I thought it might be quite useful to try and find a consensus position that most people will sign up to or at least acknowledge as a happy medium for the developers with respect to dialect and culture.
I see the following problems and principles:
- The word "Russian" has to be handled with great care, because of the modern context. In the context of Europe in the 1300s, "Russia" pertains to those people who would have identified or would have been identified by others as of the Rus. This would have encompassed a wide swathe of peoples from what is now Ukraine all the way through modern Russia. In the modern context, "Russia" usually pertains to the state of Russia, and labelling cultures or dialects as related to or subordinate to a Russian category carries potential nationalist overtones.
- The words "Ukrainian" and "Belarusian" equally have to be handled with great care, because in the context of Europe in the 1300s, neither word meant what it did today. "Ukrainian" referred specifically to those parts of the territory of the Rus which bordered the steppes, but was used for such territories running all the way from what is modern left-bank Ukraine to as far north as Ryazan (c.f. the Kievan Chronicle). The term did not become the established term for the broad area or peoples we currently recognise as Ukrainian until the late 1600s. Similarly, "Belarusian", in the form of Alba Russiae, initially referred simply to Rus peoples and areas not under direct Mongol control, and in any event was an exonym, which was not adopted as an endonym in the form Byelorussia, until the early 1800s.
- Cultural names which are named after major cities have some problems, because of the extreme fragmentation in the early 1300s owing to Tatar influence, and bearing in mind the potential for history in EU5 to diverge from our own history. It is entirely plausible that Tver could become the dominant north-eastern state of the Rus people, particularly under player control, creating a dissonance if the culture of Tver is Moskovian or otherwise related to the city of Moscow/Moskva. The sole exception is perhaps Novgorodian, because the political area controlled by Novgorod was extensive and less-fragmented with few alternative power-players, with only real exception being Pskov. Similarly cultural names which portray grander imperial aspirations like Russia also need care, because in this alternate history it is entirely plausible that Russia could be formed from Kyiv and the ruling culture be from the aristocracy of Kyiv.
- Equally, cultural names need to have some kind of cultural bearing. "compass-point" culture names like "North Russian" or "South Russian" present significant immersion problems for players, and do not feel like real identities to build a polity around or create an engaging playthrough. There is therefore a need to identify "clusters" of players who competed for control of a given area, and try and find a touchstone identity - groups like Moscow-Tver, or
- This is less of an issue for dialects, because dialectical divisions are necessarily arbitrary even compared to cultural divisions, and because dialects are not expected to form the sole touchstone for any kind of self-identity.
- Although it is not guaranteed that EU5 follow our own history, it should at least allow for own history as a possible outcome. Consequently, there should be some way for the modern understandings of the words "Russia", "Ukraine", and "Belarus" to arise (or if not modern, at least the understanding of them in the mid-1800s).
With this in mind:
Languages in 1337
L1 (Language Group): Slavic
L2 (Language): East Slavic, Church Slavonic
L3 (Dialect): North-East Rus, North Rus, Central Rus, South Rus, South-West Rus
As per this map, which I note all users have generally accepted as a reasonably approximate presentation of the system on the ground at the time.
All the dialects are dialects of East Slavic, which is a single language. The only relevant non-dialect is Church Slavonic.
View attachment 1232392
Cultures in 1337
L1 (Culture Group): Rus
L2 (Culture): Novgorodian, Zalessian, Severian, Ukrainian, Polatskian, Kyivan, Volhynian, Galician, Smolenskian
Corresponding very approximately to the map below: Novgorodian to the territory controlled by the principality of Novgorod, Zalessian to the territory controlled by the principality of Rostov-Suzal, Severian to the territory controlled by the principality of Chernigov, Polatskian to the territory controlled by the principality of Polotsk, Ukrainian to the territory controlled by the principality of Pereyalsv, Kyivan to the territory controlled by the principality of Kyiv, Volhynian to the territory controlled by the principality of Volhynia, Smolenskian to the principality of Smolensk, and Galician to the territory controlled by the principality of Halych. Murom-Ryazan would also have Zalessian culture, rather than a distinct culture.
View attachment 1232401
Why this solution? For the following reasons: the disintegration and fragmentation of the Rus' after the Mongol invasion was at least in some respects quasi-legalistic. Principalities typically collapsed into apanages which still recognised the role of a senior prince or overarching legal framework, such as the title of Grand Prince of Vladimir for the Zalessian area. Polities in each of these areas typically pushed for control or consolidation of their own bloc before pushing towards other areas. Using the broad areas of the principalities just prior to the Mongol invasion therefore creates the broad sociocultural structures any given polity would be wanting and have motivation to unify.
The names broadly avoid being tied to any one specific city, allowing for e.g a dominant Tver. There are five exceptions - Kyivan (after Kyiv), Novgorodian (after Novgorod), Polatskian (after Polotsk), Smolenskian (after Smolensk), and Galician (after Halych) (also technically Volhynia is named after a city, but a semi-mythical one so we'll ignore that).
Can we justify these? For two, my view is we can. Novgorod was the only real power player in the cultural area described above, which was for the most part unified throughout the game period either under Novgorod itself or subsequently under Moskva-Russia. The sole exception would be the pesky and troublesome Pskov, which was often
de facto independent of Novgorod and carved out its own niche. The difficulty is that it is very difficult to identify an alternative cultural name, because the dialect is typically called Old Novgorodian, the corresponding Kyivan Rus' principality was Novgorod, and Veliky Novgorod was the dominant power for the early game period without much exception. I am not aware of a satisfactory alternative geographic or cultural term.
The cultural area marked as Kyivan was always united together with Kyiv in much the same way, either under the Principality of Kyiv or later under the Kyiv Voivodeship. The sole exception is when half of the Kyiv Voivodeship was succeeded to Russia and the remaining portion was assigned the capital of Zhytomyr, but a) the bulk of the Kyivan cultural area was still associated with Kyiv, and b) Zhytomyr was not any kind of independent player or genuine challenger to cultural hegemony but just the Polish administrative choice when lacking Kyiv itself. I do not think there is much reason to call this culture anything other than Kyivan, particularly because of the prestige status of Kyiv as the pregenitor of the Rus' cultural system.
The difficult candidates are Polatskian, Smolenskian, and Galician. I'm not absolutely satisfied with either. Polotsk was not the only relevant political player in the area - there is also Vitebsk. Similarly, Halych had largely been surpassed by Lviv in significance even at game-start. Very much open to alternative suggestions for these two. One possible suggestion I suggest with considerable caution is to, despite the slight ahistoricity, call Polatskian "Belarusian", which is at least neutral to the potential playable tags in the area, but is using a term that would not have been recognised at the time. No real good suggestions for Smolensk either.
Other potential cultures: My view is that there is a reasonable argument to consider giving Pskov its own culture to represent the separate civic culture it formed from Novgorod. There is also potentially an argument for a culture to cover the Ryazan-Murom area, given the length of time for which Ryazan resisted incorporation into Moscow. However, I do want to be careful with creating too many disparate cultures.
Dynamics
Finally, how do we go from 1337 to 1838? How can the game represent the emergence of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (or perhaps more pertinently for 1838, Russia, White Russia, and Little Russia).
This is a little hard to say without knowing how relevant cultural dynamics work. However, in general this is the systems that would seem to be needed:
Separatist Revolts: if the Khmelnytsky Uprising is a separatist revolt, you can get the outline of Ukraine began to form IRL. If the revolt starts in the Ukrainian culture area, but is successful enough to liberate Rus' cultures under Polish control generally, then you end up with large parts of modern Ukraine under the control of a state with Ukraine primary culture (even if it also contains e.g. Kyvian and Volhynian cultures among others). It is probably sufficient to have "Ukraine" be the primary TAG for the Ukrainian culture. The rest of the modern status quo is effectively just cultural assimilation as Ukrainian culture supplants Kyivan and Volhynian cultures in those areas. There would also need to be the option for a Ukrainian primary-culture TAG to take the decision to "
Form Ukraine".
Although slightly ahistorical and projecting current views backwards, current Ukrainian may also appreciate the option of a decision to "Form Ukraine" available to any Rus primary culture which controls enough of the Ukrainian cultural area, allowing someone playing the principality of Kyiv to form Ukraine even if the primary culture is Kyivan rather than Ukrainian - potentially with the AI blocked from taking this.
Getting Belarusian to emerge is more complex. One option is for Belarusian culture to emerge in around the 1600s, and for any Rus pops under the control of the Lithuania tag to began to convert to Belarusian, with any TAG that has the primary culture Belarusian and controls enough territory being able to
Form Belarus. The other option, mooted above, is just for the Belarusian culture to be present from the start instead of being called Polatskian. I don't think there's an easy answer here.
Finally, Russian. As mooted before, my view is the best way to handle this is with the
Form Russia decision, where any sufficiently dominant TAG that controls enough of the Rus area is allowed to switch to the TAG named Russia. On switching, that TAG's primary culture and court language are dynamically renamed to "Russian", if dynamic culture renaming is possible. Again, although slightly projecting backwards, Ukrainian and Belarusian players may also appreciate the existence of a decision to
Form Rus, which is exactly the same decision but the TAG is called Rus, and the primary culture and court language are dynamically renamed to "Rus"- again potentially with the AI blocked from taking this, according to taste and sensibility. These represent imperial proclamations of ambition and primacy in the area.
Finally, culture conversion - culture should be relatively strongly propogated from the capital of a given TAG with the power dropping off over geographic distance, such that if e.g. Moscow-Russia controls Smolensk for a time, then Smolensk's culture should fairly easily change to Russian, but if Moscow-Russia controls Kyiv for a time, then Kyiv's cultural change is more resistant because of the sheer distance from Moscow and the difficulty in norms being propogated across such an area.
Conclusion
I'm hoping as many people as possible can sign up to this scheme - I think it fairly represents the starting layout and allows for a trend towards a final layout. There are a few difficult edge cases - the position of Pskov and Ryazan, the status of Belarusian - but for the most part I think it presents the similarities between the cultures and the general dialect continuum that existed across the area, whilst at the same time recognising the fragmentation that characterised the area throughouth the 1300s and having an awareness of modern sensibilities.
More than willing to take on suggestions.
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