Finstria

Finstrian Republic Finstrische Republik
Flag Coat of arms
Capital and largest city	Tanaus
Official languages	Hesurian
Recognised regional languages	Lesiac Tharic Gaugasanic Yerin Maric Arguzic
Ethnic groups
Demonym(s)	Finstrian
Government	unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
• President	Johann Preiss
• Prime minister	Frank Schroeder
Legislature	Parliament
• Upper house
Population
• 2019 estimate	27,320,000
GDP (nominal)	2019 estimate
• Total	932.24 billion
• Per capita	34,123.05
Currency	Zaile
Time zone
Date format	dd.mm.yyyy
Driving side	right
Calling code	+44
Internet TLD	.fn

The Finstrian Republic (Hesurian: Finstrische Republik), commonly referred to as Finstria (/ˈfɪn.strjə/; Hesurian: Finstrien [ˈfɪnstriən]), is a sovereign country located in south-eastern Hesuria. Finstria is bordered by Mascylla to the north, Krumlau to the west and shares a maritime border with Rotsir to the east.

Etymology

The term “Finstria” comes directly from Hesurian Finstrien. Finstrien is derrived from Finsterey or Vinsterey, from finster (archaic spelling: finster “dark”), thus literally translating to “land of darkness”. It originally was used to describe the marshlands of the coastal region around Tanaus and Reßhaven. Occasionally, it was referred to as Diusterey, which gave rise to the modern name for that province; Distria (Hesurian: Düsterei (occasionally spelled as Düsterey)).

History

20th century

During the Continental War, Finstria supported Mascylla and Krumlau, aiding them with manpower, weapons and ammunition as well as sending aid for the civilian population, especially in Krumlau. Within the Finstrian Kingdom, a communist revolution started, although, after a few weeks, fighting stopped until after the end of the war, with the government and the revolutionaries largely tolerating eachother while persuading their own interests abroad.

After the Continental War, the revolution escalated into a civil war between monarchists, communist revolutionaries and republican separatists opposing both of them and seeking to create a Lesiac ethnostate. Fighting was largely confined to Lesiac and Finstrokrumlovian areas as well as to the region around Eickenloh and Tareshti (“Târôgrad/Тâрôград“), devastating these areas for years to come.

After having stayed mostly a liberal democracy throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the anti-communist stance in foreign policy started to become a part of internal policy, starting with anti-communist propaganda and then gradually becoming more aggressive during the 1950s. Although this cooled down after around 1965, it would play a big role in Eisenringism.

The 1970s were a period marked by social changes in Finstria, with large-scale student protests in major cities throughout the decade. Around 1975–1976, militant communists started to infiltrate the otherwise mostly peaceful protests, trying to hijack them to push their own political agenda. After several attacks by the RVF (Rote Volksfront, “Red People’s Front”), the FNFP (Finstronationale Freiheitspartei, “Finstro-National Freedom Party”) and the Separatism|Tharic Separatist Movement in 1977 and early 1978 with 231 deaths, mostly civilians, in spring 1978, Prime Minister Carl Ernst Eisenring started a massive campaign, blaming several groups, most notably communist protesters, for the country’s problems and portraying protesters as a threat to national safety.
On March 10 1979, Eisenring persuaded the Finstrian Parliament to give him emergency powers which allowed him to largely govern the country by himself. Between 1979 and 1981, Eisenring largely abolished the rule of law as well as monarchism, establishing an authoritarian dictatorship, the Eisenring regime.
In early August 1985, food shortages and an undersupply of most goods paired with brutal government action caused nationwide protests. After failing to end these by force in some cities, the initially peaceful protests escalated into riots and local coups. In the early morning hours of August 10 1985, Eisenring declared the state of war on top of the already existing state of emergency and on the evening of the same day, he fled from Tanaus to Westerfelde for several weeks before returning to Tanaus temporarily.
By October, the country was divided into several parts controlled by various different factions, the Finstrian armed forces rapidly losing control. On January 4 1986, Mascyllary and Krumlovian units simultaneously crossed the border into Finstria, facing limited to no resistence from Finstrian soldiers who mostly deserted. By January 11, coalition forces were able to take over Tanaus, continuing rapid advances. On March 1 1986, soldiers from the Free Finstrian Army captured Eisenring in Westerfelde, imprisoning him and executing him on March 10 on the Volksplatz in Tanaus infront of around seven thousand people on the place itself and several ten thousand people celebrating in surrounding streets. After that, there was only occasional and increasingly rare combat between coalition forces and the loyalists.
Between March 10 1986 and January 12 1988, coalition forces mainly fought against several separatist groups, most notably against the militias making up the Tharic Separatist Movement.

Demographics

Ethnic groups

Main page: Ethnic groups of Finstria

Finstria has always been ethnically diverse, having been a border region of the Ragucin Empire. As a rule of thumb, it can be said that parts of the country which used to be under Ragucin rule are either Lesiac or Hesurian, while regions that were besides its control, at least historically, are inhabited by ethnic minorities, such as the Tharic, Gaugasanic or Yerin peoples. However, since the Middle Ages, there has been a trend towards Hesurianization, with the Finstrohesurian culture and language spreading at the cost of minority cultures and languages.

While there are at least ten ethnic groups recognized by the Finstrian government as “[ethnic] groups native to Finstria”, around 92% of the population identifies as Hesurian, most of which either based on geographical or historical regions (e.g. Disterians from Disteria) or as broadly “Finstrohesurian”.

Language

Main page: Languages of Finstria

There is a lot of linguistic diversity in Finstria, though its extent was much greater in the past. Besides various Hesurian dialects, Lesiac and Tharic are other major languages that serve as lingua franca in parts of the country.

Many of the smaller language groups to be found in Finstria are to some degree endangered. A prime example of language death in Finstria is the Kun language, which less than 50,000 Kun (ca. 1/5 of the Kun population of Finstria) have the ability to speak and much less than 10,000 are active speakers of, using the language on a daily basis. Of these, only a small part is under the age of retirement as the language had not been passed on from one generation to the other to a great extent in past decades.

Other languages, in the meanwhile, have a stable speaker community, such as Gaugasanic or Yerin.