Service-based suffrage

One of the oldest notes on steampunk social science was written on my Samsung. It was last edited some time ago, but I'm fairly certain it dates back to December last year, before the Andalusada Scrapbook came into being.

Insert quotation here.

On the blog itself, I first mentioned it when I introduced Poland-Ruthenia, or if not then when I expanded it to its current form: "Following the Baltic republican lead, Poland-Ruthenia has been experimenting with service-based suffrage." - whence the name of this concept.

Modern Pomerania

In the end, there was the Reductions, and Pomerania was erased forever. "Forever," as it turned out, was less than a century; by 1840, the Germanized Baltic littoral had won its independence in a ferocious revolt, which was recognized by Saxony in the Treaty of Meissen. Pomerania was back.

Modern Pomerania 101

Skipping the why a bit, here we go:

• Who? Modern Pomerania's still as Güntherite as its forebears, but it's much less ethnically diverse; it's overwhelmingly either German or Germanized. Modern Pomerania, colored by its own private Counter-Reformation during the Polish generations, is a much less diverse state than it was the first time around.
• What? In state dogma, modern Pomerania is a continuation of sansinger Pomerania: a revolt with a state. In practice, the two look almost nothing alike. Modern Pomerania's usually described as "Spartan," and the description works: it's a corvée democracy, organized on very military lines and built on a foundation of compulsory state service.
• Where? Modern Pomerania's rather reduced from its former territory, but it still stretches from the Oder River east a fair ways.
• When? After the UCNA (which started on April 5), modern Pomerania has the most specific date of founding I can think of: the signing of the Treaty of Meissen in 1836.

Moving on a bit...

The Pomeranian Reductions

Timeframe: Early- to mid-1700s
Belligerents: Güntherite Pomerania vs. everybody.
Outcome: The dissolution of Pomerania as an independent state until the 1830s.

For most of the 17th century, the Baltic Sea was a Güntherite lake. The north was dominated by the sprawl that was Denmark-Sweden; the south, by sansinger Pomerania, the once unstoppable juggernaut that had toppled the Teutonic Knights and left the Holy Roman Empire moribund.

Then the Great Realignment came, and as the Russian Empire became a serious threat, the ever-struggling Polish-Ruthenian Commonwealth found itself facing a constant problem: Pomerania, for the longest time their vassal, was turning into a Russian cat's-paw. And while Pomerania was by no means the unstoppable military juggernaut of its youth, in alliance with Russia it would leave the commonwealth facing a two-fronted war.

At some point [when?], Pomerania did something tactically smart and strategically stupid: they did ally with Russia, very briefly, against Poland-Ruthenia. Krakow's worst fears had been verified.

Güntherite Pomerania

Truth be told, I'm not sure what it was actually called. It was never a kingdom, I think, although maybe a swathe of it was a Grand Duchy? I dunno. What I do know, very clearly, is that it was a religious region. Just as much as there was Moorish Spain, there was Güntherite Pomerania, and this was where it started.

Güntherite Pomerania 101

Why Güntherite Pomerania? Because it's so very different from IRL. [More to come.]

• Who? Germans, Pruthenians, Poles, Sorbs, Livonians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians - basically it was one big Baltic littoral melting pot, although the first three ethnicities of that list were definitely the most pronounced ones.
• What? An unstoppable military juggernaut.
• Where? For the most part, Güntherite Pomerania encompassed the Teutonic Ordensstaat. (Some of the easternmost parts were actually vassals of the Kingdom of Poland, at that point not yet part of the Polish-Ruthenian Commonwealth.)
• When? 1520s-1760s. Depending on how you're counting, Güntherite Pomerania was established either shortly after or shortly before the end of the Güntherite Wars. (The region wasn't recognized as a state in its own until shortly after, but it was thoroughly converted to the Holy Church before the wars were over.) Once it was established, it lasted two centuries, before it was finally partitioned and wiped off the map during the Pomeranian Reductions.

So let's move on a bit.

The Güntherite Wars

Around 1519, the Monastic Knights of the Teutonic Order started to lose their grip on their sprawling Baltic empire. In the early 1520s, that grip was lost for good; by the late 1520s, it was lost forever, in the first revolution of modern European history. This is the blog entry for that revolution.

Before the Revolt

If this sounds vague, it's because the exact details of what went on are really contingent on how the Knights fared in the 1400s - about which I know relatively little.