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Culture

Eldmark is a multicultural nation, a complicated mix through the blending of both indigenous cultures and ever-present influence of Euclea, specifically Blostland, during their 229 year colonization of the nation. Amendism, specifically the Gospelist Church, known during colonization as the Church of Blostland, remains a dominant force in architecture, art, and literature. Later influences from the Gowsa and Bahian cultures additionally influenced Eldmark's cuisine and music. The combined influences since has resulted in a distinctively Eldmarsk culture.

Eldmark maintains cultural connections with an informal group known as the "Sämvaldet" - including Blostland, Vanhar, and Keppland, nations at least partially influenced by Blostlandic colonialism, and inherits some cultural holidays such as Korpfest, and Blostlandic interpretations of Nativity, including Advent and the Bockenbränningen.

Music

Freja Olson, known by her stage name ELOHER, is among the most popular contemporary pop artists in Eldmark

Pre-contact Ayohli music forms a significant portion of Eldmarsk musical tradition, influencing much of early music as well as the modern Eldmarsk folk scene. Flutes, drums, and primitive string instruments formed the backbone of Gatijo, a type of music that conveys story through both instrumentation and chanting. Likewise, Eldmarsk folk carries with it a strong oral folklore tradition.

The traditions of Euclea have a massive impact on classical music, especially the choral traditions of Weranian opera, Blostlandic choir music, and symphonic productions from the Aurean area. From as early as the latter part of the 19th Century, a crop of domestic composers have made impact, additionally influenced by Bahian jazz and Gowsa choral fusion. In 1899, Magnus Sohlmann's Symfoni om kung Edvard den Tapre would use elements of Gatijo to romanticize the life and times of Edvard I as a revolutionary and future king. Sohlmann would later compose four more symphonies with indigenous, and later jazz, themes, and later found the Hammarvik Symphony Orchestra.

From the 1960s to the 1970s, rock music and electronic music, inspired by Rizean and East Euclean bands, became associated with political activism and reformists. Olydig, Hatar, and Nålaren became synonymous with the counterculture movement, which would extend into the early 80s.

The Two Bird Dancers Plate, uncovered in 2011

Flod Skrivare, Academist painting by August von Dorn, 1894

Statue of "Matka Eldmark," The Blue Palace, sculpted by Roland Adelwulf

The Badi Temple of Eldmark, designed in the Organicist style by prominent Gowsan architect Matteo Kuda

Today, contemporary music such as rock, pop, and EDM dominate the airwaves, while folk is still quite popular. Music festivals both domestic and internationally organized are quite popular on the Vehemens and Arucian Coasts.

Visual Arts and Architecture

Eldmark has had a significant art culture going back thousands of years by indigenous people. Ayohli artisans were famous for beaten copper plates, pottery, and paintings made with natural pigments. Since colonial times, Eldmarsk artists have combined some elements of Ayohli art, as well as wider artistic movements from Etruria, Estmere, and elsewhere in East Euclea. Eldmarsk art, as a whole reflects the diverse origins of both their influences and Eldmarsk inhabitants, as artists have embraced these traditions and adaptations to reflect their lived experiences in Eldmark. Eldmark's government has had a hand in the promotion and creation of a diverse and successful art scene by the creation of the Eldmarsk Department of Culture's Council of Visual Arts, which offers grants to artists, art galleries, schools, and art periodicals.

Eldmark's art scene has since the 19th century been dominated by a diverse scene of artists and sculptors, perhaps most notably the Painter's Academy of Hammarvik, founded in 1812. There, great artists such as Artur Blixt, Thurin Lindström, August von Dorn and Harald Berkmann learned a new domestic style of painting known as Academism, which combined elements of romanticism and neo-classicalism in an effort to showcase Eldmark's beauty and the triumph of the Enlightenment over old governments.

The architecture of Eldmark is influenced heavily by Euclean architecture, specifically Blostland, though notably taking on a character of its own that reflects the reality of available building materials. Early colonial architecture made heavy use of the vernacular architecture in current use by Ayohli inhabitants, which combined a framework of wicker with a shell of mud and straw. Many early churches used this style, until adopting more Gothic, Neoclassical, and Rococo styles from Euclea, upon discovering and exploiting quarries in the Ryggrad. Liberal use of marble, limestone, and granite for larger buildings, such as the Operahus Arucien, marked construction projects of the time. Eventually, the nation was rebuilt following the Great War, in which Modernist architects, and their contemporaries such as Brutalism and Organicism, had a steady hand in rebuilding, largely inspired by other movements from Asteria Superior.

Ayoka Kiskwaya created the Ayohli Syllabary in 1824.

Matteo Nordin's novel Blod på Kullerstenen is among the most popular novels in the Asterias.

Literature

Eldmarsk literature is anteceded by the indigenous spoken word of the Ayohli people. Poems by the Ayohli, largely divided into secular and religious, have had a rich cultural tradition that is often sung via Gatijo or spoken simply. Many Ayohli poems survive in some form today, however due to a lack of a formal writing system, many were lost in the Blostlandic Conquest.

The earliest Eldmarsk narratives were of travel and exploration, contact and conflict, which remains one of three major themes that persist in historical Eldmarsk literature: frontier life, struggle for rights, and philisophical struggles that persist from both. Iconic aspects of Eldmarsk literature in the 19th century is the early Ayohli Renaissance, largely brought on by Ayoka Kiskwaya's creation of an independent Ayohli syllabary, and Boskie short stories, which catalogued both the beauty and danger of the Eldmarsk interior.

In the early 20th century, literature about the economic disparity of the nation, brought on by the Great Collapse, along with the overall rising literacy of the nation, would bring about realist writers such as Matteo Nordin, whose noir novel Blod på Kullerstenen would win several awards and create a new genre of crime fiction that persists to this day. Ayohli literature's revival, cut short by the Eldmarsk government's extreme suppression of the language and people, eventually would resurface with the Ayohli Neo-Renaissance between the 1940s and 1980s, an example being Adsila Gola's Fågelsång, simultaneously published in Blostlandic and Ayohli, to critical acclaim.

Film and Theatre

Early Eldmarsk director Harry Bergmann, 1911

Modern Eldmarsk director Danel Frosch, 2021

The Eldmarsk film industry has been a cultural player in Eldmark since the world's first moving picture was invented in Estmere in 1888, the first showings of early films in Eldmark taking place not long after. In 1903, the Consolidated Film Bureau (Konsoliderad Filmbyrå) was set up, all but nationalizing the distribution and showing of all films, in order to censor the medium. During this time, the first government investment into domestic production also took root, with Harry Bergmann's productions of silent films, including live action classics like Ditt Otrogna Hjärta (Your Unfaithful Heart) and En Regnig Natt (One Rainy Night), as well as some early animation works like Stor Bo kontra Hattmannen (Big Bo versus the Hat Man). Many of these silent films were heavily censored by the early Bureau, and avoided heavy themes such as income inequality or worker's rights.

After the Great War, the Bureau was abolished and a focus on "freer" films emerged, many of which portrayed Eldmark's role during the war, some of which were ahistorical, often inflating the contribution the nation, the government of which being forced into exile, had in the eventual Grand Alliance victory. Perhaps most egregious of this was the 1940 film Kronans Dag (Day of the Crown), which depicted invading Ardesians as animalistic and brutal, and an idealized King Erik II as a blonde haired, muscled man who bravely fought off several attackers before escaping. The film was lampooned by critics and nearly strained relations with the recovering Ardesian nation before being denounced plainly by the crown itself. Additionally, at this time, Boskie films, or films that depicted the wild and dusty territories shared between the AFR, Vanhar, and Ardesia, would be a continuation of the literary genre that birthed it. Crime fiction, specifically noir, would also see film adaptation to great critical acclaim.

Today, the Eldmarsk film industry remains a heavy contender in the Asterias, with modern director Danel Frosch having taken home special jury prizes from the 82nd and 84th Montecara Film Festival for his movies Kattern and Skymning, respectively.