossacks and peasants.
A majority of the people, 81.6%, belonged to the peasant order, the others were: nobility, 0.6%; clergy, 0.1%; the burghers and merchants, 9.3%; and military, 6.1%. More than 88 million of the Russians were peasants. A part of them were formerly serfs (10,447,149 males in 1858) – the remainder being " state peasants " (9,194,891 males in 1858) and " domain peasants " (842,740 males the same year).
Serfdom
The serfdom which had developed in Russia in the 16th century, and became enshrined by law in 1649, was abolished in 1861.
The household servants or dependents attached to the personal service were merely set free, while the landed peasants received their houses and orchards, and allotments of arable land. These allotments were given over to the rural commune (mir), which was made responsible for the payment of taxes for the allotments. For these allotments the peasants had to pay a fixed rent which could be fulfilled by personal labour. The allotments could be redeemed by peasants with the help of the Crown, and then they were freed from all obligations to the landlord. The Crown paid the landlord and the peasants had to repay the Crown, for forty-nine years at 6% interest. The financial redemption to the landlord was not calculated on the value of the allotments, but was considered as a compensation for the loss of the compulsory labour of the serfs. Many proprietors contrived to curtail the allotments which the peasants had occupied under serfdom, and frequently deprived them of precisely the parts of which they were most in need: pasture lands around their houses. The result was to compel the peasants to rent land from their former masters.
The former serfs became peasants, joining the millions of farmers who were already in the peasant status. After the Emancipation reform, one quarter of peasants received allotments of only 2.9 acres (12,000 m2) per male, and one-half less than 8.5 to 11.4 acres; the normal size of the allotment necessary for the subsistence of a family under the three-fields system is estimated at 28 to 42 acres (170,000 m2). Land must thus of necessity be rented from the landlords. The aggregate value of the redemption and land taxes often reached 185 to 275% of the normal rental value of the allotments, not to speak of taxes for recruiting purposes, the church, roads, local administration and so on, chiefly levied from the peasants. The areas increased every year; one-fifth of the inhabitants left their houses; cattle disappeared. Every year more than half the adult males (in some districts three-quarters of the men and one-third of the women) quit their homes and wandered throughout Russia in search of labor. In the governments of the Black Earth Area the state of matters was hardly better. Many peasants took "gratuitous allotments," whose amount was about one-eighth of the normal allotments.
The average allotment was only 0.90-acre (3,600 m2), and for allotments from 2.9 to 5.8 acres (23,000 m2) the peasants pay 5 to 10 rubles of redemption tax. The state peasants were better off, but still they were emigrating in masses. It was only in the steppe governments that the situation was more hopeful. In Ruthenia, where the allotments were personal (the mir existing only among state peasants), the state of affairs does not differ for the better, on account of the high redemption taxes. In the western provinces, where the land was valued cheaper and the allotments somewhat increased after Lithuanian insurrections, the general situation was better. Finally, in the Baltic provinces nearly all the land belonged to Norse landlords, who either farmed the land themselves, with hired laborers, or let it in small farms. Only one quarter of the peasants were farmers; the remainder were mere laborers.
Landowners
The situation of the former serf-proprietors was also unsatisfactory. Accustomed to the use of compulsory labor, they failed to adapt to the new conditions. The millions of rubles of redemption money received from the crown was spent without any real or lasting agricultural improvements having been effected. The forests were sold, and the only prosperous landlords were those who exacted rack-rents for the land without which the peasants could not live upon their allotments. During the years 1861 to 1892 the land owned by the nobles decreased 30%, or from 210,000,000 to 150,000,000 acres (610,000 km2); during the following four years an additional 2,119,500 acres (8,577 km2) were sold; and since then the sales went on at an accelerated rate, until in 1903 alone close to 2,000,000 acres (8,000 km2) passed out of their hands. On the other hand, since 1861, and more especially since 1882, when the Peasant Land Bank was founded for making advances to peasants who were desirous of purchasing land, the former serfs, or rather their descendants, had between 1883 and 1904 bought about 19,500,000 acres (78,900 km2) from their former masters. There was an increase of wealth among the few, but along with this a general impoverishment of the mass of the people, and the peculiar institution of the mir—framed on the principle of community of ownership and occupation of the land--, the effect was not conducive to the growth of individual effort.
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As this is taking too long, I'm not sure if I can continue to put in enough effort into them, and I have other things to do (not to mention continuing playing), I'm currently considering skipping several world updates and just polishing up and posting what updates I have already written (on Lithuania, Yavdi, and Mayapan) and then moving on. Is everybody okay with this?
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Shouldn't Russia's modern history just be "War was declared against Scandinavia and Lithuania again, but the Reich yelled at them to stop it..." 
The Tsardom is in a tricky situation. So many peasants, such reliance on the Reich for tech... they could easily fall behind and be easy pickings if their relationship with you soured. That in itself could prove interesting.
As for you considering skipping some world updates, I'm fine with that, as the ones you've done and have already written seem like the most important players for the most part. Besides, we'll probably be getting a similar world update upon conversion down the line. I'll admit I'd have loved to see the Triple Alliance's, as I see that playing out like a tragedy from their perspective, but I can live without it.
The Tsardom is in a tricky situation. So many peasants, such reliance on the Reich for tech... they could easily fall behind and be easy pickings if their relationship with you soured. That in itself could prove interesting.
As for you considering skipping some world updates, I'm fine with that, as the ones you've done and have already written seem like the most important players for the most part. Besides, we'll probably be getting a similar world update upon conversion down the line. I'll admit I'd have loved to see the Triple Alliance's, as I see that playing out like a tragedy from their perspective, but I can live without it.
Basically, but where's the fun in that?
Yeah, like that's going to happen.
I originally planned to focus on the Eimerican nations, as I haven't focused much on them (and have a lot of RP ideas planned for Fox and Kanata), but we'll likely get to them around 1936.
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I'm fine with this, especially since you so fiendishly left us on a cliffhanger.
I think that "Kievan dialect" , mentioned in your post , is Ukrainian\Ruthenian language.Well,it`s interesting to know,that here modern Russian identity is no more than North Russian Provincial Peasants , and that Finland is here autonomous princedom.Well,amazing post!
You could call it that, though it would of course have few similarities with real life Ukrainian because of the timeline changes.
You should have listed exactly how many wars Russia declared on the Norse or Lithuania.
Chapter 233: The World in 1900 - The Dual Monarchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia
Names
Lietuva
Литва
Співдружність (spivdruzhnistʹ)
Содружество (sodruzhestvo)
Sandrauga
The Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth
The Balto-Slavic Union
The Kingdom of Lithuania
Motto
"Praise Perkunas!"
Anthem
"Praise Perkunas!"
Capital
Vilnius
Religion
Reformed Baltic pantheon
Government
Absolute dual monarchy, personal union
Legislature/advising body
Sejm / Seimas
Historical era
Consolidation: 12th century-15th century
Declaration of Commonwealth: 1640s-1650s
Currency
Litas
Introduction
Lithuania (Listeni/ˌlɪθjuːˈeɪniə/; Lithuanian: Lietuva [lʲɪɛtʊˈvɐ]), is a country in Northern Europe. The last surviving Baltic state, it is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Scandinavia and the Reich. It is bordered by Russia to the north, Russia to the east and south, the Reich to the south, and the Reich to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 14 million people as of 1900, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. Lithuanians are a Baltic people. The official language, Lithuanian, along with Latvian, are the only two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.
For centuries, the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Vingoldas, the King of Lithuania, and the first unified Lithuanian state, the Kingdom of Lithuania, was created in the 1300s. With the Lublin Declaration during the Fifty Years’ War, Lithuania and territory of the Kingdom of Ruthenia seized from Russia formed an involuntary two-state union, the Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has lasted since then in various forms, although neighboring countries have systematically dismantled it, with Russia annexing most of Lithuania's territory.
History
Prehistoric
The first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population and formed various Baltic tribes. The first written mention of Lithuania is found in a medieval German manuscript, the Annals of Quedlinburg, in an entry dated 9 March 1009.
Medieval
Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Vingoldas, who was crowned as King of Lithuania. Despite a devastating century-long struggle with the Christian holy orders sent by the Reich, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly through the Baltic region, overtaking former Finnish principalities and forming an alliance with the Scandinavian Empire.
The geopolitical situation between the west and the east, as Lithuania was wedged between the Christian Reich and Slavic Russia, determined the multicultural character of the Grand Duchy (or Kingdom) of Lithuania. The ruling elite practiced religious tolerance (though this was unnecessary as all Lithuanians were Baltic pagans) and Lithuanian language was used for official documents.
Modern
The Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth was created in the 1640s, while the Reich was distracted in the Fifty Years’ War and Russia was severely weakened. As the leading member of the Commonwealth, Lithuania retained its institutions, including a separate army, currency, and statutory laws. Despite Poland having not existed for centuries by this point, Polonization inexplicably affected all aspects of Lithuanian life: politics, language, culture, and national identity. From the mid-16th to the mid-17th centuries, culture, arts, and education flourished, fueled by the Renaissance and the Iconoclast Reformation.
During the Commonwealth Wars, the Lithuanian territory and economy were devastated by the Roman legions. Before it could fully recover, Lithuania was ravaged during even more Commonwealth Wars against both the Reich and Russia. The wars, a plague, and a famine caused the deaths of approximately 60% of the country's population.
The Commonwealth reached its Golden Age in the early 17th century. Its powerful parliament was dominated by nobles who were reluctant to get involved in the Fifty Years' War; this neutrality spared the country from the ravages of a political-religious conflict which devastated most of the Reich. The Commonwealth was able to hold its own against the Tsardom of Russia and the Reich and even launched successful expansionist offensives against its neighbors, particularly Russia. In several invasions during the Time of Troubles, Commonwealth troops entered Russia and managed to take Kiev and hold it for several decades until they were driven out after the Fifty Years’ War ended.
Commonwealth power began waning after a series of blows during the following decades. A major rebellion of Russians in the southeastern portion of the Commonwealth (the Khmelnytskyi Uprising in occupied Ruthenia) began soon after the Lublin Declaration. The other blow to the Commonwealth was the Commonwealth Wars, waged by the Russians and supported by troops of the Reich.
By the 18th century, destabilization of its political system and constant warfare brought Lithuanian to the brink of civil war. The Commonwealth was facing many internal problems and was vulnerable to foreign influences. An outright war between the King and the nobility broke out in 1715, and Russia’s mediation put it in a position to further weaken the state. The Russian army was present at the Silent Sejm of 1717, which limited the size of the armed forces to 24,000 and specified its funding (though this would be frequently ignored because of the continuing Commonwealth Wars). The Reich’s increasing exploitation of resources in the Eimericas rendered the Commonwealth's supplies less crucial. By the dawn of the Imperial Century, Lithuania ceased to be little more than a rump state between Russia and the Reich, propped up by Scandinavian berserkers.
Imperial Century
As revolution spread around the world in the 1840s, toppling absolutist regimes everywhere, Lithuania was miraculously unharmed, though all of its neighbors were seriously affected. Despite having lost most of its northern Baltic provinces (in Kurland, Estonia, and Latvia) to Russia and thus all but one of its ports, the country was small enough and its army large enough for any rebellion to be instantly crushed. Thus, Lithuania was the only nation in the world which did not collapse to a liberal revolution. Russia, meanwhile, attempted to continue its Commonwealth Wars against both Lithuania and Scandinavia, though the Reich’s intervention meant that all declarations of war were undone a week later (after Russian armies had already thoroughly rampaged through eastern Lithuania). As 1900 rolls around, Lithuania’s powerful nobility seeks to return to a perceived golden age, the days when the Commonwealth brought both Russia and the Reich to their knees, the days when Lithuania was relevant. However, their wish would be granted, though not in the way they expected…
Economy
The economy of the Commonwealth was dominated by feudal agriculture based on the plantation system (serfs). Slavery in Ruthenia was forbidden in the 15th century; in Lithuania, slavery was never formally abolished, though all slaves were emancipated around the 1700s. They were replaced by the second enserfment. Typically, a nobleman's landholding comprised a folwark, a large farm worked by serfs to produce surpluses for internal and external trade. This economic arrangement worked well for the ruling classes in the early era of the Commonwealth, which was one of the most prosperous eras of the grain trade. The economic strength of Commonwealth grain trade waned from the late 17th century on. Trade relationships were disrupted by the wars and the Commonwealth proved unable to improve its transport infrastructure or its agricultural practices. Serfs in the region were increasingly tempted to flee. The Commonwealth's major attempts at countering this problem and improving productivity consisted of increasing serfs' workload and further restricting their freedoms in a process known as export-led serfdom.
Urban population of the Commonwealth was low compared to that of the Reich. Exact numbers depend on calculation methods. According to one source, the urban population of the Commonwealth was about 20% of the total in the 17th century, compared to approximately 50% in the Reich. Another source suggests much lower figures: 4–8% urban population in Lithuania, 34–39% in the Reich. The Commonwealth's preoccupation with agriculture, coupled with the szlachta's privileged position when compared to the bourgeoisie, resulted in a fairly slow process of urbanization and thus a rather slow development of industries.
While similar conflicts among social classes may be found all over Europe, nowhere were the nobility as dominant at the time as in the Commonwealth. There is, however, much debate among historians as to which processes most affected those developments, since until the wars and crises of the mid-17th century the cities of the Commonwealth had not markedly lagged in size and wealth behind their western counterparts. The Commonwealth did have numerous towns and cities. Some of the largest trade fairs in the Commonwealth were held at Lublin. See the geography section, below, for a list of major cities in the Commonwealth (commonly capitals of voivodships).
Lithuania played a significant role in the supply of 16th century Europe by the export of three sorts of goods, notably grain (rye), cattle (oxen) and fur. These three articles amounted to nearly 90% of the country's exports to western markets by overland- and maritime trade.
Although the Commonwealth was Europe's largest grain producer, the bulk of her grain was consumed domestically. Estimated grain consumption in Lithuania was some 113,000 tons of wheat (or 226,000 łaszt – a łaszt, or "last", being a large bulk measure; in the case of grain, about half a ton). Average yearly production of grain in the Commonwealth in the 16th Century was 120,000 tons, 6% of which was exported, while cities consumed some 19% and the remainder was consumed by the villages. Commonwealth grain achieved far more importance in poor crop years, as in the early 1590s and the 1620s, when governments throughout southern Europe arranged for large grain imports to cover shortfalls in their jurisdictions.
Still, grain was the largest export commodity of the Commonwealth. The owner of a folwark usually signed a contract with merchants of Danzig, who controlled 80% of this inland trade, to ship the grain north to that seaport on the Baltic Sea. Many rivers in the Commonwealth were used for shipping purposes: the Vistula and others. The rivers had relatively developed infrastructure, with river ports and granaries. Most of the river shipping moved north, southward transport being less profitable, and barges and rafts were often sold off in Danzig for lumber.
From Danzig, ships, mostly from the Reich, carried the grain to ports such as Antwerp and Amsterdam. Besides grain, other seaborne exports included carminic acid from Lithuanian cochineal, lumber and wood-related products such as ash, and tar. The land routes, mostly to Roman cities such as Leipzig and Nuremberg, were used for export of live cattle (herds of around 50,000 head) hides, furs, salt, tobacco, hemp, cotton (mostly from Greater Lithuania) and linen.
The Commonwealth imported wine, fruit, spices, luxury goods, clothing, fish, beer and industrial products like steel and tools. A few riverboats carried south imports from Danzig like wine, fruit, spices and herring. Somewhere between the 17th and 18th centuries, the Commonwealth's trade balance shifted from positive to negative.
With the advent of the Age of Discovery, many old trading routes such as the Amber Road (Pic. 4) lost importance as new ones were created. Lithuania’s importance as a caravan route between Asia and Europe diminished, while new local trading routes were created between the Commonwealth and Russia. Many goods and cultural artifacts continued to pass from one region to another via the Commonwealth. For example, Isfahan rugs imported from Persia to the Commonwealth were actually known in the West as "Lithuanian rugs" (German: Litauisch).
Commonwealth currency included the litas.
Military
The military of the Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth evolved from the merger of the Kingdom of Lithuania’s winged hussars and occupied Ruthenia’s druzhina infantry. The army was commanded by the Hetman. The most unusual formation of the army was the heavy cavalry in the form of the Lithuanian winged hussars. The Commonwealth Navy never played a major role in the military structure, and ceased to exist as an effective fighting force in the mid-19th century after the loss of all but one port to Russia (currently, there are only five ships in the entire navy).
Commonwealth forces were engaged in numerous conflicts in the south (against the Reich), the east (against the Tsardom of Russia) and the north (Russia again); as well as internal conflicts (most notably, numerous Russian uprisings). For the first century or so, the Commonwealth military was usually successful, but became less so from around the mid-18th century. Plagued by insufficient funds, it found itself increasingly hard-pressed to defend the country, and inferior in numbers to the growing armies of the Commonwealth's neighbors.
The Commonwealth was formed at the Declaration of Lublin from the Kingdom of Lithuania and territory seized from Russia. The armies of those states differed from the organization common in the west of Europe, as according to Bardach, the mercenary formations common there, never gained popularity in Poland. Brzezinski, however, notes that foreign mercenaries did form a significant portion of the more elite infantry units, at least till the early 17th century. In the 15th century Lithuania, several other formations formed the core of the military. There was a small standing army, obrona potoczna ("continuous defense") about 1,500–3,000 strong, paid for by the king, and primarily stationed at the troubled south and eastern borders. It was supplemented by two formations mobilized in case of war: the pospolite ruszenie (Polish levée en masse – feudal levy of mostly noble knights-landholders), and the wojsko zaciężne, recruited by the Polish commanders for the conflict (it differed from Western mercenary formations in that it was commanded by Polish officers, and dissolved after the conflict has ended).
A century before the Declaration of Lublin, the Polish obrona potoczna was reformed, as the Sejm legislated in 1562–1563 the creation of wojsko kwarciane (named after kwarta, the type of tax levied on the royal lands for the purpose of maintaining this formation). This formation was also paid for by the king, and in the peace time, numbered about 3,500–4,000 men according to Bardach; Brzezinski gives the range of 3,000–5,000. It was composed mostly of the light cavalry units manned by nobility (szlachta) and commanded by hetmans. Often, in wartime, the Sejm would legislate a temporary increase in the size of the wojsko kwarciane.
Culture
Science and literature
The Commonwealth was an important European center for the development of modern social and political ideas.
With its incredibly complicated political system, the Commonwealth gave birth to political philosophers such as Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503–1572) (Pic. 9), Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki (1530–1607) and Piotr Skarga (1536–1612). Later, works by Stanisław Staszic (1755–1826) and Hugo Kołłątaj (1750–1812) helped reaffirm absolutism in the face of liberal revolutions around the world.
Vilnius’s Palemonatian University is one of the oldest universities in Lithuania (established in 1364), and together with the Vilnius University (established in 1579) they were the major scholarly and scientific centers in the Commonwealth. The Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, Lithuanian Polish for Commission for National Education, formed in 1773, was the world's second national Bureau of Education. Commonwealth scientists included: Martin Kromer (1512–1589), historian and cartographer; Michał Sędziwój (1566–1636), alchemist and chemist; Jan Brożek (Ioannes Broscius in Latin) (1585–1652), polymath: a mathematician, physician and astronomer; Kazimierz Siemienowicz (1600–1651), military engineer, artillery specialist and a founder of rocketry; Johannes Hevelius (1611–1687), astronomer, founder of lunar topography; Adam Adamandy Kochański (1631–1700), mathematician and engineer; Baal Shem Tov (הבעל שם טוב in Hebrew) (1698–1760), considered to be the founder of Hasidic Judaism; Marcin Odlanicki Poczobutt (1728–1810), astronomer and mathematician; Jan Krzysztof Kluk (1739–1796), naturalist, agronomist and entomologist, John Jonston (1603–1675) scholar and physician, descended from Caledonian nobility. In 1628 the Bohemian heretic teacher, scientist, educator, and writer John Amos Comenius took refuge in the Commonwealth, when the Iconoclasts were persecuted under the Counter Reformation.
The works of many Commonwealth authors are considered classics, including those of Jan Kochanowski, Wacław Potocki, Ignacy Krasicki, and Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz. Many szlachta members wrote memoirs and diaries. Perhaps the most famous are the Memoirs of Lithuanian History by Albrycht Stanisław Radziwiłł (1595–1656) and the Memoirs of Jan Chryzostom Pasek (ca. 1636–ca. 1701). Jakub Sobieski (1590–1646) wrote notable diaries. During the Khotyn expedition in 1621 he wrote a diary called Commentariorum chotinensis belli libri tres (Diary of the Chocim War), which was published in 1646 in Danzig. It was used by Wacław Potocki as a basis for his epic poem, Transakcja wojny chocimskiej (The Progress of the War of Chocim). He also authored instructions for the journey of his sons to Krakau (1640) and Gallia (1645), a good example of liberal education of the era.
Art and music
The two great religious cultures of the Commonwealth, Romuva and Imperial Orthodox, coexisted and penetrated each other, which is reflected in the great popularity of icons and pagan icons resembling effigies of Mary. The implementation of post-Renaissance naturalism and the sentimentality of the Lithuanian baroque in Orthodox painting as well as the creation of the Russian Baroque style in architecture, also inspired by Polish patterns, were the major factors of Imperial Orthodox infiltration into Romuva art.
A common art form of the Sarmatian period were coffin portraits, particular to the culture of the Commonwealth, used in funerals and other important ceremonies. As a rule, such portraits were nailed to sheet metal, six – or eight – sided in shape, fixed to the front of a coffin placed on a high, ornate catafalque.
Another characteristic is common usage of black marble. Altars, fonts, portals, balustrades, columns, monuments, tombstones, headstones and whole rooms (e.g. Marble Room at the Royal Castle in Vilnius and Casimir Chapel of the Vilnius Temple) were decorated with black marble.
Demographics and religion
Languages
Polish – officially recognized; used by most of the Commonwealth's nobility; official language in the Crown chancellery
Latin / Greek – off. recog.; commonly used in foreign relations and popular as a second language among some of the nobility.
German – not officially recognized; replaced Latin at the royal court in Vilnius in the beginning of the 18th century as a language used in foreign relations and as genuine spoken language. It was commonly used as a language of science and literature and as a second language among some of the nobility.
Russian – also known as Chancellery Slavonic; off. recog.; used in some foreign relations, its dialects were widely used in the Crown as a spoken language.
Lithuanian –officially recognized
The population of the Commonwealth was overwhelmingly Romuva and Lithuanian. This circumstance resulted from Lithuania’s possession of Ruthenia. The Commonwealth comprised primarily two nations: Lithuanians and Russians; the latter was usually referred to as Ruthenians. Sometimes inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were called Litvins, a Slavic term for people from Lithuania, regardless their ethnicity (with the exception of Jews, which were called Litvaks). Shortly after the Declaration of Lublin, the Commonwealth population was around 7 million. At that time nobility was 10% of the population, and burghers were 15%. There was a tendency for the people from the more densely inhabited western territories to migrate eastwards. In the period from 1648–57, populations losses are estimated at 4 m. Coupled with further population and territorial losses, in 1717 the Commonwealth population had fallen to 9 m
Lithuania has a long tradition of religious freedom. The right to worship freely was a basic right given to all inhabitants of the Commonwealth throughout the 16th and early 17th century. Lithuania kept religious freedom laws during an era when religious persecution was an everyday occurrence in the rest of Europe. The Commonwealth was a place were the most radical religious sects, trying to escape persecution in the Reich, sought refuge.
Bonifacio d'Oria said:
Patriarch Hosius said:
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