Rytieriroz

St. Lorovid's Cross, the symbol of the Rytieriroz, is a banned symbol in Modern Ostrozava.

The Rytieri Rozpolení (lit. Halved Knights or Bisected Knights), commonly referred to dimunitively as the Rytieri, Rytieriroz or RR, were a majority Ostrozavan Alban pan-nationalist far-right political movement founded in 1913, during the First Party Compact. Commonly seen as an intellectual and societal backlash to the popular Crimson Revolution of 1909, the Rytieriroz promoted a Pan-Alban identity under a centralized dictatorial government, and a restoration of Alban influence to the Lake Kupalnitsa area and beyond. Its associated ideology of Rytierism was both antifabrianistic and antisocialistic, while also rejecting the Karminian movement of the deposed Ostrozavan Vykopal dynasty. While hostile to the majority of Belisarian monarchies, especially the Fabrian monarchies, the Rytieriroz were nevertheless sympathetic to Bolsarism. Though headed by a succession of leaders, the Rytieriroz and Rytierism are commonly associated with their founder, Koloman Lenved. Subsequent iterations of the movement have also been antiorthodoxist and antisemitic, though the original Rytieri largely focused on lambasting and combatting socialism and republicanism.

Koloman Lenved was the founder of the Rytieriroz; he was arrested in 1922, leaving a power vacuum in the movement, but escaped from prison in 1927 amid the First Partisans' War.

Though politically disenfranchised their entire existence by strict laws originally created to prevent the re-emergence of Ostrozavan monarchy, the Rytieriroz nevertheless had over six hundred thousand members at their height, and acted in a limited capacity during the Drevstranese Civil War. Declared a terrorist movement in 1922, the Rytieriroz were not seriously pursued as such until the administration of Emil Torje, whose Socialist Worker's Party is commonly considered to have rose to power amid serious fears about the rise of the Ostrozavan Far-Right under the First Party Compact. The Rytieriroz were summarily hunted down starting in 1928, being erased from history books by the administrations of Torje and Alek Dalibor. The Progressive Third Party Compact reintroduced the legacy of the Rytieri into the public eye; they are viewed as an important test of Ostrozavan instutions in modern Ostrozavan historiography. The Rytieri continue to have sympathizers in both Ostrozava and amid the Ostrozavan diaspora in Drevstran, as well as other places, though they have not been a formal organization since 1930.

History

Early Years

Rytieri paramilitaries march in Barbellon during the Drevstranese Civil War, exact date unknown.

Drevstranese Civil War

Koloman Lenved, founder of the Rytieroz, left Ostrozava for Barbellon with a small troop of his militants in January 1914. They answered the call of Vazhilly II, Metrohegumen of the city and internationally recognized leading figure of the Alban faith. Lenved notably wrote and talk to his partisans of the "Holy Mission" presented to them for the "defense of the Alban Civilization" against the "Pagan Dynasts of the Lushyods" and the "unholy forces of the Anarcho-socialists, creatures of our Enemies at home".

During the Battle of Barbellon, The Bisected Knights gained a reputation as steadfast defenders of the city. Lenved charisma and his men fanatism brought around them many new partisans and members, willing to fight in one of the more successful battalion of the city's defenders. Their greatest test came when they had to face directly the Ysraeli Blue and Gold Brigades. Their costly but successful resistance brought them glory and support to the point that Lenved became part of a de-facto triumvirat with Prefect Sullivan Taoh and Metrohegumen Vazhilly II.

Ultimately Prince Farza of Kaposlovar was unable to go through the Alban Pentapolis desperate defenses. His royalists' Golden Columns slowly but surely abandoned the siege, retreating to the territories they held before winter 1914. The victory was more profitable to Vazhilly and Lenved than it was to Taoh who was seen as a poor strategist whose decisions had led to the Siege in the first place. Taoh would end up welcoming Vilvo Orbraggar First Army and the General' troops entered the city in 1915 under the acclamation of the population. With the Orbraggar-Taoh-Vazhilly alliance secured, Lenved was relegated to a secondary role as main enforcer for the Metrohegumen. The Rytieroz themselves would be relegated to a secondary role for the rest of the war, assuming military police' missions and securing logistical lines for Orbraggar' main fighting forces.

Partial Reemergence

Neo-Rytieri sympathies re-emerged in Ostrozava following the Second Partisans' War and the subsequent political upheaval resulting in the Third Party Compact. With religious expression again legalized in 1957 under Elias Manninger, many local militias resisting the Velikoslavian incursion into Baderia in the latter days of the war often painted Rytieri imagery onto their vehicles. With the Ostrozavan Popular Army in disarray and suffering from a wave of desertion and graft following the Gargantua Incident, what remained of the Ostrozavan high command relied on these popular militias to halt the advance of Velikoslavian forces. While not all of these militias were of crypto-invictist nature, and indeed some of them, while holding Invictist sympathies, were opposed to the Rytieri, there nevertheless emerged a controversy as to the ideological loyalties of the paramilitaries, especially after the war, with two paramilitary units, the Black Dragon Dogs of Karsko, and the Steel Grin Brigade of Datrovo, being accused in the post-war years of war crimes against the civilian population in Ostrozavan Baderia based largely on anti-Orthodox sentiments. An investigation by the PRCO in the mid-1960s ended in the execution of 34 former paramilitaries and a crackdown on sympathizers from the Baderian region, but the floodgates had nevertheless been opened for disguising Rytieri sympathies as Alban religious fervour once more.

A gang of Podlojkari in Karsko, late 1970s

Neo-Rytieri imagery and culture subsequently permeated some facets of the growing youth subculture in Ostrozavan cities throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with a distinct leather-jacket wearing gang known as the Podlojkari emerging in Karsko in the late 1970s, consisting of hooligans, thieves, and other disaffected youths that would primarily spray Neo-Rytieri grafitti, engage in street fights with Socialist gangs, or occasionally serve as security for shadier venues in Ostrozava's developing nightclub scene. The increasing violence and ideological tension among youth culture developed into a prime electoral issue for the 1984 election between Eva Sedláková and Socialist candidate Jan Kozlová, resulting in Sedláková's election as Primara and the end of more than a decade of Socialist control of the Primarship. Under Sedláková, these "shoulderpad gangs" slowly lost their prominence in the youth scene as increased funding to the Civil Service and growing internationalization and immigration under the era of Neutrality slowly pushed the Podlojkari out of the zeitgeist, though elements continued to coalesce around away games of the Drevstranese Valdavian Club, with the club gaining a minor but loyal fanbase in Ostrozava since the mid-1990s.

Modern Era

Drevstran

Despite their official disbanding in the post "knight-hunt" of the 30s, the Rytieriroz have given birth to a foggy network of anti-socialists, Emendatic devouts in the Ostrozavan Diaspora. These groups can take many shapes and forms and can be grouped around various institutions: private schools, religious figures, Gridiron fan clubs... only a minority of which openly profess their affiliation to the post-Rytieriroz movement. It is especially difficult to determine whether a person or a group are "Ryets" or whether they are merely sympathetic toward the Rytieriroz, a common feeling among the Diaspora, and do not participate in covert militant actions (beyond donations to certain associations and groups).

Valdavian Club

The Valdavian Club is the most famous Gridiron football club of Barbellon and one that is regularly accused of propagating a "Ryet" agenda. Regular elements brought up are the color scheme of the team (yellow and black), their symbols (a heavily armored knight and a black cross on a yellow background), and being owned by an anonymous trust, Jletan Anonymous Holding, which is also regularly suspected of representing a pro-Ryet lobby. So far no case against the Valdavian Club was successfully brought to the court in Drevstran and the club remain the second most profitable venture in National Division 1.

Whereas the Valdavian Club itself can't be directly tied to the Neo-Ryet movement, its popularity among the Ostrozavan Diaspora has led to the creation of many fan clubs that proudly bear the black-and-gold blason, call themselves "Squires" ("Knights" being reserved to the players) and may even have pictures of Koloman Lenved and other famous Rytieriroz in their pubs and meeting places. The latter fan clubs, generally known as the "Ultralacustrines", are also regularly involved in acts of vandalism and violence against fans of opposing teams, the police, or just passerbys. Their sworn rivals are the followers of the Alban Metro. This club's vandals are more stereotypically known for their ties to the Drevstranese Punk subculture and other counter-movements. An image generally seen as cultivated specifically against the Valdavian Club' Black-and-Gold Squires.