Razan

State of Razan ᛒᚣᛩᚮᛌ ᚢᛚᚢᛌ Büqoş Uluş (Chal)
National flag Symbol
Anthem: "Even Blossoms Eventually Scatter"
Capital	Shaghirsenir
Largest city	Sekizbulut
Official languages	Chal
Recognised national languages	List Altiqor Chabur Qisir Chalgan Orogur Kichchal Sachak Chiggit and various others...
Ethnic groups (2023)	20% Chals 20% Altiqors 14% Chaburs various others
Religion (2023)	65% Gregorianism 20% Tahir 2% Sendou various others
Demonym(s)	Razanite
Government	Federal parliamentary republic
• President
• Prime Minister
Legislature	Congress of Razan
• Upper house	Senate
• Lower house	House of Representatives
Formation
• Independence	1785
Area
• Total	6,587,948 km2 (2,543,621 sq mi)
Population
• 2023 estimate	160.0 million
• Density	24.29/km2 (62.9/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	2022 estimate
• Total	$4.48 trillion
• Per capita	$28,000
GDP (nominal)	2022 estimate
• Total	$1.92 trillion
• Per capita	$12,000
Gini	39.2 medium
HDI	0.81 very high
Currency	X (X, RZN)
Time zone	UTC-2 to -5
Date format	dd/mm/yyyy
Driving side	right
Calling code	+937

Razan (Chal: ᛒᚣᛩᚮ, hernicized: Büqoş), officially the State of Razan (Chal: ᛒᚣᛩᚮᛌ ᚢᛚᚢᛌ, hernicized: Büqoş Uluş), is a sovereign state in northern Abaria, and the largest country in the world by land area. It borders the Tayan Sea to the east, the Glacian Ocean to the north, and Yingok to the west. Its capital is Shaghirsenir and its largest city is Sekizbulut.

Before the first millenium CE, southern Razan was dominated by the cities of the Tissic Sargian civilization, an entrepot for trans-Abarian trade, while north-central Abaria was presumably populated by Paleo-Cascay speakers and the east by Madic speakers such as Lunts and Yougs. The Berkic migration first introduced Berkic ruling elites to these regions in the 8th century, and with time displaced or assimilated existing cultures. Several major states including both sedentary and nomadic empires were established by the Berks, the most powerful of which was the Artuchid Empire that dominated the Abarian continent in the 14th century following the Catabole and the subsequent crisis. From 1444 onwards, it fragmented into several successor states.

The east coast of Razan, which hosted Calesian commercial outposts since antiquity, came under stronger control by the Waldish predecessor state of Jarnland in the 17th century, culminating in the establishment of the Triumvirate of Razan in 1683, which organized local allies of the Jarnish East Abaria Company, mainly the Chals, against regional rivals such as the Saqlaganid Empire. Tensions between the Triumvirate and the Jarnish during the 18th century resulted in a declaration of independence in 1785, followed by the Tayan War, which successfully expelled Jarnish forces with assistance and recognition from other Calesian powers.

Perceiving itself as a state rooted in and hinged upon the Calesianization of Abaria, Razan undertook campaigns of expansion against its post-Artuchid neighbors and north-western frontiers in the 19th century, defeating and absorbing the Saqlaganids in the 1810s, expanding across the Cascay onto the borders of Yingok by the 1840s, and annexing central Abaria by the 1870s. The country's rapid expansion emboldened its entry into the Great War as a Sydenham Power, in which it was defeated by the war's end in 1940, though the internal ouster of the wartime government and the recognized value of its influence in Abaria secured a relatively lenient settlement. Post-war Razan experienced alternating periods of authoritarian rule and unstable democracy; the last dictatorship ended in 1992, inaugurating a relatively free and stable dominant-party political system that prevails to today.

Razan is one of the world's great powers and a superpower of the Abarian continent alongside Yingok, its reliable ally since the establishment of the latter's modern government; it also has a close relationship with Calesian powers such as Waldrich. It is a member state of the United Congress, the Abarian Regional Forum, and the X.

Etymology

'Razan' is a Tissic term related to the root *raȷ́ʰ- "to abandon, free", likely connected to northern Abaria's position relative to ancient Tissic civilization. The Berkic endonym is 'Büqoş', originally büyük-qoş or 'great pair'.

History

Independent Razan (1785—present)

Champion of Abaria (1875—1940)

The conquest of central Abaria also marked the shift of Razan into a country and power with an Abarian rather than Calesian self-identity. Pan-Abarianism became increasingly influential, and participation in federal politics by the newly incorporated regions was increasingly united by the ideology of Abarian empowerment. Meanwhile, Razan's territorial expansion brought it into conflict with erstwhile Calesian partners, leading to a vicious cycle of confrontation in eastern and southern Abaria where their spheres of influence abutted. Although the political establishment attempted to shut out the seemingly dangerously radical pan-Abarian 'Young Berks' on one hand and maintain goodwill with Calesia on the other, the exertions Razan made in continental politics to prove this ultimately further emboldened the former while consternating the latter.

[...]

In 1936 Razan joined the Great War on the side of the Sydenham Powers, expecting to establish its hegemony across the entire Abarian continent. However, its opportunistic incursions in Abaria were poorly coordinated with its supposed allies such as Falland, and after the frontline stagnated from 1937 participation in the war became widely criticized. In late 1940 the war government was overthrown after Transmedan forces entered Razan, and a new administration organized by parties that had made overtures to the Transmedan powers in advance declared an immediate surrender. For this, Razan was able to negotiate very favorable terms for a major defeated power, avoiding occupation and preserving its pre-war territories.

Post-war Razan (1940—1992)

The post-war government organized a one-party state centred on the National-Civic Party, which instituted authoritarian rule and public mobilization in the name of purging the former administration's corruption and promoting democracy. This, combined with the party's composition of ultranationalists and national syndicalists, who had been sidelined by the wartime government and who in turn recanted their foreign policy opportunistically to seize power, made Razan widely described as a national syndicalist regime that survived, if not was ironically created by, defeat in the war.

In 1950, an internal power struggle caused the unceremonious dissolution of the NCP and a period of competition between its three successors, which campaigned through various local mobilization organisations known as Wolfpacks that formed a kind of Razanite activist civil society. Wolfpacks of competing ideologies and alignments often engaged in street violence and even terrorism, becoming a focus of public anxiety and political contention, but also a central element of local and everyday politics. In 1962, rioting during elections provoked a coup that brought the Constitutional Union to power, which sought a longer-lasting one-party regime under the mandate of suppressing pan-Berkism and revolutionary socialism, but it was undermined by challenges from its own internal factions and Wolfpacks. Protests ended the CU government in 1972, which was succeeded by a series of short-lived governments by increasingly ephemeral coalitions; from 1975 to 1978 Razan experienced the longest government shutdown in its history.

In 1980, the Society for Action, centred on a network of security officials and business interests formed initially to support Razanite interventions in the Yinese Civil War, was brought to power in a coup. Major political renegotiations were made under the Society, which cultivated a clientelistic base of support in the Wolfpack-weary provincial areas, and by 1992 it was able to resume free elections that it won.