History of Ostrozava
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The history of Ostrozava includes a diverse range of cultures and religions, spanning millennia.
Prehistory and early Gothic polities
Archaeologists have found evidence of prehistoric human settlements in the area, dating back to the Paleolithic era. Skulls found in the Great Cave of Vornja are some of the oldest human remains found in Belisaria, and have served as a prominent example of neolithic human culture, ritual, religion, and jewelry. Early civilizations in modern Ostrozava seem to have been of primarily Germanic origin; in addition to a wide variety of proto-Germanic tribes in modern Ardovia, the primary civilization of the majority of modern Ostrozava were the western Goths, which primarily coalesced around the city of Saragetra in modern Livalia. The Kingdom of Saragetra soon became the primary political entity of the larger Tervingian High Kingdom. By 200 CE, Tervingia was the most important political force within the Simerian plain and northern shore of Lake Kupalnitsa, developing a highly-advanced and wealthy society and making major innovations in metalworking, agriculture, and the cultivation of hemp.
Unlike many Tervingian political entites across the Lake in the Azdrheg highlands or the Valenian petty kingdoms in the Balrog river basin, many in Saragetra resisted attempts by missionaries from both the infant Alban Emendatic Church and the Catholic Church at religious conversions. Though technologically advanced and economically prosperous, Tervingia's highly decentralized elective monarchy meant that it often suffered from internal turmoil, chieftains having third-party interests in other neighboring polities, particularly Cyneric chieftains to the kingdom's north, or growing religious differences, whether internal to their Gaulist faith, or from individually converted Chieftains.
Tervingia and thus Saragetra's most prominent ruler, Ariemir the Wit, comissioned the creation of his pyramidial tomb, the Sun Spear Pyramid, in 322 CE. One of the first concrete structures in eastern Belisaria, the pyramid has been designated a Cultural Heritage Site by IBEST. It is considered to be one of the prime examples of Germanic religious tradition in eastern Belisaria.
Slavic migration and formation of the Ostrozavan people
In 428 CE, the Slavic migration to Belisaria and thus to the Lake Kupalnitsa area spurred a massive demographic shift, and brought on the collapse of the central Tervingian rule, though, due to the dissolution of the courier network, many of the outermost areas of the empire failed to grasp that Tervingia as a political entity had collapsed for several decades afterwards. Slavic chieftains, having also battled with Cyneric tribes, settled in the Karmin river valley alongside the core of what had previously been Saragetra, often intermingling with their Gothic precursors and creating a syncretic culture which merged the traditions of both. By 570 CE, the dominant political forces in what would become northern Ostrozava were the Duchies of Karsko, Libebor, and Vamo, while in the south, the larger Kingdom of Livalia formed from a reconsolidation of Valenian polities around a central, Alban-Christian paradigm.
The proto-Ostrozavan duchies of the north had also been a majority of Alban Christians, with the migrating Slavs having been converted when passing through the Alban Pentapolis decades prior to their arrival in Saragetran lands. South Germanic peoples within the Czelia range were less affected by the Slavic migration, instead taking after their southern and culturally-related neighbors in what would become Garima. Chief among these South Germanic polities, and roughly corresponding to the modern Subprime State of Ardovia, was the Duchy of Rheigen, which, unlike the other polities in the area, had taken more strongly to Fabrian Catholicism. By 700 CE, distinct dialects of Slavic had emerged in the Karmin river valley, and the language of the Valenian had also been heavily influenced, though not totally replaced, by Slavic syntax. The first reference to the land of "Ostrozava" as a collectivization of the Slavic peoples of the Karmin river appears in correspondence from Lebern IV of the Duchy of Rheigen in 942 CE. The primary ideological differences between the Duchies lay in their treatment of the political system of Tervingia which had come before them, including the importance of the cultivation of hemp, the continuation or discontinuation of pre-migration Gothic traditions, and the increased syncretic intermingling of such traditions with the Alban church.
First Grand Duchy of Ostrozava and expansion into neighboring lands
In 1142, after a succession of border skirmishes and one larger conflict known as Skolo's War after the mercenary chieftain which had allegedly started it, the Duchy of Karsko conquered and annexed the Duchy of Vamo. A complex political situation and religious pressure, however, had Duke Libor Bednář ousted by a conglomerate of chieftains both Gothic and Slavic, who had been chiefly Alban. The most powerful of these Chieftains, Roland Válek, soon rose to power to become the first Grand Duke of Ostrozava, retitling himself as Roland I. Roland had been born of a Gothic mother and a Slavic father; Norbert's mixed identity and charisma lent him credibility among the ethnically and religiously mixed populace of Ostrozava, allowing him to consolidate power despite his alleged tendency towards anger, illteracy, and adultery. Roland I is rumored to have fathered over a hundred children throughout his lifetime. He died in 1176 of what tradition alleges was a stroke in a brothel. His son, Otmar the Builder (Ostrozavan: Otmar Stavitel) succeeded him.
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Otmar the Builder, widely considered to be one of Ostrozava's most effective and even legendary rulers, died after a period of prolonged peace in 1237, having gained the respect of both the political establishment and the religious establishment, while establishing trade routes to eastern states in Azdraï and Lushyodorstag. Otmar had also presided through a period of rising tensions with the southern Kingdom of Livalia, after claiming the Kingdom via historial precedent in the marriage of the Tervingian ruler Alica to the eldest daughter, Raluca, of the confederation of Valenian chieftains, a precursor of the Kingdom of Livalia, in 327 BCE. Though the Livalian ruler, Adam II Vãduva, rejected the claim, it nevertheless opened the door for a potential claim on the entire Kingdom by the Grand Duchy. In the west, the Germanic Duchy of Rheigen came under the influence of the Holy Aulian Empire in ___.
Otmar's son, Zikmund, used the precedent of his father's decision to set his sights on the decentralized and weak Kingdom of Livalia, with the goal of establishing an Alban state to rival historical Tervingia. In 1242, the 22-year-old Zikmund crossed the Balrog river and defeated King Adam of Livalia at the cruical Battle of Deva, which paved the way of the systematic Ostrozavan conquest of the entire kingdom, and the beginning of the century-long Ostrozavan Wars of Expansion.
In 1263, the Grand Duchy of Ostrozava under Zikmund I formally conquered the Kingdom of Livalia, with the eldest son of Zikmund, Roland II, being forced into a diplomatic marriage with Princess Imanuela of Livalia in order to grant the conquest further political legitimacy, and following in the footsteps of Lorelei of Tervingia. In 1276, Zikmund died of what is commonly considered to be syphilis, leaving the newly-expanded Grand Duchy to Roland II. The following decades would see Ostrozava consolidate its power over Livalia, putting down several rebellions in the southernmost regions of the former Kingdom. Thinking the continued unrest in former Livalia was partially spurred by foriegn interests, Roland II continued the wars of Expansion through the invasion and conquest of Polnitsa in 1294. The following decade would be marred by increasing border skirmishes with the Holy Aulian Empire; in 1302, revitalized Ostrozavan armies would attack and annex the Duchy of Tungria as well as the Duchy of Rheigen, dealing a cruicial blow to the continued expansion of both the Holy Aulian Empire into eastern Belisaria as well as the expansion of Fabrian Catholicism. As another long-lived ruler, Roland II would spend the back half of his life entrenching Ostrozavan influence in Livalia, offering non-Ostrozavan populations much leeway in terms of feudal self-governance, in another emulation of Tervingia, though religious Alban tradition and political loyality were more strictly enforced than cultural cohesion.
Religious uprisings and failed expansion
Considering the Holy Aulian Empire sufficiently pacified, Roland II then set his sights on the rest of the Alban world. Several Fabrian uprisings in both Polnitsa in 1311 had sapped the will of the aging ruler to continue to push into ideologically-entrenched Fabrian territory, and so, he instead saw to the creation of an Ostrozavan navy on Lake Kupalnitsa to deal with sustained problems of piracy caused by Iconoclast pirates, as well as paving the way for what he saw as the ultimate goal of Ostrozavan expansion: annexation and consolidation of the Alban Pentapolis, which held not only religious significance, but also guaranteed a less expensive trade route to Ochran not under the control of the Holy Aulian Empire, or any similarly hostile states.
The Ostrozavan invasion of the Lushyodorstag, which had controlled the eastern shore of Lake Kupalnitsa for more than a century, ended in disaster when the armies of the Grand Duchy found themselves fighting an unsustained war of attrition, with many of the naval forces subject to a death of a thousand cuts to Lushyodor pirates and systematic and well-organized assaults by skirmishers, particularly horse archers, upon landing. Despite the obstacles, Ostrozavan forces successfully managed to exert control over the Pentapolis after the victory at the Battle of Barbellon in early 1318. With renewed confidence, Roland II relinquished control of his invading forces to his oldest son and famous military commander, Gabriel Válek, who subsequently used the new foothold of the Ostrozavan forces to push farther east and north into the Azdrheg highlands and Medenzag. Though the Ostrozavan military achieved significant territorial gains throughout 1319, they found their progress slowed by the end of that same year, with sustained piracy on the Lake and a long and inconsistent supply train forcing the recruitment of many local Lushyodor and Gothic mercenaries. In mid-1319, Roland's force reached the Mren river, where it encountered the Lushyodor Royal Army, and enganged with them in a costly victory at the Battle of the Mrenford.
Distracted and licking their wounds, the Ostrozavan army found that a significant conventional force of Lushyodor skirmishers had used the spotty Ostrozavan logistical lines to their advantage, flanking the entire expeditionary army and subsequently besieging and reclaiming the Pentapolis. Beginning his march in late 1319, but marred by a harsh winter, Prince Gabriel reached the Pentapolis in early 1320, fighting the decisive Second Battle of Barbellon, in which Ostrozavan forces were routed by Azdrheg skirmishers employed by the Lushyodor, and Gabriel was killed on the field of battle by a detachment of axemen. Gabriel's death is said to have shocked the aging Roland, who, deprived of his most promising heir and humiliated in battle, reportedly had a "fit" commonly described by modern scholars as a panic attack, unusual for the Grand Duke. The physically frail ruler was considered to be 'gripped with hysteria' for the last year of his life, a fact which many Fabrians both inside and outside the Grand Duchy characterized as demonic possession.
With no formal will or intent declared, and the Grand Duke appearing to be increasingly delirious and uninterested in continuing political matters, a political conflict first arose between the second of his two sons, the 21-year-old Viktor, and his second cousin and grandson of Zikmund, the well-respected Kamil Válek. Roland II died reportedly bedridden and emaciated in 1321, at the age of 74. His death traditionally marks the end of the Ostrozavan wars of expansion, and with the last of the Ostrozavan forces withdrawing from the Lushyodor frontier as tensions growing in the Grand Duchy set the stage for conflicts to come.
First Ostrozavan War of Succession & continuing tensions
After the Grand Duke's death, Viktor was crowned as his successor, though many in Ostrozava considered him a greatly inferior successor to Roland II compared to Gabriel. A clandestine movement among nobles, known now as the Válek band, began seeking to discredit the young Duke and push their cause for the secondary line of Zikmund to take the throne, headed by Kamil Válek. The temperaments of the two nobles were quite different; Viktor was a devout Alban and a book-scholar, though many considered him childish for not wanting to adhere to the traditions and expectations of aggressive diplomacy and Alban unity established by Roland II and his predecessors.
Count Válek, on the other hand, had been raised as heir and eventual ruler of the County of Karschberg, considered to be the de facto successor to the conquered Duchy of Rheigen, which, much as the Kingdom of Livalia, had been divvied up territorially to account for new titles of the Grand Duchy, and to eliminate the prospect of a definite successor to the conquered states. As a result, Válek was much more open to western forms of Christianity, chiefly Fabrianism, a fact which had prejudiced many in the Kingdom against him, particularly older vassals who had fought alongside Roland II and thus trusted the young Viktor to come onto his own. Despite holding titles in eastern, Germanic Ostrozava, Válek nevertheless held his closest alliances with lords in northern Ostrozava, where his second cousin continued to rule.
In 1329, an intercepted letter meant to be delivered to the Lord Mayor of Orlorec uncovered a plan to assassinate Grand Duke Viktor and his wife during their visit on Christmas to the Cathedral of Saint Cyril, by decree of Count Kamil Válek. Outraged, the Grand Duke raised his armies to arrest Válek, who had mustered a large portion of northern Ostrozava to his side, including an area of territory that included the entirety of the modern subprimes of Strakosko and Vamo. Faced with a difficult decision and civil war, Viktor had no choice but to turn to the peoples which his father and grandfather had conquered. Valenian and Gariman nobles were to have their rights elevated, though those in the areas of Micenia and Polnitsa would not be granted those rights on account of their strongly Fabrian beliefs, which matched Válek's. Armed conflict between the two sides of the Válek family, now known contemporaneously as the Loyalists (led by Grand Duke Viktor) and the Reformists (led by Count Kamil Válek).
The first stretch of battles took place largely in ethnic Valenian areas that had composed the former Kingdom of Livalia. As conquered peoples resentful of the Ostrozavan crown many Valenian had supported the count in his attempt to usurp his cousin, but, as the only ostensibly and exclusively Alban minority group in Ostrozava, others preferred the religiously-compatible Duke Viktor. After Viktor took a Livalian wife, Iolanda, the Valenian nobility largely flipped towards Viktor, giving him an upper hand that he had earlier lacked against the tactically superior Kamil. Further battles and skirmishes continued for the next six years, culminating in the Battle of Karsko in 1332; By 1335, Kamil's faction had been totally eradicated, though many still distrusted Victor, and his reputation among rebellious Fabrians was not favorable. Despite the continued national tension, Viktor's legitimization of several minorities had painted him as a liberally minded king, gaining him many Livalian and even Gariman followers. Viktor died in 1382, aged 82, upon which he was succeeded by his oldest son, Viktor II, who died in 1398 of consumption after a brief reign, during which his biggest accomplishments were the establishment of Alban monastic schools that would later form the core of Ostrozavan education.
Eastern Renaissance and Compact of the Lake
As the 15th century dawned, the Grand Duchy found itself increasingly influenced by a multitude of actors. The barely-pacified Fabrian minority in Ostrozava had drawn the attention of the larger Fabrian world, particularly the englarging Holy Aulian Empire. In 1405, the Council of Pyrovegny was held in the Lushyodorstag, bringing a degree of denomenational unity between the Docetic and Alban Emendatic churches, producing the first Oecumenical Bible. This also opened up travel and communion between the two denominations; the Docetic Church's first missionaries arrived in 1407, to protest from some Fabrians and general indifference or even tolerance from the Emendatic priesthood and political establishment.
In 1406, after a long regency of Viktor II's most trusted advisor, Duke Žigmund Láska of Litonín, Viktor II's only son Aurel Válek assumed the throne. Only eighteen years old, the young Grand Duke eschewed the tradition of taking a Livalian wife that had been standard for many of his predecessors; instead, as a sign of growing unity in the east, he was advised by Láska to turn to his nation's former enemy of the Lushyodorstag. A 1408 diplomatic meeting between Duke Láska and the Gerzaïd rulership across the lake set the stage for the marriage. In 1409, the now 19-year-old Aurel married Princess Anika of the Lushyodorstag, thus entering the two Alban states into a tight-knit political alliance, and extending the inter-lake alliance past the religious dimension. This new paradigm allowed the shores of Lake Kupalnitsa to become a hub of trade, and provided a more secure avenue for Ostrozavan ideas and traders to travel east towards Ochran; this is now referred to as the Compact of the Lake, and it is considered a crucial development in the beginning of the Eastern Renaissance, sometimes known as the Alban Renaissance, throughout eastern and southeastern Belisaria, including Ostrozava. The Eastern Renaissance is typically considered to have begun in earnest in Ostrozava in 1458, with both the commemoration of the University of Litonín in Libebor, which was the second University in Central Belisaria and the first major Alban university, as well renaissance man Boris Matoušek's chartering as Crown Artist by the Grand Duke Aurel in 1461.
Grand Duke Aurel was a notable patron of the arts, engineering, and merchantile endeavors during the Eastern Renaissance. His reign saw the construction of Kadlec Castle, one of the most notable extant fortresses in central-eastern Belisaria; he also gave a grant to Branko Nedved, a scientist and burgher that helped develop new methods of making concrete. In part due to the need for quick dissemination of the Bible of Pyrovegny, printers and other burghers throughout Ostrozava's cities imported and adapted the far-eastern printing press, and leading to the second major standardization of the Ostrozavan language in 1460, with the inclusion of several loanwords from Alban Communion Ostrogothic and Docetic Losh, as well as Fabrian Latin. In 1467, Grand Duke Aurel suffered a series of strokes and died at the age of seventy-nine, leaving the realm to his oldest surviving son, Grand Duke Radovan 'the Hammer'.
Uprising and the Twenty-Nine Days' War
For much of the back half of the 15th century, as political tensions remained high between the increasingly polarizing powers of central Belisaria, a major Fabrian rebellion led by the Baron of Bischoffelden (Ostrozavan: Jirkov), a Magnish burgher by the name of Baudry Zÿler, was squashed in 1482, leading to mass civil unrest. As a member of the minor nobility in the region, Zÿler had broken rank by encouraging revolt in the Fabrian populations of western Ostrozava, much to the chagrin of Grand Duke Radovan, who ordered him publicly humiliated and broken on the wheel upon his arrest.
Despite the growing mood atmosphere of tension in areas contested between eastern and western traditions, a growing spirit of enlightenment had captivated the growing urban middle class of major Ostrozavan cities, and brought much needed economic improvement to major urban centers particularly among rivers and the coast of Lake Kupalnitsa. Karsko became the first city in eastern Belisaria to formally implement a system of sewage, which gave it the reputation of being one of the cleanest cities in the Scipio-Belisarian world. Grand Duke Radovan, a devout Alban, made a point to increase pressure on various religious minorities towards conversion, opting to break from the tolerant position established by his father and the neighboring Lushyodorstag. Radovan's shift in sensibilities had been spurned by a personal belief of his that religious tolerance was "unsustainable in time for the Grand Duchy", as he wrote in a letter on the 8th of November, 1493. Fearing increasing encroachment by the Holy Aulian Empire through Garima, Radovan began sweeping reforms of the military, partially abolishing the exisiting feudal system of levies in favor of a standard army, which, by the Swordsman's Decree of 1497, were not allowed to be of "religious or spiritual character antithetical to those empowering the values of the Grand Duchy and God Almighty."
The Swordsman's Decree, though worded vaguely in its language, was a de facto law prohibiting trinitarian Christians, including those belonging to the Fabrian and Orthodox churches, from serving in the Ostrozavan military, at least in the scope of a standing retinue. Radovan's decision to constrict the freedoms of the already-enraged Fabrian minorities had only added to the fire started by Baron Zÿler, whose image of emancipatory heroism had lent itself to establishing permanent roots in the public consciousness following his rebellion. In December of 1499, several Fabrian minor nobles gathered at the site of Baron Zÿler's execution in Bischoffelden, in what is known as The New Year's Deliberation, where for the remainder of the month, they observed Christmas together with their families while discussing the predicament of the Fabrian minorities in Ostrozava. On New Years' Day in 1500, the leaders coalesced around their most prominent supporter, the religiously-tolerant Fabrian Duke of Rheigen-Ardovia, Herbert Váskory, who subsequently declared war on Grand Duke Radovan, declaring a "War of Fabrian Liberation"; though the Fabrian faction had initially wished simply for equal rights, their struggle soon devolved into civil war.
The Twenty-Nine Days' War is considered to have begun in the early March of 1500; the hosts of Lord Váskory and Grand Duke Radovan met at the shallowest ford of the Karmin River, then called Chapel Ford after a small Docetic chapel which had been established near it a quarter-decade prior. The forces clashed on the open field in front of the ford at first, with Lord Váskory soon pushing the Grand Duke into the Karmin, which, at the time, was fairly active despite the shallow crossing point due to the melting snows. Many troops of the Grand Duke soon found themselves tripping or falling in the fast-moving water only to lose their weapons or even drown due to their heavy armor. At some point after the Fabrian lines first connected with the Grand Duke's retinue, the Alban army lost sight of the Grand Duke; without their leader and no skilled lieutenants to take over, the Fabrian army and Duke Váskory won a shocking victory, totally dispersing the Grand Duke's army of almost ten-thousand; the battle came to be known as the 'Battle of the Crimson Karmin' (Ostrozavan: Bitva Karmínského Karmina) due to the blood which had permeated the waters at that point.
With the main Grand Ducal force gone, Váskory moved quickly across the Duchy of Ardovia, dispersing or defeating any holdover forces he encountered along the way, and then recieved the support of the recently-converted Duke of Vamo, Tervin Chrelina. Together, they arrived at Karsko bolstering a force of some twenty thousand troops; with the Grand Duke still presumed alive but missing, the Lord Mayor of Karsko, Drahoslav of Myria, opened the gates to the advancing army, thus forfieting the power of Grand Duke Radovan and the centuries-long rule of the Alban Válek dynasty. Victorious in less than a month, Lord Herbert crowned himself as Grand Duke Peter I. Though Ostrozava was under Fabrian rule, the pendulum had swung in the direction of tolerance. After horrific mass-hangings in Ostrozava by Fabrian forces were condemned by local religious authorities and even the Pope in Sydalon, Grand Duke Peter halted his persecution, instead adopting a lenient system of tiered rights going into the century.
Declension and Schaumberg War
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Velikoslavian Suzerainity and Valdavia-Rheigen
Valdavo-Rheigner Expansion
In 1694, with the Triple Crown across the lake gaining considerable power, the Belododia family began to lose remained of its declining power to the Kostra and Vykopal dynasties; the Vykopals, under Dukes Tudor and Letisov, had been gaining power throughout the rule of the Belododia dynasty since the end of the Declension, while the powerful and old Kostra dynasty had long been vying for political influence within Valdavia-Rheigen since before the declension. Wary of another war of succession, Aurel III Belododia, in ailing health, formally designated Duke Vavrinec Vykopal of Levigorsk as his official successor in lieu of his obese son, Bohus Belododia, which came as an unprecedented shock in post-Declension political culture. As a result, Duke Baltozor Kostra raised his flag in rebellion against the Belododia dynasty, intending to install Bohus as a puppet; the Vykopal professional standing army smashed the Kostra's levy-based host, virtually handing over total power to the Vykopal dynasty.
Vykopal Era & Thirty Years War
Upon Aurel III's death in 1729, Vavrinec Vykopal formally became King of Valdavia-Rheigen, and, despite having been a devout Emendatic Christian himself, decreed that all denominations went against the will of the crown. Successively through the 1730s, Vavrinec first endorsed Lutheranism, and later the "Alban-Lutheran pact", a phenomenon which soon developed into the state-sponsored Karminian hybrid faith. While the new state church was ostensibly still Protestant, it nevertheless incorporated huge swathes of Docetic and Alban doctrine, including strict nontrinitarianism. The new faith was enforced strictly by Vavrinec, who forced en-masse conversions of the majority of the nation to the faith throughout the 1740s, attracting the ire of both the Alban and Fabrian worlds, including Pope Florentine.
After Vavrinec's death from gout in 1768, his oldest daughter, Aliana Vykopal, became the queen of Valdavia-Rheigen and Empress of Transkarminia; with the longest reign of any Vykopal, Aliana is noted for her exotic lifestyle, hot temper, and political marriage to Michael of the Latin Empire, the third son of Empress Maria III Tullia and her husband Michael of Ghant, which normalized relations with the West. Aliana is best remembered for leading Transkarminia through the Thirty Years War, fighting alongside the Kvor and Mesogeians against the collapsing Velikoslavia, successfully mending the declension with the reclamation of Ostrozava proper and Baderia by the wars end.
Later in life, Aliana would go on to establish a highly centralized and modern nation, especially for the region, ruling strictly while using Karminian doctrine as an organ of state control. At the end of the 18th century, Garima and Latium served as important allies for Ostrozava in lieu of its earlier alliances in the Kupalnitsa area. Vykopal-era Ostrozava is sometimes considered to have constituted the easternmost member of the Belisarian monarchical paradigm, with the dynasty attempting to integrate itself into western diplomatic circles. Empress Aliana's health began to fail in the 1820s but she nevertheless presided over several controversial accomplishments, including the levying of unpopular taxes to modernize the nations' industrial capacity. The first factories, specializing in textiles and early forays into canning, opened in 1821 and 1823, respectively, in the Valegoria area, which soon became a nexus of the Industrial Revolution.
Growing Unrest and Rifler's Strike
Feudal authority suffered a serious setback in 1824, when Aliana Vykopal, having enacted several unpopular tax policies, died to an assassin's bullet; the apprehended assassin, Marek Čiernik, had been radicalized into action by witnessing successful resistance to unrest in Talahara. Marek Čiernik was a prominent intellectual in the Lake Kupalnitsa area, having been credited with the first functional lightning rod in the nation in 1811; his arrest and subsequent execution greatly impacted the growing clade of Ostrozavan academics. Ostrozava's rapid modernization, which included an at-least cursory education for the majority of the nation, exposed many to the ideas of Werner and Alençon.
Though Čiernik's ploy to start a revolution failed, with Aliana's young son Aurel IV cracking down on what remained of personal freedoms in Ostrozava as a result, the assassination is widely regarded as the first impactful antimonarchical action in Ostrozava since Baudry Zyler. The assassination served as the crucible of what would become a century of oscillation between unrest and crackdown. Aurel IV died in 1855, leaving the nation to his son, the controversial and often-ineffective Peter II. Peter II greatly centralized noble rule, almost eliminating mobility within the clade, including the granting of titles, while centralizing almost all power away from former feudal lords and into the Emperor, a move that would prove unpopular even among the inner council. The monarchy continued to emphasize Karminian doctrine, attracting the long-term ire of Alban and Docetic movements and nations, including the Drevstranese Triple Crown.
In 1884, several important Ostrozavan armaments factories to a standstill in the famous Rifler's Strike, which crippled Peter II's military modernization program. The armaments workers defended the factory from police and early military incursion until the foreign-armed Royal Guard forcefully reopened them in early 1885 at The Rifler's Battle. The government's forceful response to growing anti-Vykopal sentiment, particularly the Rifler's Strike, drew naysayers out from even the rank-and-file military, leading to a decline of anti-populist decrees by Peter II for the remainder of his reign.
After Peter II's death in 1891, his son Borek I took power over an increasingly antimonarchical sentiment within the nation; as a young ruler at his ascension in 1891, he often found himself at odds with both older members of the nobility, which had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the strict rule and Karminianism of the Vykopals, as well as the growing Karsko University Drinking Club, which included prominent academics and philosophers such as the mystic philosopher Vlastimil Beran, anti-monarchist Julius Jahoda, pseudo-Wernerist critic Vladan Vítek, psychoanalyst Stan Bača, and feminist Loren Kraiova.
In 1901, having taken note of the rise of international revolutionary liberal and leftist movements throughout Belisaria and beyond in the past century, the Karsko University Drinking Club published the Crimson Manifest. The Manifest outlined the demands of the Drinking Club in response to the increasingly unpopular reign of the Vykopals, including the abolition of serfdom, Karminianism, a 70-hour work-week for factory workers, and more. Chiefly penned by burdgeoning socialist Vladan Vítek, the Manifest became a rallying cry for the peasantry and workers in the partially-industrialized nation, reinvigorating the popular movements initially catalyzed by the Rifler's Strike.
Utrătenia
Rioting and strikes of minor industries intensified over the next half-decade; in 1905 the Empire of Transkarminia formally abolished serfdom, being one of the last states in Belisaria to commit to the policy. The abolition of serfdom sent hundreds of former serfs flooding into the cities, creating a homelessness crisis amid the winter of 1905-06, which saw over 2,500 dead of hypothermia. The Black Winter of 1906, named for the frostbitten former serfs' blackened features, would see blame laid at the feet of the Vykopal dynasty.
Crimson Revolution & First Compact
In response to the increasingly bleak situation brought about by the Emperor's mishandling of the Black Winter and abolition of serfdom, prominent intellectuals in Ostrozava, including the Drinking Club and other anti-establishment thinkers, coalesced at the 1st Ostrozavan Worker's Convention of 1907. The Convention did not initially advocate for armed revolution, but instead took the route of compromise in aiming for a constitutional monarchy with greatly increased worker's rights. Internally, the convention had seen a rift develop between the Worker's Party and League for Democratic Reform, primarily over theoretical and ideological differences as to the role of the market. In mid-1908, after the Convention published several proclamations doubling down on the Drinking Club's original Manifest, Borek Vykopal made a public speech denouncing the Convention as enemies of the state. Borek's proclamation soon ended internal squabbles in the Convention, particularly between heads of the LDR, Julius Jahoda, and Worker's Party, the young Emil Torje, as the situation's urgency required unification. Before the end of the year, internal compromise had been reached, and the monolithic United Republican Party had been created, in an effort to directly oppose the Vykopals.
On 21 March 1909, the Worker's Convention submitted their demands to the Emperor, including the first draft of the Ostrozavan Social Contract as written by Vladan Vítek, long considered the head of the Convention's faction for compromise and most skilled author. Emperor Borek denied the Worker's Convention's demands, and, gambling for the military's loyalty, ordered the arrest and execution of the Worker's Convention leadership. The orders shook the Ostrozavan military, which had already faltered in its tantamount support of the Vykopal dynasty after the Rifler's Strike. In response, the military denied the Emperor's order as "immoral and un-Dukelike", but did not offer support to the Convention, either. The summer of 1909 brought mass rioting and civil unrest throughout Transkarminia; several noble families, particularly those of Valdavia and Rheigen, began to flee into neighboring Garima and Vannois, escalating the situation and the military's to-be role in it. In October 1909, after the Emperor ordered the execution of military leadership for treason, the military formally declared its tentative allegience to the Worker's Convention, and on 14 November 1909, Emperor Borek was formally deposed and executed in a trial by combat by crowds in Karsko in support of the First Convention; the rest of the Vykopal family disappeared and were presumed dead trying to cross the border into Veldia. The remaining Ostrozavan noble families fled to Drevstran, or else renounced their noble status by early 1910. The events of 1909 as a whole are now considered to constitute Crimson Revolution.
On 1 July 1910, the first draft of the Ostrozavan Social Contract was ratified and the Prime Republic of Ostrozava formally created, with Julius Jahoda being elected as the first Primar as part of a united coalition. By 1912, the compromise between the Convention's factions had faltered, and the Socialist Worker's Party split from the United Republican Party, with the latter holding on to urban and educated support while the latter surged in the countryside with former serfs and peasants, as well as some workers. Within a year, other political complications plagued the young republic, including diplomatic hostility from the Gariman crown, as Queen Albina of Garima was the last surviving Vykopal, the developing Drevstranese Civil War, and the rise of the ultranationalist pan-Alban Rytieriroz. The Rytieri had begun by the end of 1911 to be a particularly influential force, especially among isolated Alban communities still unscathed from the Karmininian Era; the Republican Government responded with harsh measures but refrained from directly confronting the agitators; Primar Jahoda began to see increasing pressure from the growing left in dealing with the nationalists, but Jahoda committed to nonviolence publicly in early 1912, in an effort to curry favor himself with isolated religious communities and appear a moderate to the international community.
Rytieriroz and Growing Regional Tensions
In 1913, the internationalist flank of the left began to draw increasing attention to similar emancipatory movements worldwide. The Drevstranese Civil War remained a particularly topical question, with many within the People's Congress advocating for some form of intervention on the side of the Farkas Band. With Jahoda indicating he would not run again, ardent leftist Founder Vladan Vítek was elected Primar in a contested election with several disunited leftist parties. Though himself a socialist, Vítek often emphasized the importance of compromise, drawing on his experience orchestrating the Revolutionary Compromise, and in the Drinking Club; as such, Vítek ran what is considered to be a centrist administration. Despite the fact that he was considered to be the most moderate of all the candidates, Vítek's election and subsequent tepid support for the Farkas Band still galvanized international pressure on the nascent revolutionary state, often funneled into the Rytieri as an easy avenue of sowing discord. Lack of formal or strenuous government response to the Rytieri had reactionarily galvanized the Socialist Worker's Party; by 1919, the Socialists led the nation in most registered members, eclipsing the United Republican Party. The Socialists, still led by Emil Torje, saw the Alban Rytieri as a national threat and advocated for the "systemic dis-emphasis of religion" as a result; the Socialist position drew popular support from many who had been disappointed or raised under Karminianism, but also sent devout Fabrians and Albans flocking to the United Republican platform, thus further pushing the Socialists towards the left.
After several Rytieri marches in 1920, a concentrated labor movement began under the SWR's umbrella, seeking even better working conditions, including a two-day weekend, as well as a government crackdown on the Rytieri. Throughout 1921, despite interference from the Ostrozavan Prime Army, several skirmishes unfolded between the Rytieri and Socialist Worker's Party in especially Alban areas of Ostrozava; this time period of 1920-22 came to be known as the Bat Summers from the militia's choice of weapon.
All of Ostrozava's immediate western neighbors began to posture aggressively in late 1916, namely Garima, then led by Wilhelm IV, Veldia, and Velikoslavia.
Containment War & Socialist Consolidation
In 1922, the People's Congress and Primar Vítek called a Second Worker's Convention in an effort to resolve increasingly stark political divisions over the situation on the ground; the result was the enshrining of Wernerist thought, strong union and labor protections, and the concept of permanent revolution directly into the Ostrozavan Social Contract. Following the official adoption of the new provisions, Vítek announced his intention to step down in 1923, leading to a snap election from which Emil Torje of the Socialist Worker's Party emerged victorious with 52% of the vote.
Torje's rule would mark the beginning of the Second Party Compact, in which the Socialist Worker's Party would hold constant majority. Major economic reforms from 1924 onward resulted in the implementation of a hardline internationalist communism; throughout the nation, many major industries, including that of food production, were fully nationalized and placed under a quota system and command economy. Rytieri-adjacent members of society were marked as dissidents and jailed or executed. Internationally, the Prime Republic began looking for allies; between 1925 and 1930, the Prime Republic signed treaties with socialist Wahzeganon and _____ and showed open soldiarity for the burdgeoning North Ottonian socialist movement during the Ottonian Civil War. In Transkarminia, relations with Garima and Veldia became especially cold, while, due to pragmatic politics, relations with the Orbraggarist Drevstran remained cool but cordial.
Second Compact
Primar Torje died suddenly in an auto accident in Levigorsk on 27 March 1930 in a move that is retroactively believed to have been orchestrated by his immediate successor, first PRCO director and Subprimar Alek Dalibor, who would go on to blame Torje's death on Invictist activity from Velikoslavia, which he accused of funding the Rytieriroz in the previous decade. This act consolidated Dalibor's domestic power behind an atmosphere of fear far more intense than that of Torje's administration, but also caused diplomatic troubles. In 1934, Dalibor purged his leading rivals in the Socialist Party and pressed forward with the move to forcefully secularize the nation, outlawing the practice or worship of all but "what is known to be true", an intentionally vague phrase that allowed local law enforcement the ability to exonerate, or execute, any percieved transgression under the crime of religious thinking. The phrase, formally "...and enforce adherence to all that is known to be true", began to be known as Dalibor's Law. By 1937, over 15,000 religious monuments had been destroyed, over seven million violators of Dalibor's Law had been imprisoned, and over 600,000-1.2 million were executed or disappeared.
The policy proved controversial, with both the dwindling oppositon and the threat of infighting posing a threat to the further expansion of the policy. Internationally, Dalibor would commit Ostrozavan troops to the Great Ottonian War in 1937, formally embroliling the Prime Republic in its first ever international conflict, and leading to border clashes with Garima, Schaumberg, and Veldia, and calls for both radical escalation and peace from within Ostrozava. Realizing the importance of the political status-quo's survival to his own, Dalibor eased religious oppression and pivoted the state's efforts in 1938, focusing more on eradicating the Karminian religious adherents left after the fall of the Vykopals by painting them as Royalists, a young and rural demographic that had largely dwindled since the revolution. Government law enforcement and the newly-founded PRCO also began direct political opposition of radical cultural movements. Brothels, speakeasies, pubs, and college campuses were often raided and charged with crimes of either religious or antirevolutionary nature. Dalibor had a particular hatred for Jazz, which had begun developing in Ostrozavan underground music circles a decade earlier, as a symptom of border connections and a developing grey and black market for recordings, often smuggled through Drevstran and Merovia. Dalibor went on to outlaw jazz music in 1941, the Jazz Ban, which resulted in sporadic protests and political violence for the next two years. During this time, Dalibor reportedly developed an addiction to amphetamine and lithium, spurring further controversial decisionmaking. Further help would be given to various revolutionary movements worldwide via the creation of the Ostrozavan Foreign Legion in 1946. OFL or PRCO elements operated in areas such as Schaumberg, Usezoya, Zamorodna, and elsewhere, though official confirmation of these activities would not be publicly disclosed until after the PRCO's dissolution in 2020. Ostrozavan forces would continue to fight in conflicts worldwide in support of socialist movements until the end of the Great Ottonian War in 1943 caused a domestic economic crisis that coincided with the Typhoid epidemic of 1944. After the end of the Great Ottonian War and subsequent epidemic, Ostrozavan authorities pivoted the nation's economic policy, further clamping down on small businesses and sellers in rural regions and establishing a fully-fledged command economy with a focus on developing pharmaceuticals and weaponry; the state reaffirmed its mission to spread socialist revolution abroad in 1945 with Dalibor's secret speech to the People's Congress.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the PRCO had become increasingly bold in its attempt at social machination domestically under orders from Dalibor to cull social dissidence resulting from his Jazz ban and tight grip on society, fruitlessly attempting to develop various forms of mind control programs, including experimentation with hypnosis and the recently-discovered psychoactive drug Metalysergine. While initial experiments were conducted on dissidents in secrecy through the abuse of the psychiatric system, in psychiatric prisons referred to as Psicușcas (lit. "Psychic Cages"), in 1950 Dalibor ordered the PRCO to expand the program in order to see its effects on a large population group. This led to the 1950 Redstream experiment, in which a group of 100 villages in the Ilhava valley south of Skarca in the Subprime of Ardovia, near the border with Veldia, would have their aquifers laced with MLN as part of a long-form social experiment. The Redstream experiment was overseen by elements of the PRCO, military, and scientists from the University of Valegoria. The results of the experiment were inconclusive, resulting in a variety of outcomes unfavorable to the regime, including anarchy, religious awakenings, and the creation of cults, with only two villages outside of the control group seeing an increased adherence to Dalibor's policy objectives. Disillusioned, Dalibor cancelled the program in 1951 and shifted focus to more traditonal forms of social control, although the damage had been done. Scientists from the University of Valegoria reintroduced their synthetic MLN as well as several other former mind-control substances to their faculty, which were later disseminated into the general populace, bolstering an already-growing sexual revolution and counterculture as part of what would become the Open Fifties in Ostrozava. After the end of the Redstream experiments, the contaminated aquifers, being close to the border of Veldian]-occupied Rheigen, generated unrest in the Rheigner-majority areas, as the hallucinatory visions induced by the aquifer spurred an active nightlife and new threads of philosophy; this growth of anti-authoritarian empowerment began to be known as the Budenitsa (Ostro-Ludzic: "The Waking"), and greatly increased social unrest in areas of occupied Ostrozava, with effects beginning to bleed across the border soon after.
Great Republican War
Eager to save face with the populace and and stoke a sense of nationalism to rebuke the more liberal elements of the Socialist Party, Dalibor indicated his objective to retake Rheigen from the Veldia in late 1951, which had been one of the regions hardest hit by the social movements of the Budenitsa. In 1952, several regions of the Veldia entered open rebellion against what was seen as ethnic and religious oppression by the central state, including South Hauland, Transgvalenia, and occupied Rheigen. Ostrozava immediately began supporting these movements with weapons and other material aid typically delivered by airdrop, while two large army groups reconstituted south with the intention of posturing towards an invasion of Rheigen. Dalibor had been searching for an avenue towards direct military involvement without it being viewed as a provocation to monarchist powers in the region, particularly Velikoslavia, and, in a series of secret meetings in mid-1952 with Schaumbergish leaders, Dalibor recieved assurances that leftist militias trained at the Aureum-Schaumberg border would be joining in on a prospective invasion plan; secret messages were subsequently sent with the intention of partially integrating the military intelligence and objectives of the Crimson Army with these partisans as unrest continued to grow in Rheigen.
After some deliberation domestically, and amid growing disillusionment with his regime, Dalibor ordered a full-scale military invasion of Rheigen in early 1953, with Ostrozava's most advanced tanks and jet aircraft striking several Veldian military positions in Rheigen in the opening hours, while special forces crossed the mountains into Veldia with the intent of fostering further anti-assimilationist seperatist sentiment and harrassing government supply lines. Subsequently, Ostrozavan forces initiated an air assault and subsequent ground invasion in the southern part of Rheigen, linking up with both Rheigner and Schaumbergish paramilitaries and immediately taking Wittenburg, thus severing the Veldian connection to south Belisarian river trade networks.
Chaos of '57 and Overthrow of Dalibor
Though the outbreak of hostilities had initially been described by the Dalibor and Paul administrations in uncertain terms, as a "necessarry military intervention" or "logistical support of a popular uprising", but a renewed Hvalish resolve following the Siege of Wittenburg and bombing raids launched on the core of Ostrozava caused an imposition of martial law in 1956, in addition to existing measures restricting "unsocialistic" behavior. Chief among them was a shift towards "total war outlook" (Common Ostrozavan: Totálnii razbovii výhlîad). The government began rationing strategic resources intended to the front, including steel and copper, and mobilized 500,000 men in late 1956, bolstering a Ostrozavan Army which had swelled to more than 1 million active members in the wake of the war. For the first time however, the mobilization of 1956 was non-exclusionary, targeting urban and rural areas alike, and resulting in many educated university students of anti-war persuasion being issued draft notices. Martial law also entailed the banning of public gatherings, and, in a particularly controversial move, the banning of all syncopated music, a provision historiographically assumed to have come from Dalibor's whims as an expansion of the Jazz Ban, and not from official codes for procedure during martial law.
With Rheigen liberated and the Veldians pushed back to the Tyvarian mountain passes, war support waned domestically within the Prime Republic, as the liberation of Rheigen had restored the country to its revolutionary borders, and no great enthusiasm existed to prolong the 'total war outlook'. Several protest groups, largely composed of students and young people, many among them deserting soldiers, convened across Ostrozava in the winter of 1957 with the goal of staging a massive anti-war, anti-Dalibor protest. These included the Anti-Totalist League, Transkarminian Guitarist Club, and others. However, the activist leaders were unable to decide on whether the protest should be silent, highlighting the impact of the music ban, or "loud", defying it through musical performance. In the end, both protests were held.
The silent protest had been organized to take place on 14 August in the Karsko Grove, in front of the residence of the Primar. The reportedly furious Dalibor directed his recently replaced military attache to organize a response, which turned into a disaster. Dalibor could only sit and watch for hours as the protest continued and the response organized. Simultaneously, the Valegoria concert, Gargantua, had begun in a field in Valdavia not far from Subprimar Grigore Borza of Valdavia's private mansion in Poiana Tântrați, 50 km from Valegoria.
Borza responded to the concert four acts in, when an already-organized force consisting of elements of the 71st Airborne Division arrived in a forceful response which soon began to erupt in violence. IIncrepo e Turpe (Latin: "Rebuke from Infamy"), a popular scut band, found themselves surrounded armed soldiers attempting to arrest them during the third song of the set. A soldier onstage was hit in the head with a brick by a concertgoer, killing him from an impact to his head while firing his rifle involuntarily. The commander at the scene, Major Jonas Zaiser, immediately attempted to call for a cease fire, but the damage had been done as several other soldiers began shooting, and chaos began erupting throughout the concert. The death toll for the Gargantua Disaster included 86 soldiers mobbed to death by the huge crowd, while about 700 were killed before the order to stop shooting had been properly enforced. The military immediately put kill orders on the soldiers responsible for coordinating fire after the first shots rang out, their NCO, as well as for anybody who killed a soldier in the crowd, including the brick thrower, who was the first shot. Most recordings of the event were seized, including all visual recordings, but live radio stations had continued to transmit the signal across the border, recording clear gunfire for about three seconds before the feed cut out. Physical copies of the recording found their way back into the Republic through Drevstran only a day later, greatly increasing agitation with the government and causing riots major cities, with the largest riot in Valegoria leading to over 200 deaths by the end of the week. On the battlefield, some soldiers mutinied, and others began to frag their political officers.
Third Compact
The end of the war had devastated much of Ostrozava's border regions, including the newly-reintegrated Rheigen, although the southern regions of Valdavia and Siecobia were spared the majority of the destruction; nevertheless, that which was destroyed had largely been impacted by hostile strategic bombing. The political situation had improved greatly since 1957; the Third Compact mandated that the government would transfer from the Prime Defense Council back to civilian control following an election in 1965, which was to be the first of many in a five year cycle. Under Beranek, economic growth was haphazard but generally trended upwards, spurred by the forced privatization or partial privatization of many enterprises that had previously been cornerstones of the Daliborist planned economy, such as Delia Automotive, or else defense workshops which had been created during the war, such as KAD. Such a turnaround from economic devastation had also been enabled the newly-established Civil Service's Civil Engineering Corps, which helped reinforce wartime logistical links to Drevstran and Ludvosiya and reconstruct railways and highways throughout the region.
While the opening of economic links to Ludvosiya and Drevstran, and thus to the global seaborne trade network, had helped bolster the economy by moving it away from the pseudo-autarky of the Second Compact, the increasing militarization of borders with Veldia and Velikoslavia, and accompanying reinforcement and building of a competitive military, occupied much of the Beranek administration's temporal and financial resources. Socially, the Beranek years previsaged what was to follow in the remainder of the decade, with vast social liberalization and improvements to human rights following in many areas, particularly in press freedom.