EU4 - Development Diary - 11th of April 2017

[otaats]

Speaking of that then afaik the main difference between Serbian and Croatian cultures (at least until recently and the conscious attempts at differentiation) was whether the Austrians/Hungarians had ruled the area and the population hence was Catholic or the Byzzies had ruled it and the population hence was Orthodox. I.e. the difference primarily being religion (albeit that can be a quite big difference).

Am I mistaken in that? If not then frankly I think that a solution might be to just have a single Serbocroatian culture. Given how the area is rather small the culture wouldn't be too big in my opinion and it would seem to be more correct for the time frame. Then it would be the religion of the province which decided how well you tolerated/got along with the people in a specific province---which also would mean that as soon as an area had been taken and converted it would be fully tolerated which seems to correspond with what I know (though as mentioned that might be faulty) and with what you said about Bosnia in this time frame. Would also avoid having things like that Hum culture event switch you propose.

Nah, there shouldn't be a Serbo-Croatian culture. The cultures were slightly different, but highly compatible nonetheless. The real divide was the religion, but then again, Croats and Serbs lived in harmony for most of middle ages. Something we can't figure out in the last 100 years unfortunately.

I've dug up some early and mid 9th century maps just to illustrate you how the earliest Croatian and Serbian states looked.

^ Dalmatia and Lower Pannonia were Croatian states. Serbia, Travunia and Dioklea were Serbian lands, Zahclumia (Zahumlje, Hum) was also Serb at the time (although Croats were a significant 'minority', there were also a lot of catholic Serbs) - predominantly catholic. Pagania was 50-50, and majority of population were of mixed religion and pagans, as name suggests.

 

[otaats]

Other than the Bosnian church (which from what i gather is a mishmash of Catholic and Othodox) which was pseudo-autocephalial over the general area, best i can tell, Bosniak as a distinct culture (instead of 'merely' being the messy borderlands between where Croats and Serbs was massively dominant, which again, might well mainly have been a question which religion they followed) was first recognized in 1800s by Austrians trying to divide and rule the Balkan population, using the 'Bosniak' tag to describe people of the ethnic/cultural continuum which were Muslims

It's a very sensitive topic to some people, and it's really hard to talk about history without someone being angered over something that you might have said. But it's true, Bosniak as a distinct culture was introduced way after the middle ages. And it is linked with the fact that they are mostly muslim (converted) slavs.

 

[Haldan]

Does forming Yuan make your religion Confucian, even if you start non-Pagans like the buddhists or Muslims?

 

[Trin Tragula]

Does forming Yuan make your religion Confucian, even if you start non-Pagans like the buddhists or Muslims?

No. But you have to be empire of china if you have Mandate of Heaven which will require you to not be Muslim atleast at some point.

 

[Slavicist]

I agree that borders did change and that the truth is somewhere in between , probably.
When it comes to the Bosnians who are mainly of Croatian root In my opinion should not have a separate culture. Most that want a "Bosnian" culture are Muslims that for reasons want to make their historic decisions made more acceptable. I am myself a Bosnian Croat and we all know that Bosnia is as Croatian as is Slavonia.

(the truth does sometimes trigger some..)

The current division is a bit too lazy in my opinion - western half Croatian and eastern Serbian and easily done!

While there can be no doubt that a lot of Croats today draw descent from the earlier Bosnian denizens, it is questionable, at least, whether that can be extended to those denizens themselves.

We're talking about the late Middle Ages at the start and the Medieval Bosnian kingdom had political independence as well as religious, linguistic and other particularities which separated the Bosnians from the Croats as well as the Serbs. It would be wrong in my opinion to simply transfer them over to either of the two neighboring ethnic groups.

And in the later period of time, talking about Bosnia's Muslims, they are neither Croats nor Serbs without doubt. Both nations had attempted to, in some manner, integrate that ethnicity, but that's beyond this time period; we're talking about Victoria 2 here so it's not really all that relevant for this discussion.

 

[Slavicist]

It's a very sensitive topic to some people, and it's really hard to talk about history without someone being angered over something that you might have said. But it's true, Bosniak as a distinct culture was introduced way after the middle ages. And it is linked with the fact that they are mostly muslim (converted) slavs.

I did not refer to the Bosnian Muslims, but Bosnians in general.

The Bosnian Church had existed, which had some similarities to, but was considered as a heresy by both Christian branches (Roman Christianity as well as Eastern Orthodoxy), the country had a sort of a tradition of political existence for a period of over seven centuries, dating back to the earliest South Slavic statelets on the Balkan peninsula, it had a dominant dialect of the Church Slavonic linguistic continuum (Hum-Bosnian dialect) which signified a stark difference to the main official Serbian language, as well as the one dominant in its main national literature (or, for that matter, Croatian), the Cyrillic script which was used in that country did indeed over time evolve to a strain of a unique minuscule which, in the late period of its existence, which clearly made a sort of (albeit minor) difference to the scripts which were used by the Serbs and other Slavic peoples, and sources doubtlessly confirm the existence of a separate Bosnian identity, in which the subjects of the Bosnian sovereign (i.e. in the very first line, the feudal nobility) literally considered themselves "Bosnians".

While this is, of course, to a certain degree disputable, because e.g. Bosnia had once over the course of time in earlier ages been a part of Serbia, for a period of time what I've written to the above are never disputed facts. This is also precisely the reason why the Historical Improvement Project mod for the Crusader Kings II game actually introduces I believe a separate Bosnian culture. And I would ask, if not - what precisely is the basis for something to be considered a culture or not?

I am trying to approach this matter as impartially as it is possible. I do understand that this is a video game we're talking about and that gameplay reasons should exist as a priority in all sense, as well as that no one should really come to play these things and expect pure historical facts to be presented. Some modern points of view are, naturally, unavoidable, but since we are talking about the Early Modern period, we should not mix the ideas and practices of the era of National Romanticism, and in specific the formation of the modern nations, which had its key period in the 19th century (and under which ideologies both Croatian and Serbian nations had attempted to integrate - and, by the way, failed - Bosnia and Herzegovina). Actually, the very fact that a Bosnian nation today exist in that country and the region should itself be a further discouraging factor to rely on the dominant viewpoints within the masses of the neighboring republics of Croatia and Serbia.

 

[otaats]

I'm also trying to approach this with complete objectivity, although as i said, there are so many versions of history out here and so many wrong conclusions, that nearly everything is a subject of discussion. I think that Bosnia would be interesting with a unique mechanic, called "Bosnian Church' for example, where you would manage accepted minorities and province religions. It would function loosely like the Estates. You assign a province either to Catholic and Orthodox (or Bosnian) church, thus getting and losing support of the churches you interact with. If you tip the balance over to one church too much, you get massive revolts. Do you think this would be an interesting way to go? Also, i'm against making Bosnian a distinct culture in EU. If you think it's very necessary, then i would argue that only a few provinces in Bosnia should have Bosnian culture eventually. What do you think?

The earliest cultural and linguistic roots of Bosnian history can be traced back to the Migration Period of the Early Middle Ages. At that time, the Slavs from southeastern Europe invaded the Eastern Roman Empire and settled the Balkan peninsula. There, they mixed with the indigenous paleo-Balkan peoples, mostly romanized tribes, generically known as the Illyrians on the territory of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also the Celtic population which had intermingled with these since the 4th century BC, and to a lesser extent the Germanic-speaking Ostrogoths which had entered the area in the late 4th century AD. From the chaos of the Dark Ages, from 800 AD, the Slavic tribes coalesced into early principalities. As these expanded, they came to include other Slavic tribes and territories, and later evolved into centralized Kingdoms.

The Croats to the west swore allegiance to Rome, influenced by neighboring Catholic kingdoms, while the Serbs to the east fell under Byzantine influence and embraced Orthodoxy; these religious differences became part of their defining themselves as distinct peoples or ethnic groups.

According to the most important source for west balkans medieval history; Byzantinian source De Administrando Imperio (DAI), most of Bosnia region was divided by Croats (counties: Pliva, Pesenta, Livno) and Serbs.

No Bosnians are mentioned as a nationality in the vast pages of DAI

In the twelfth century, a Bosnian state arose that was characterized by an independent religious structure. It developed as a powerful kingdom in the fourteenth century; the designation Bošnjani was used to describe the kingdom's inhabitants. It was probably a regional name derived from the river Bosna, which flows through the heart of the kingdom.

As the centuries passed, the Bosnian kingdom slowly began to decline. It had become fractured by increased political and religious disunity. By then, the Ottoman Turks had already gained a foothold in the Balkans. First defeating the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo and expanding westward, the Turks eventually conquered all of Bosnia and portions of neighboring Croatia. Territory that partly belonged to the medieval Croatian Kingdom and partly to the Bosnian Kingdom remained under Ottoman rule for centuries, so long that it was referred to as Turkish Croatia (later as Bosanska Krajina).

These developments altered Bosnian history, as many residents adopted Islam, adding to the complex Bosnian ethno-religious identity. The Bosnian Church disappeared, although the circumstances of its decline has been debated as much as defining its nature and origins. Some historians contend that the Bosnian Krstjani converted en masse to Islam, seeking refuge from Catholic and Orthodox persecution. Others argue that the Bosnian Church had already ceased to operate many decades before the Turkish conquest. Whatever the case, a native and distinct Slavic Muslim community developed among the Bosnians under Ottoman rule, quickly becoming dominant. By the early 1600s, approximately two-thirds of the Bosnian population was Muslim.

 

[Moac]

The current division is a bit too lazy in my opinion - western half Croatian and eastern Serbian and easily done!

While there can be no doubt that a lot of Croats today draw descent from the earlier Bosnian denizens, it is questionable, at least, whether that can be extended to those denizens themselves.

We're talking about the late Middle Ages at the start and the Medieval Bosnian kingdom had political independence as well as religious, linguistic and other particularities which separated the Bosnians from the Croats as well as the Serbs. It would be wrong in my opinion to simply transfer them over to either of the two neighboring ethnic groups.

And in the later period of time, talking about Bosnia's Muslims, they are neither Croats nor Serbs without doubt. Both nations had attempted to, in some manner, integrate that ethnicity, but that's beyond this time period; we're talking about Victoria 2 here so it's not really all that relevant for this discussion.

I would disagree that Bosnia´s Muslims are anything other then Croatian/Bosnian or Serbian Converts to Islam , If you even look at their grandparents or grand-grandparents : Muslims who are aware of their roots and old family history are well aware of who they are.
The reason why there are more "Bosnjaks" in Bosnia today than either Croats or Serbs is because they truly did embrace Muslim values of family structure (also due to Ottoman Conversions and tax system) & because many Croats and even Serbs did move from Bosnia for one reason or the other. More Croats today live around the World than even in Croatia & Bosnia itself.
I don't think there is one Serb or Croat in Bosnia that does not view themselves as a Bosnian , since Bosnian is regional name for two distinct nationalities (either Croat or Serb).
Faith has divided the people apart, not long ago most Muslims in Bosnia viewed themselves as Yugoslavians , they embraced that National identity more than any other group in Yugoslavia. Why do you think that is?
I say all that out of the deepest respect and as my view of History, not to be taken as an offense.

 

[otaats]

I would disagree that Bosnia´s Muslims are anything other then Croatian/Bosnian or Serbian Converts to Islam , If you even look at their grandparents or grand-grandparents : Muslims who are aware of their roots and old family history are well aware of who they are.
The reason why there are more "Bosnjaks" in Bosnia today than either Croats or Serbs is because they truly did embrace Muslim values of family structure (also due to Ottoman Conversions and tax system) & because many Croats and even Serbs did move from Bosnia for one reason or the other. More Croats today live around the World than even in Croatia & Bosnia itself.
I don't think there is one Serb or Croat in Bosnia that does not view themselves as a Bosnian , since Bosnian is regional name for two distinct nationalities (either Croat or Serb).
Faith has divided the people apart, not long ago most Muslims in Bosnia viewed themselves as Yugoslavians , they embraced that National identity more than any other group in Yugoslavia. Why do you think that is?
I say all that out of the deepest respect and as my view of History, not to be taken as an offense.

That's quite beautifully said, with all respect to opposite opinion

Also, if there's anyone who loves reading, there is a Yugoslavian nobel prize winner in literature Ivo Andric, who wrote a beautiful book called The Bridge on the Drina (Na Drini Ćuprija), which beautifully describes all the difficulties and wonders of the coexistence of muslims and christians in a Bosnian town under Ottoman rule. The bridge in question is the beautiful Mehmed Pasha Sokolović bridge, and the story revolves around the struggles of local population to build it, etc. It's truly a remarkable book.

 

[Moac]

That's quite beautifully said, with all respect to opposite opinion

Also, if there's anyone who loves reading, there is a Yugoslavian nobel prize winner in literature Ivo Andric, who wrote a beautiful book called The Bridge on the Drina (Na Drini Ćuprija), which beautifully describes all the difficulties and wonders of the coexistence of muslims and christians in a Bosnian town under Ottoman rule. The bridge in question is the beautiful Mehmed Pasha Sokolović bridge, and the story revolves around the struggles of local population to build it, etc. It's truly a remarkable book.

I checked some themes and motifs of the book : The Bridge on the Drina , I must say that I am very much interested in reading it.
Found this part on Wikipedia that I liked and I find is very telling , in my opinion:
"Muslim Slavs depicted in the novel, he asserts, fall under three types: "the evil Turk", "the good Turk" and the janissary, who secretly mourns being severed from his Christian brethren."

I myself do view Bosnian Muslims as the abducted children , our people , seemingly , forever in shadow of their (forced upon) shameful past.
I do view them as brethren , regardless of their faith , but we , to them, serve as the eternal reminder of what was and what was lost.
The damage the Ottoman Turks have done is still with us to this very day. What i find most regretful is that Bosnjaks now , by-and-large, have turned their mind and soul from this truth - even embracing their abductors in the night , their enslavers, as close brethren while they look at us , their kin, with discontent & anger in their eyes.

 

[otaats]

You should definitely read it. Especially if you've seen the bridge and the town yourself. I've never read a book that's so beautifully descriptive and emotional, while it felt like it was written by a distant, silent observer. It was so well-written i felt that he is illustrating literally everything to me - the place, the people, the emotions, the nature itself... I could literally see everything that was written and feel like i was there, observing silently with him.


I agree with most of what you said, this is a strong sentence: ...to them, serve as the eternal reminder of what was and what was lost. And yes, most of Bosniaks that have strong sentiments today are more into Turkey than into Bosnia, if you know what i mean. What you quoted though, is just a review of a professor of islamic studies, who didn't like the book and thought it was religion-cist? Coexistence was what defined everyone living in Bosnia since it's creation. Unfortunately it was well-shaken by the Ottoman occupation period, but this book also illustrates how there was also a lot of humanity and love between the brothers of different faith.

Today things are different. The nationalist in me can always je*k off on old maps of the Serbian empire and whatnot, but the truth is, here is where we stand today. And today, there is Bosnia, and Bosniaks. Unfortunately the peace in Bosnia only stopped the killings. Politicians still dream of that turf, and neither Croats nor Serbs came out of Bosnia happy. I sincerely hope our peoples won't ever buy into the bull*hit that gets encouraged by the outside powers. Whenever i start thinking too much about our differences today, i just remember history: i can't recall any full-scale wars between Croatia and Serbia, or Bosnia anytime in the middle ages. There was obviously a strong reason for that (hypothetical example: who would dare to attack Yugoslavia?), but unfortunately the IQ of our leaders in 20th century dropped significantly.

 

[Slavicist]

I'm also trying to approach this with complete objectivity, although as i said, there are so many versions of history out here and so many wrong conclusions, that nearly everything is a subject of discussion. I think that Bosnia would be interesting with a unique mechanic, called "Bosnian Church' for example, where you would manage accepted minorities and province religions. It would function loosely like the Estates. You assign a province either to Catholic and Orthodox (or Bosnian) church, thus getting and losing support of the churches you interact with. If you tip the balance over to one church too much, you get massive revolts. Do you think this would be an interesting way to go? Also, i'm against making Bosnian a distinct culture in EU. If you think it's very necessary, then i would argue that only a few provinces in Bosnia should have Bosnian culture eventually. What do you think?

Yes, I agree with you on both accounts. Excellent thoughts.

I don't think it's necessary; this is a video game, after all. Although, I do think that we should not fall prey to modern era stereotypes and that includes thinking that the Croats, Serbs and Bulgarians are the only existing South Slavic peoples. The real pictures is actually a lot more complicated than that concept which is a remnant of 19th century literature (in this case I am referring to the irredentist viewpoints that most Bosniaks are of either Croatian or Serbian descent, which is actually a rather widespread opinion among many Croat and Serb masses).

 

[DanubianCossak]

(in this case I am referring to the irredentist viewpoints that most Bosniaks are of either Croatian or Serbian descent, which is actually a rather widespread opinion among many Croat and Serb masses).

Could you enlighten these irredentist masses what they are then? And if possible point to some medieval source that mentions them.

 

[Slavicist]

Other than the Bosnian church (which from what i gather is a mishmash of Catholic and Othodox) which was pseudo-autocephalial over the general area, best i can tell, Bosniak as a distinct culture (instead of 'merely' being the messy borderlands between where Croats and Serbs was massively dominant, which again, might well mainly have been a question which religion they followed) was first recognized in 1800s by Austrians trying to divide and rule the Balkan population, using the 'Bosniak' tag to describe people of the ethnic/cultural continuum which were Muslims

You must be referring to the attempts of Benjamin Kállay. That was an Austro-Hungarian experiment of forging a unified Bosnian-Herzegovinian which ultimately failed, due to precisely the reason that it was falsely perceived that BH was populated by one people of three different religions; the idea had crumbled under the sheer importance of the ethno-religious communities (Bosnian Muslims, Eastern Orthodox Serbs and Roman Catholic Croats); that same error, denying the fact that three different ethnics populate the land will have been a problem over the following century and more over and over again.

This is an interesting reading to recommend, from the words of a historian of Croatian descent: http://courses.washington.edu/ethnopol/Links_files/What is a nation Denis Basic.pdf

What is worthwhile to notice, however, is that the idea of a Bosnian nation isn't something that is purely a project of Vienna and Budapest. Domestic intellectuals of both Christian and Islamic faith had considered those ideas; AFAIK, the concept of Bosnian nationhood will actually be something initialed by the Bosnian Catholics, rather than Muslims, so there's a bit of an interesting situation over there since the idea (propagated by priests of the Catholic Church such as Ivan Frano Jukic and Antun Knezevic) will in the end not be accepted by the majority of their ethnoreligious community, which instead adopted a Croatian national consciousness en masse. On the other hand the idea of a Bosnian nation had been accepted by the land's Muslims, albeit a little later.

It may also be a bit wrong to mention that the reason was purely divide et impera. Yes, Austria-Hungary had, for one part, clearly than in mind, for it feared the strengthening of the Croatian National Awakening, some of whose main leaders had had dreams of expanding Croatia into the former Ottoman territories to the east, and on the other hand the ever-growing revolutionary potential threat from the Greater Serbia idea. On the other hand, the idea was to actually unify the country's population and, internally speaking, end the tripartite divisions that form the basis of inter-community relations within Bosnia (and remained to do so until today).
Bosnia's population was divided already pretty enough; the three creeds did not live together, but next to each other, especially the division between Muslims and dhimmis. The communities were not organically connected and had existed in a form of a segregationist society, bound together only by the Moon and Crescent of the Empire. But most of this post isn't relevant for EU IV, but VIctoria 2's timeframe, so to shorten the conclusion, the written is especially relevant in the pre-Modern era.

And just to note, I acknowledge that there are widespread stereotypes among the Croats and Serbs regarding this matter (and the Bosniaks themselves too have got their own mythologized perception of history), but what I am talking here about is professional history. The mainstream Serbian historians do not claim that Bosniaks are "actually" Serbs, or of Serb descent, and neither do the Croatian.
If you came to the University of Belgrade claiming that the Bosniaks are Serbs, you'll get laughed out at the Faculty of Philisophy and (if time allows) asked to clarify your statements. The Bosnian Muslims aren't treated as Serbs neither at the School of Yugoslav History, nor Serbian 19th and early 20th century courses, or the EU IV time frame Serbian national history (Early Modern) - whether we're talking about Vojin Dabic, Milos Jagodic or Academy of Sciences and Arts member, professor Ljubodrag Dimic.

 

[teodorfon]

Domestic intellectuals of both Christian and Islamic faith had considered those ideas; AFAIK, the concept of Bosnian nationhood will actually be something initialed by the Bosnian Catholics, rather than Muslims, so there's a bit of an interesting situation over there since the idea (propagated by priests of the Catholic Church such as Ivan Frano Jukic and Antun Knezevic)

"We Bosniaks, the once-famous people, now that we are barely alive, our friends of science see us as head detached from the Slavic tree and pity us ... It is time to awake from a long lasting negligence; give us the cup, and from well of apprehension, inexhaustibly gain knowledge, wisdom; firstly let us try to cleanse our hearts from prejudice, reach for books and magazines, let's see what the others did, so that we can use the same means, that our nation of simple people from the darkness of ignorance to the light of truth we bring."
— Ivan Frano Jukić

"...Let our neighbors be very angry about our pride in our old name, language, and customs and our outright refusal to embrace their name as a mark of our nationality and language. In their attacks on us our neighbors – to be quite clear, let us call them Jovo and Ivo – are in agreement. But they both are asking from us something else because they can’t for the life of them see eye to eye on this. Our friend Jovo wants us to take on his name, while our friend Ivo says, “no way, Bosniak, you are mine and you must embrace my name.” And so they go on back and forth, never bothering to ask us..."
— Fra Antun Knežević

 

[Khalesh]

I for one am not happy with changing shipyards and dock availability in the tech tree.

Sailors are a useless mechanic

Shipyards are useful and fun as both repair time and naval force limit increase are a great mechanic

Just do away with sailors or if you really have to delay the fun and use of shipyards please add something like ship building cost reduction to the Docks

Probs wont be seen be the devs so far into this thread and cant imagine anyone who actually uses ships is happy with this change

When I play a naval power (Holland, England or heck Castile, France etc) I always build shipyards and never build Docks

I will continue to NOT build docks and all this is doing is delaying the building of Shipyards

 

[TinyWiking]

Stay on topic ladies and gentlemen or posts will be removed. Off-topic should be in the Off-topic forum. This is the only warning there will be.

 

[Meraklija]

Sorry for asking but when this patch will be released?

 

[CoolSpin]

Sorry for asking but when this patch will be released?

I came here to ask the same question..

 

[LoriKe]

I came here to ask the same question..

Late april.