Tinto Flavour #3 - 24th of January 2025 - Novgorod

[I_have_no_ideas_for_name]

I think, in the end, what we call Kievan Rus' or Old Rus' are just historiographic designations. The reality we had was Rus' of Yaroslav the Wise, with Kyiv as its capital.

When feudal fragmentation began in Rus', and the unified Rus' ceased to exist, each of the emerging states dreamed of asserting its right to the legacy of Rus'. This applies to the Principality of Moscow, the Galicia-Volhynia Principality, and even the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was extremely advantageous for all of them to claim that they were the new center of Rus', the true heirs of Rus' of Yaroslav the Wise, and that all the Rus' principalities should rally around them. The Novgorod Republic itself began to call itself the "Lord Novgorod the Great" as a result of the intensified rivalry with Moscow under Dmitry Donskoy, in an attempt to equalize itself with the title of Grand Prince. And not to cede the right of primacy to Moscow.

Therefore, it seems to me that the most correct thing would be if, as in reality, all the Rus' principalities (plus Lithuania) could have competed with each other for the right to create Rus' as the successor to Rus' of Yaroslav the Wise and as a new center in Rus' lands. And this Rus' could have been vastly different, with its own distinct features, depending on which entity became the new center - Lithuania, Kyiv, Halych, Moscow, Novgorod, and so on.

History unfolded in such a way that Moscow became this center. But it could have easily turned out differently. In an alternative reality, any of the mentioned states could have become the center, but they all would have seized the moment and called themselves Rus' to claim the legacy of Yaroslav the Wise. And we certainly would not have ended up with a state that somehow called itself Severiya, for no reason.

I remember under the Russia Tinto Maps post there was a popular suggestion to add Kyivan Rus' as a formable nation separate from Russia.
This post explains why that is a wrong idea: The historical Tsardom of Russia already was a successor state to Medieval Rus', just with a slightly different name. I think it would be more accurate to allow the Ukrainian princedoms (and maybe Lithuania) to also form the Russia tag but with a different name and have unique flavour for each type of unifier.

 

[Cuke]

well the russians pronounce the E as Ye so techinacally it should be Soviet

No. Russians palatalize the V instead and don't pronounce the E as Ye.

 

[livebythecreed77]

I think, in the end, what we call Kyivan Rus' or Old Rus' are just historiographic designations. The reality we had was Rus' of Yaroslav the Wise, with Kyiv as its capital.

When feudal fragmentation began in Rus', and the unified Rus' ceased to exist, each of the emerging states dreamed of asserting its right to the legacy of Rus'. This applies to the Principality of Moscow, the Galicia-Volhynia Principality, and even the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was extremely advantageous for all of them to claim that they were the new center of Rus', the true heirs of Rus' of Yaroslav the Wise, and that all the Rus' principalities should rally around them. The Novgorod Republic itself began to call itself the "Lord Novgorod the Great" as a result of the intensified rivalry with Moscow under Dmitry Donskoy, in an attempt to equalize itself with the title of Grand Prince. And not to cede the right of primacy to Moscow.

Therefore, it seems to me that the most correct thing would be if, as in reality, all the Rus' principalities (plus Lithuania) could have competed with each other for the right to create Rus' as the successor to Rus' of Yaroslav the Wise and as a new center in Rus' lands. And this Rus' could have been vastly different, with its own distinct features, depending on which entity became the new center - Lithuania, Kyiv, Halych, Moscow, Novgorod, and so on.

History unfolded in such a way that Moscow became this center. But it could have easily turned out differently. In an alternative reality, any of the mentioned states could have become the center, but they all would have seized the moment and called themselves Rus' to claim the legacy of Yaroslav the Wise. And we certainly would not have ended up with a state that somehow called itself Severiya, for no reason.

Im not sure I agree about the Lithuania part of this but seems the most reasonable and makes sense to my understanding of the history.

 

[kslopatin]

I think it would be a good idea to add a Pskov Judicial Charter (Pskovskaya Sudnaya Gramota) as an unique law code for Pskov. This act regulated civil law and etc. It is unique act for Russian law system of this period (no other Russian principality had such a detailed law).

 

[Danskjävel]

Spot on @MelogoleM this would be the non-deterministic approach, reading the era in it's own logic. Instead of superimposing later events 500 years back in history.

And allows for far more varied gameplay, without sacrificing historicity. Quite contrarily, I'd say this would be the more historical representation instead of some deterministic telos.

 

[PegasKyiv]

Will we have tinto flavor about Kyiv?(restore former glory or repeat historical fall)

 

[Foke]

In the events what does the book in the first option mean? Is it to show which option is the historical one?

 

[FreeLancer8A]

Why are the creation years of Novgorod's works of art in the 12th century (1100s)? Even the description dtates that they were created in the 11th century (1000s)

 

[Foke]

Is the artist salary modifier correct here? Was it supposed to be -40% / -0.4 multiplier ? Ofcourse, we don't know anything about how the game is balanced but -0.4% sounds really small

 

[onodera]

There are no hardblocks to the selection, although we'd love to read any feedback regarding it, if you guys think that it can be improved.

The ruler has to be (or become) Orthodox, of course. Lithuanian rulers being religiously flexible and having some Orthodox sons to contest the thrones of Pskov and Novgorod was a thing.

 

[Dan29067]

I think, in the end, what we call Kyivan Rus' or Old Rus' are just historiographic designations. The reality we had was Rus' of Yaroslav the Wise, with Kyiv as its capital.

When feudal fragmentation began in Rus', and the unified Rus' ceased to exist, each of the emerging states dreamed of asserting its right to the legacy of Rus'. This applies to the Principality of Moscow, the Galicia-Volhynia Principality, and even the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was extremely advantageous for all of them to claim that they were the new center of Rus', the true heirs of Rus' of Yaroslav the Wise, and that all the Rus' principalities should rally around them. The Novgorod Republic itself began to call itself the "Lord Novgorod the Great" as a result of the intensified rivalry with Moscow under Dmitry Donskoy, in an attempt to equalize itself with the title of Grand Prince. And not to cede the right of primacy to Moscow.

Therefore, it seems to me that the most correct thing would be if, as in reality, all the Rus' principalities (plus Lithuania) could have competed with each other for the right to create Rus' as the successor to Rus' of Yaroslav the Wise and as a new center in Rus' lands. And this Rus' could have been vastly different, with its own distinct features, depending on which entity became the new center - Lithuania, Kyiv, Halych, Moscow, Novgorod, and so on.

History unfolded in such a way that Moscow became this center. But it could have easily turned out differently. In an alternative reality, any of the mentioned states could have become the center, but they all would have seized the moment and called themselves Rus' to claim the legacy of Yaroslav the Wise. And we certainly would not have ended up with a state that somehow called itself Severiya, for no reason.

Kingdom of Ruthenia was already confirmed as present formable tag with some flavour associated with it ( for Ukrainian and Belarusian principalities I assume) And I hope that playing as Novgorod or Pskov even after forming Russia (or any other tag) would feel different from playing Muscovy. So needed minimum for variability is already there I think. Of course it could be expanded after release (the devs have said that they are doing historical content first)

 

[DirkGrandS]

Is it correct that the dynasty of Rurikovich/Rurikid is called like that in 1337?

As I understand it Rurik was probably a fictional character and using him as ancestor for the dynasty was only started in th 16th century.

 

[Kotyk-durkotyk]

I really like the term "Old Rus'" as a compromise, but I can't seem to find any information about Mykhailo Maksymovych being the first one to use the term "Kyivan Rus".
Could you provide any sources? All I could find was him legitimising the term "Malorussia" and "Little Russia" when talking about Ukraine, which, well, didn't age well to say the least...

_______________________________
Short intro about Maksymovych
(those who are not interested can skip this part)
Ukrainian sources have much more information on him He is not considered as some kind of ultra-nationalist activist leader, but he is respected in Ukraine as a prominent Ukrainian scientist. He is considered to be the first actual historian on Kyivan Rus, he read and analysed a lot of data, translated the cronicles in Ukrainian, he gathered a lot of folklore and proposed a new writing version for the Ukrainian language and these things had to go in parallel with what you mentioned. Maksymovych lived in a certain political context* (an example at the end).

He held professor positions in biology and Russian linguistics in Moscow university and then was the first head of the Kyivan National University. And because of political reasons he was not favoured and retired quite early at the age of 35 and switched completely to history, ethnnography, linguistics and archaelogy.

For example, some of his works show that when he retired in the 1830s he started to use Ukrainian a bit more freely Even though almost everything had to be published in Russian (red – Little-Russian, blue – Ukrainian):

His almanac 'The Ukrainian' was highly critisised by the censorship.
_______________________________

The first mention of 'Kyivan Rus':

Moreover, the term 'Kyivan Rus' appeared thanks to Maksymovych, it had never been used before. He firstly used it in his work 'Where the land of Rus comes from. Notes on the Nestor's chronicle and other cronicles of ancient Rus', published in Kyiv in 1837. Maksymovych used it only in a narrow geographical context: Kyivan Rus, Polotsk Rus, White Rus etc.
100 years later a Russian academic Boris Grekov claimed that Kyivan Rus is not a narrow territorial term, but relates to the whole Rus and the 'empire of the Rurikids'. In this way the term got its political sense.

And the exact page (54) from 'Where the land of Rus comes from. Notes on the Nestor's chronicle and other cronicles of ancient Rus' with the first ever use of Kyivan Rus is particularly interesting:

And so the Novgorodian Land became Rus much later than North-Western Rus (White Rus), than North-Eastern Rus (Suzdal Rus), than South-Western Rus (Red Rus). All those had already been Rus by the XII century, and their cities had been the children of Kyiv. And after having lost all of them the original Rus has become Ukraine, and in the XIV century in Volodymyr-Volynsky got the name of Little Rus. And so this ancient Kyivan Rus was a source of the spirit of Rus for its brave sons, of the spirit of love for the Rus land and its glory, brought by the brightest Princes of Rus.

In one little paragraph he mentioned everything: Kyivan Rus, Ukraine, Little Rus, Original Rus and everyone could read it the way they want .

I would like to separately add that according to his context, the name Ukraine became relevant for that particular territory quite shortly after the Mongolian invasion and complete Rus disintegration, and probably before or at the beginning of the XIV century. In the XVI century it was already present in European maps. So that is why using Ukraine, Ukrainian can be totally justified even for the start date (e.g. area, probable culture, dialect namings, bur ofc should be consistent).
_______________________________
*lived in a certain political context - for example my own parents, grandparents considered themselves as Ukrainians without a doubt, but at the same time they were also 'Soviet people' and just lived in the Soviet context. They supported Dynamo Kyiv and hated Spartak and Dinamo Moskva because they were Russian, but supported the national football and hockey teams because they were 'our guys'. So it could be similar in the Russian Empire.

 

[GeneralNoob]

I hope the "Tatar Yoke" is not going to be a one dimensional relationship between the rus and the tatars. There is a well researched youtube video addressing the topic:

The Tatar relationship should have its advantages and disadvantages.

 

[GeneralNoob]

Ludi et Historia in his video said that he does not believe that Novgorod should fully join the Tatar Yoke IO, because then it would join the other Russian principalities in the war against the Golden Horde for liberation from tribute, which would make the process quite simple.

In this regard, I just wanted to note that Yanin V. L. believes that in reality Novgorod participated in the Battle of Kulikovo together with other Russian principalities. As proof, he says:

I dont understand this logic. Tatar tributaries should have the right to break off. The Golden Horde should get a CB to attack them. The Tatars attacked the rus to keep their flow of tribute. So the "breaking off" is something that was attempted many times anyways. The Golden horde had the nice effect of creating a prospering trade network. So your first action as a rus principality is to grow your wealth an army, ally with people and declare on the Golden Horde rather than forming a hug box to easily attack the Golden Horde.


The relationship between the Golden Horde and the Rus should be similar to how Ming and tributaries are implemented in EU4.

 

[thestrongstick]

Dear Developers, no hate here, but you need to spend more time onto Eastern European Research. Firstly, when you are talking about so called Kievan Rus lets pronounce words correctly, there is no Kiev but Kyiv, like why would choose modern russian name for the city, if you use local names then please use local names, or if you decide to name all cities in English then it's still Kyiv. Secondly, there is no such term "Kievan Rus", haven't you ever thought why would even be called so? Was there any other Rus? No? It is the only Rus, the term Kievan was added by imperial-russian and soviet historians as part of their propaganda to try to recenter the origins of Rus into Moscow, but we all well know that Kyiv was existing long before even first mentions of Moscow. All this "northern Rus parts" like Novgorod is not totally correct, since Rus was only localized around Kyiv, Chernigiv and Pereyaslav, all other parts where just paying tribute to Rus. At that time Moscow and other local principalities were located in the region called "Zalissya" (behind the forests), they were even somewhat separated from the Rus and committed a raid on Kyiv once after which the city was burned and robbed. Do not forget that Muscovy was called Muscovy for a reason, since it was just a local principality, which population mainly consisted of local tribes, ethnicities (Ural, also Tatar and Mongol) and a little bit of Slavs and had little connection to the Rus state. Haven't you ever thought why would future emperor Peter I rebrand Muscovy into Russian Empire? It was a start of the greatest Historical and Cultural heist of all times, but these usurpers did not have a common language at a time, which where specially developed later at the end of 18 century and all peasants mostly spoke their local languages while aristocracy used French or German.

So, shortly we can talk forever about these questions, but what I wanted to say is to not play along russian propaganda and please use term Rus in all your descriptions and in-game texts.

P.S. can't even use English to separate two meanings from one word (by using two different words?): Russian as related to Rus and russian as related to Rossiya (modern state).

 

[Cuke]

the term Kievan was added by imperial-russian and soviet historians as part of their propaganda to try to recenter the origins of Rus into Moscow, but we all well know

Great timing after this post, yay.

P.S. can't even use English to separate two meanings from one word (by using two different words?): Russian as related to Rus and russian as related to Rossiya (modern state).

Yep. One word, many periods.

 

[SolarSailor19]

So just to be clear, on release, it doesn't look like countries won't have missions or mission trees like EU4?

Instead flavour will come from events, laws, characters and advances?

Are you planning to add in mission trees or a similar structure further down the line?

 

[AHumpierRogue]

Sorry but I really preferred when estate privileges showed the actual influence they give. You have three boyar privileges in the OP that each give 20/50/50% influence respectively, but then you show a screenshot where their total influence is 55%. If the privilege gives 50% increase from their base influence, where is that influence shown? How does it change?

The percentage you are seeing is not the influence, but rather a modifier for power. So it's plus 20%/50%/50% power respectively. Basically all pops will have a base power rating, influenced by the raw number of pops(and I assume some pops have higher base power than others), the buildings they own, and the wealth of the estate. The power modifiers would modify this number further, so if the Nobles by default had a power rating of 200, a privelege which grants them 50% power would make their power rating be 300. This power rating is then presumably compared to the power rating of the other estates(Crown, Nobles, Clergy, Burghers, Commoners all having their own power rating) and this becomes their "influence" which is out of 100.

At least, this is how I think it works from what I've read.

 

[H.A.S.E.V.I.R.]

So, Novgorod runs out of flavour by 1500s, doesn't it?

Might be where Russia unique content takes over. Republic flavored.
Also a late veche could be pretty funny when your neighbours are HRE, Venice, Afghans, Ming and Ottomans. Also some american tribes. Now which one of those is to provide a ruler?

Then again those Human Resource Experts are the likeliest.