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Tinto Maps #9 - 5th of July 2024 - Carpathia and the Balkans

Greetings, and welcome to another Tinto Maps! This week we will be taking a look at Carpathia and the Balkans! It will most likely be an interesting region to take a look at, with a lot of passion involved… So I’ll just make an initial friendly reminder to keep a civil discussion, as in the latest Tinto Maps, as that’s the easiest way for us to read and gather your feedback, and improve the region in a future iteration. And now, let’s start with the maps!

Countries:
Countries.png

Carpathia and the Balkans start in a very interesting situation. The Kingdom of Hungary probably stands as the most powerful country in 1337, but that only happened after the recovery of the royal power enforced by Charles I Robert of the House of Anjou, who reined in the powerful Hungarian nobility. To the south, the power that is on the rise is the Kingdom of Serbia, ruled by Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, who has set his eyes on his neighbors to expand his power. The Byzantine Empire, meanwhile, is in a difficult position, as internal struggles ended in Andronikos III being crowned sole emperor, at the cost of dividing the realm; both Serbia and Bulgaria have in the past pressed over the bordering lands, while the Ottomans have very recently conquered Nicomedia. The control over the Southern Balkans is also very fractioned, with a branch of the Anjou ruling over Albania, the Despotate of Epirus under the nominal rule of Byzantium as a vassal, Athens, Neopatria and Salona as vassals of the Aragonese Kings of Sicily, Anjou protectorates over Achaia and Naxos, and only nominal Byzantine control over Southern Morea. It’s also noticeable the presence of the Republics of Venice and Genoa, which control several outposts over the Adriatic and Aegean Seas. A final note: in previous maps, Moldavia was shown in the map, but we’ve removed it from it, and it will most likely spawn through a chain of events in the 1340s.

Dynasties:
Dynasties.png

The House of Anjou rules over Naples, Hungary, Albania, Achaia, and Cephalonia; they’re truly invested in their push for supremacy over the region. Apart from that, each country is ruled by different dynasties, except for Athens and Neopatria, ruled by the House of Aragón-Barcelona.

Locations:
Locations 1.png

Locations 2.png

Locations 3.png

Locations 4.png
This week we’re posting the general map of the region, along with some more detailed maps, that can be seen if you click on the spoiler button. A starting comment is that the location density of Hungary is noticeably not very high; the reason is that it was one of the first European maps that we made, and we based it upon the historical counties. Therefore, I’m already saying in advance that this will be an area that we want to give more density when we do the review of the region; any help regarding that is welcome. Apart from that, you may notice on the more detailed maps that Crete appears in one, while not being present in the previous one; because of the zooming, the island will appear next week along with Cyprus, but I wanted to make an early sneak peek of the locations, given that is possible with this closer zoom level. Apart from that, I’m also saying in advance that we will make an important review of the Aegean Islands, so do not take them as a reference for anything, please.

Provinces:
Provinces.png

Provinces! Nothing outstanding to be commented on here; as usual, we’re open to any feedback regarding them.

Terrain:
Climate.png

Topography.png

Vegetation.png

Terrain! The climate of the region is mostly divided between Continental and Mediterranean, with some warmer and some colder regions. Regarding the topography, the Carpathian mountains are famously important and strategic, while the Balkans are a quite hilly and mountainous region, which is also greatly covered by woods and forests.

Cultures:
Cultures.png

Here comes the fun part of the DD: The cultural division of the Balkans! A few comments:
  1. Hungary is full of different minorities. Transylvania, especially, is an interesting place: there we have a mix of ‘Hungarians’, ‘Transylvanians’ (which are the Romanian-speaking inhabitants of the region), ‘Transylvanian Germans’, and ‘Szekely’ people.
  2. We have divided the Southern Slavic-speaking region into their dialectal families of Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian.
  3. The Southern Balkans are mostly divided among Bulgarian, Albanian, and Greek cultures.
  4. We’re also portraying plenty of other cultures, such as Dalmatians, Aromanians, Sclavenes, Arvanites, Cumans, Jasz, or Ashkenazi and Romanyoti Jews.

Religions:
Religion.png

This one is also interesting. Apart from the divide between Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, we have the Krstjani in Bosnia, Bogomils (the pink stripes both in Bosnia and Macedonia), and Paulicians in Thrace. The Jewish populations do not pass the threshold percentage to appear on the map, but there are plenty of communities across the region.

Raw Materials:
Raw Materials.png

The materials of the region. Something very noticeable is the richness of minerals, with plenty of Iron, Copper, Tin, Lead, Gold, and Silver. Specifically, Slovakia is very rich, and you definitely want more settlers to migrate to the region, and exploit its resources. The region is also very rich in agricultural resources, as you can see.

Markets:
Markets.png

The region is mostly divided among four markets: Venice, Pest, Ragusa and Constantinople.

Country and Location population:
Population 1.png

Population 2.png

Population 3.png

Population 4.png
Country and location population (which I’ve also sub-divided, and is under the Spoiler button).

And that’s all of today! I hope that you find the region interesting; we certainly think that it is. Next week we will go further south, and we will take a look at the Syrian Levant and Egypt. Cheers!
 
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Polesie Admiral said:
maybe we'll get the feedback for christmas?
Click to expand...
I gave them 2 hours of electricity a day, cars that you have to wait 5 years for not to get too greedy and can only drive 182 days a year to combat global warming, TV with their favorite person and no heat because we need to raise a generation of strong people. I'm sure the christmas feedback will be positive.
 
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This trip has been wild, my dudes.
 
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By the way, if the conclusion seems to be that there would be Jász/Alans in Moldavia, shouldn't we be using a more "generic" exonym for them? Like "Jassic"?
 
ArVass said:
By the way, if the conclusion seems to be that there would be Jász/Alans in Moldavia, shouldn't we be using a more "generic" exonym for them? Like "Jassic"?
Click to expand...
That does bring up a question - how long were they there? It souds like it was past 1337 but also that should probably be clarified.
It's possible that they are the same as the "Alans" mentioned before 1240, but that's a hundred years prior and they were almost certainly there then, so that doesn't mean anything...
 
Two nice sources that might help solve the Balkan questions. :)

First is: On the origin of the cultural and national identity of Alpine Slovenes (Iglič, 2020). I like it because it uses old and new sources of different schools, so you can make up your own mind what to trust, without forcing you into single-minded interpretation of history. It's cool because in the beginning in goes deep into migration period supported by latest findings in linguistic, genetics, archaeological research and then add on older sources and theories. Might be a cool research question for a budding historians how older, biased historians, took and understood fragments of truth available to them and then extrapolate the story, supported by their ideology vis-a-vis what balanced contemporary science can offer on the same topic.

Excerpt that might shed some light on above Moldavian-Romanian-Slavic-Hungarian-Germanic- + (I guess woke people learened from the Balkans how to approach identety questions hahahaha) debate about the original settlements in Carpathia....
''...The Alpine Slovenes (Fig. 4) were not a uniform tribe that migrated as one to the regions of the central
eastern and eastern Alps, the upper Sava River, and the Soča River; rather, they migrated in several
waves (Bezlaj, 1967; Bezlaj, 2003). Grafenauer believes that the first settlement wave took place in the
6th century (Grafenauer, 2000), proceeding first from the north (the western Slavic language group) and
later on from the east; a testament to this fact is supposedly the current Slovene language, which has
strong western Slavic roots (Bezlaj, 1967). It should be noted that the preserved Slovene Carinthian
dialects display many more typical western Slavic features than the Carniolan dialects, which represent
the basis for the modern Slovene language (Bezlaj, 1967).
In their new homeland, as recent genetic studies clearly show, the Alpine Slovenes at least partially
mixed with the indigenous people (Zupan et al., 2016; Delser et al., 2018). According to linguist Luka
Repanšek, without the above mentioned intermixing of peoples, the Celtic heritage in the toponomy of
the southeastern Alpine region could not have been preserved (Repanšek, 2016). An analysis of pre-
Slavic remnants in the names appearing in present-day Slovene territory has shown convincingly that
the old claims according to which the Alpine Slovenes (Fig. 4) migrated to a virtually unpopulated area
were baseless. In some mountainous regions, their harmonious coexistence with the indigenous
population lasted even half a millennium. In some settlements, archaeologists recently found traces of
uninterrupted continuity between antique and Slovene colonisation, which explains the fast cultural
development of Slovenes after they settled down in their new homeland. The Slovene language
preserved even some Romance and pre-Romance basic features, which cannot be found in any of the
neighbouring Romance languages (Bezlaj, 1967). Otto Kronsteiner, an Austrian Slavicist, therefore
believes that the Slovenes, and partially their present-day language, are a mixture of Slavic, Celtic, and
Romance (vulgar Latin) elements. As an interesting fact, it should also be noted that it is only with the
Slovenes, the Irish, and the Scots (Granda, 2008) that cases of a particular metabolic disease were
reported, while recent DNA analyses have shown a distinct percentage of Celtic genetic heritage in
Slovenes (bearing in mind that the Celts settled in present-day Slovene territory around 300 B.C.).
Furthermore, Bezlaj believed that the modern Slovene language includes many words of Illyrian
descent, while the Polish scientist Lech Leciejewicz (1988) indicated the presence of western Slavic
groups also in northern Russia (Fig. 4).
Most recent genetic studies (Zupan et al., 2013; Zupan et al., 2016; Delser et al., 2018; Mielnik-
Sikorska et al., 2013) also confirm that the present-day Slovenes are to a considerable extent the
descendents of indigenous peoples who lived in present-day Slovene territory and in the former Slovene
territories in present-day Austria, Hungary and Croatia (Fig. 1). This implies, similar to the situation in
many other Slavic regions in Europe (Kushniarevich et al., 2015), the cultural and linguistic assimilation
of indigenous populations by the arriving Slovene people as an important mechanism of the spread of
the Slovene (Slavic) language after the decline and later fall of the western part of the Roman Empire.
It therefore seems that Slovene and also Slavic expansions in general were to a large extent a linguistic
(Riasanovsky, 2005). The strong assimilation of indigenous peoples by the arriving smaller number of
incoming Slovene people might have been possible because of the highly egalitarian culture of the
arriving Slovene people, who among other things had no obligations to pay taxes (Pleterski. 2013),
which may have been very attractive to indigenous populations (called Vlachs by the Slovenes).
...''

________________________________________________________________________________________________________
hehehe 8. century Central Europe was really multikulti globalised place of harmony and GoT lvl dynastic and realpolitik drama. Truly ahead of its time. With only true enemy in the form of invading pagan migrants threatening the common prosperity....

The Slovene Carantanian Princes Gorazd (749–751) and
Hotimir (752–769), both inaugurated on the Prince’s Stone (Fig. 2), were christened on the island of
Herrenchiemsee at the Bavarian Lake Chiemsee (Kos, 1985), where they lived in an Irish monastery
school, which was esteblished by the Burgundians Benedectinian order under patronage of Merovingians and Carolingians, with the mission to compete with the Italian conversion efforts run from the Patriarchate of Aquileia, located where south-eastern Alps meet north Adriatic, an ancient nexus of trade-routes; and ofc the Byzantine success along the major Black Sea rivers in the east. The Rush to Proselytize the Pagans. To Make Rome Great Again.

I guess, since not much have changed, we truly most love our common European tradition we enjoy for the last 1200 years or so.... :D
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

The second is a bit longer, but very fun read, a scientific monograph called in rough English translation: Rebels, fierce clerics and the devil's soldiers: images from European and Slovenian imaginaries of the 16th century (Vinkler, 2012). It focuses on Austro-Ottoman wars, western experience of the Balkans at the time and the Protestant movement in Slovene lands. Even if you don't feel like reading, it's still worthy to check it out since it has tons of wonderful pictures dating to 16. century.

For a little taste, two quotes from letters describing the state of Catholic Church in duchies of Carniola and Styria:
''If your grace pleases, he will be able to enforce my orders with the help of the archduke Charles [II. of Austria], to whose fisc I committed all the fines of disobedient and obstinate clerics. And these fines will be from twenty to twenty-five thousand sequins [probably ducats or forints], because there is no priest or pastor who has not been ordered to do something about licentiousness, lewd behavior and fornication.'' by bishop Paolo Bisanti to the patriarch of Aquileia, Giovanni Grimani.

Again to patriarch Grimani, but this time from his vicar general Jacob Maracco: ''There is a nunnery in Styria with an income of several thousand forints(some say fifteen). In this monastery [of Dominican nuns Studenice, lower Styria] the abbess was very licentious, also a certain nun and two maidens.''
:D:D
 
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purplephoton said:
Aggregating the conversation on Moldova gives something vaguely like this (with maybe a couple fewer Ruthenians), I guess?
View attachment 1218852
Click to expand...
I'm still saying that early "Northern" Csángós should not be Székely at this date. Should be Hungarian or their own culture.

Székely Csángós are a thing, and many of the later migration waves that contributed to the modern Csángó group were Székelys (later in the early modern era), however they are differenciated from non-Székely Csángós for a reason.

Edit: also, the main population center of said Csángó group is around Roman, that location should probably have the highest number of them at that date (assuming Northern Csángós were at the same place where they are today). Toponymically, Bacău and Bârlad are thought to have Hungarian etymologies (edit of edit: although both have Slavic or Turkic suspected roots that passed through Hungarian), however I don't know if they had significant Hungarian population at that time.
 
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purplephoton said:
Aggregating the conversation on Moldova gives something vaguely like this (with maybe a couple fewer Ruthenians), I guess?
View attachment 1218852
Click to expand...
You killed the Slavic population and villages of Soroca and Orhei. There are some places that do not have villages at all, but you are claiming them solely for one culture. Orhei is the biggest offender on your map. Sources point out that there was a plurality of people there with multiple villages of every culture in question. For Tatars all we have for now is the city

I‘m sad. Also, I do not see a lot of Moldavian villages up north, however, there are Slavic ones where you put Germans in. So I don’t understand why you claim they were second by population.

Why is that? You are crushing the fragile peace we have.

My source:
IMG_3660.png
IMG_3661.png
 
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