Hello, my name is Tyraget and this is my first post here on Paradox Forum! A couple of days ago I released on YouTube my thoughts regarding the map of Poland, Lithuania, Halych, Volhynia etc. in EU5 and I was recommended multiple times there to leave my thoughts here. This post will have more details, than the video itself, as well as some references to the studies made by other historians regarding the subjects of today's discussion. I'd like to point out, however, that the map itself looks very good and the developers made a great job representing how this area looked from political, geographical, religious and other points of view in 1337 - it is indeed a difficult task, which was done successfully in my opinion.
To give a little background about myself - besides having a YouTube channel as a hobby for the audience from the countries of the former Soviet Union, I'm also a historian, who specializes on the 14th-16th centuries and recently finished a PhD about the borders of the Moldavian principality during that timeframe. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a message, I'll try to answer when it is possible!
To give a little background about myself - besides having a YouTube channel as a hobby for the audience from the countries of the former Soviet Union, I'm also a historian, who specializes on the 14th-16th centuries and recently finished a PhD about the borders of the Moldavian principality during that timeframe. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a message, I'll try to answer when it is possible!
- The borders between the similar and closely related cultures in the game should be more diffuse, rather than the current clear delimitation. Generally speaking, frontier regions in the Late Middle Ages were not closed spaces, but ambiguous and sometimes contradictory open areas, where both neighbouring cultures or worlds could easily coexist, but also enter in open conflicts due to their different identities, perceptions of a permanent threat in the figures of “others”, consequences of a living in a medium with a high social dynamism etc. (Andrzej Janeczek, Frontiers and Borderlands in Medieval Europe. Introductory Remarks. In: Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae, Volume 16, 2011, pp. 13-14). I would recommend making the borders between the closely related cultures in the game (like the Halycians and Volhynians, Greater and Lesser Poles etc.) to be more murky, reflecting both the nature of frontier medieval societies with mixed origins and heritage, and the more frequent peaceful interactions between cultures with similar origins, faith etc.
- More cultural diversity in the cities of the Halych-Volhynian principality could be showcased. While the city of Lviv obtained the rights of the Magdeburg Law in 1356 from the king of Poland, Casimir III the Great, urban communes organised by the Western settlers after the German law model had already been present in Halych-Volhynia long before the fall of this principality, in the cities of Chełm, Sanok, Lviv, Volodymyr, Przemyśl. In some cases, like in the 13th century Chełm, had also other ethnical groups living there, like Poles, Armenians and Jews (Andrzej Janeczek, Early Urban Communes Under German Law In Halyč-Volhynian Rus’ (The Thirteenth To The Mid-Fourteenth Century). In: Acta Poloniae Historica, 119, 2019, pp. 61-82). Regarding the Armenians, who settled in Lviv and other cities to the North West of the Black Sea region, see the following article: Alexander Osipian, Practices of Integration and Segregation: Armenian Trading Diasporas and Their Interaction with the Genoese and Venetian Colonies in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, 1289-1484. In: Georg Christ, Franz Julius Morche, Roberto Zaugg, Wolfgang Kaiser, Stefan Burkhardt et Alexander D. Beihammer (eds.), Union in Separation. Diasporic Groups and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean (1100-1800). Roma: Viella, 2015, pp. 349-361.
- The subject of the main urban centres of Halych and Volhynia brings the question regarding the market map of these regions in EU5. I don’t think it is necessary to divide these two lands between the markets of Krakow and Kyiv, especially considering the low amount of documentary sources regarding the situation of Kyiv throughout the 14th century and a likely smaller role of the latter city in the regional commercial life of the time. The division itself also looks awkward – for instance, the lands of Pocutia/Pokuttia are relegated to the Kyiv market, even though this region was from an administrative point of view a part of the Halych land, whose main centre is in Krakow market in EU5.
- I would suggest to make Lviv a separate market centre, which would include the lands of the Halych-Volhynian principality and western parts of Podolia/Podyllia. Lviv was already an important trading centre in the region, serving as a linking point in the trade route between Krakow and the cities of the Hanseatic League with the Black Sea Region through two main commercial routes of the 14th century: the Wallachian (a.k.a. Moldavian) road (which connected Krakow and Lviv through the cities of the nascent Moldavian principality with Cetatea Albă) and the Tatar road (which connected Krakow and Lviv through the lands to the east of Dniestr with main urban centers of the Golden Horde and the Genoes colonies in Crimea). About the rise of Lviv as an important trading centre in the region, see the following article: Nadel-Golobič Eleonora. Armenians and Jews in medieval Lvov: Their role in oriental trade, 1400-1600. In: Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, vol. 20, nr. 3-4, Juillet-Décembre 1979, pp. 345-388.
- Adding Lviv as another market centre would make the economical interaction of Poland with Halych and Volhynia after their likely conquest more interesting for the players, offering new decisions and dillemas how to deal with the Lviv market. Furthermore, Poland could also beneficiate from having events about the measures taken by Casimir III to integrate the elites of the former Halych-Volhynian principality (dealing with local nobility, the rights of the Orthodox Church and promotion of the German and Magdeburg laws). More details can be found in the following article: Andrzej Pleszczyński, The Integration and Separation of the Communities of Ruthenia after its Incorporation into the Kingdom of Poland. In: Legal Norms and Political Action in Multi-Ethnic Societies, 3, 2023, p. 77-92.
- The next recommendations I feel that are coming too late at this stage of the game development and could be taken into account after the release of EU5. The first one deals with the wars of Halych-Volhynian inheritance. In the gameplay footage of Poland released by Zlewikk on YouTube, it looks like the player gets an event about the death of the last ruler of Halych and Volhynia, Yurii II Boleslaw, in 1340, which is followed by the inheritance of Halych and vassalization of Volhynia. However, the historical chain of events is far more complicated and, frankly, I don’t think it would be possible to repeat it in EU5, but it is also not really necessary to railroad the situation here too much. The short overview of these wars for Halych-Volhynia goes as follows (Alexandru Pînzar, Hotarul de Nord al Moldovei: (de la formare, în secolul al XIV-lea, până la statornicirea lui pe Ceremuș, Colacin și Nistru),Iași: Editura Universității „Al. I. Cuza”, 2016, p. 46-57):
- Casimir III seizes Lviv immediately after the death of Yurii II in 1340, while Volhynia is seized by another pretender to the these lands, Liubartas, son of the Lithuanian duke, Gediminas. After the return of the Polish king to his country, the Halychian boyars led by Dmytro Dedko and Danylo Ostrozky launch a rebellion and called the Golden Horde for help, which still collected the tribute from these lands and couldn’t allow a Polish expansion into its sphere of influence. The Tartar and Ruthenian attacks in Poland in the winter of 1340-1341 marked the beginning of the long struggle, where Casimir III had to contend not only with Halychian boyars and Tartars, but also with Liubartas, who was helped by his Lithuanian brothers.
- Poland was forced to call for the help from its political partner, the king of Hungary Louis I, as well as settling the border conflicts with the Teutons in the Kalisz treaty of 1343 in order to fight against the Lithuanians. After the death of Dedko in 1345, the king of Poland would successfully retake Halych in 1349, most likely due to an earlier peace agreement reached with the Golden Horde in exchange for paying the tribute to the Tartars for the conquered lands. However, the fight with the Lithuanians would continue until 1352, when both sides reached a compromise: Poland kept Halych, while Liubartas and the Lithuanian dukes retained Volhynia under their control.
- In 1366, profiting from the precarious position of the Lithuanian dukes Kjejstut and Algirdas, Casimir III began a new war against Liubartas and scored a major victory: Volodymyr was annexed, while Liubartas and the Lithuanian dukes of Podolia/Podillia became vassals of Poland.
- After Casimir’s death in 1370, Lithuanians reconquered the entire Volhynia. Louis I, the king of Poland and Hungary, fought a long war against them and managed after 1377 to vassalize again the dukes of Volhynia and Podolia/Podyllia. He also decided to re-subordinate the lands of Halych directly to the authority of the Hungarian officials, which was received very poorly by the Polish nobility.
- After the death of Louis in 1382 and the coronation of Władysław II Jagiełło in 1385 as the king of Poland, the Polish Crown decided to return what they perceived as rightfully theirs – Red Ruthenia was succesfully reconqured by the forces of Queen Jadwiga in 1387. This would be the last military conflict of the Halych-Volhynian inheritance – later, Władysław II Jagiełło would reach a compromise with his cousin, Vytautas, the grand duke of Lithuania> Halych remained a Polish province, while Volhynia was integrated into Lithuania.
- Taking all this into account, I would probably recommend to think about making the case of Halych-Volhynian inheritance into a proper military conflict, which would initially involve Poland, Halych (led by Dedko as a tributary to the Golden Horde), Volhynia (led by the Lithuanian duke Liubartas) and the Golden Horde. Poland could escalate the war by asking for help from Hungary and the Teutonic Order, but with a certain price: acknowledging the Hungarian claims beyond the Carpathian mountains in the future Moldavia (and maybe even promising the inheritance of Halych to Louis I, if Casimir III would have male heirs) and cancelling the Polish claims to Pomerelia and the coast of the Baltic Sea in favour of the Teutons in exchange for a Teuton separate attack on Lithuania itself (in other words, the player or AI as Poland would cancel its cores on Pomerelia). These options would offer interesting dilemmas to the players as Poland and help make the Halych-Volhynian wars more dynamic during the game. That would essentially make the Halych-Volhynian inheritance into a proper game-changer in the beginning of every campaign, allowing three main scenarios of events here: the victory of Poland, Lithuania or Hungary, as well as the possible historical compromise between Poland and Lithuania. Furthermore, the implementation of the Halych-Volhynian wars could make a really hard start both for the players on Halych (who would have to survive the potential combined assault from Poland and Hungary, the claims of Liubartas on Halych and somehow to later break free from paying tribute to the Golden Horde) and Volhynia (who would be very reliant on assistance from Lithuania itself).
- Finally, another interesting thing that could be added after the release of the game could be the events around the foundation of the Podolian/Podillian principality. This political entity, led by the Lithuanian Koriatovich brothers, sons of Koriat and nephews of Gediminas, was created some time after the beginning of the Halych-Volhynian wars. The historical tradition (like Повесть о Подолье (Tales of Podolia) or Bychowiec Chronicle) ties this event with the victory of Algirdas, the grand duke of Lithuania, against the Tartar emirs in the battle of Blue Waters around 1362 or 1363. However, in recent Polish historiography was proposed an earlier arrival of the Koriatovich brothers in Podolia/Podillia – J. Kurtyka suggested that it could have happened somewhere arround 1345-1351, when the Lithuanian brothers ruled these lands in a condominium with the Tartar emirs (Kurtyka J. Podole pomiędzy Polsą i Litwą w XIV i 1. połowie XV wieku. In: F. Kiryk (ed.), Kamieniec Podolski. Studia z dziejów miasta i region. Tom I. Kraków, 2000, pp. 9-59; Kurtyka J. Podole w czasach jagiellońskich. Studia i materiały, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Towarzystwa Naukowego „Societas Vistulana”, 2011, p. 76).
- Regardless of which hypothesis regarding the foundation of Podolian/Podillian principality is closer to the truth, adding this tag as another dark horse in the ever changing landscape of Eastern Europe in the 14th century would be very interesting for players. The developers could either choose to spawn Podolia/Podillia with Koriatovichis as its rulers either during the war between Poland and the Golden Horde in 1340’s (as a tributary to the Tartars, like Halych, Volhynia, Kyiv etc.) or during an actual later war between Lithuania and the Golden Horde (as an independent tag, allied to Lithuania – making it a vassal wouldn’t make sense at that time, since the Koriatovichis frequently changed their allegiances, first swearing fealty to Casimir III of Poland in 1366, then to Louis I of Hungary in 1377). A general overview of the political history of the Podolian principality can be found in the following book: Михайлівський В. Еластична спільнота. Подільська шляхта в другій половині XIV - 70-х роках XVI ст. Київ: Темпора, 2012, pp. 47-62
- Another problem is how large should be Podolia/Podyllia in the game. Some sources from the late 14th century attribute cities from Kamianets and Terebovlia all the way to Cherkassy and Zvenyhorodka in the east to the Podolian lands (О. В. Лицкевич, «Летописец великих князей литовских» и «Повесть о Подолье»: опыт комплексного критического разбора, Санкт-Петербург: ДМИТРИЙ БУЛАНИН, 2019, pp. 615-616). However, it’s quite debatable, if Koriatovichis actually controled all the lands to the Dniepr from their centers in Kamianets and Bakota. The developers could either make this large Podolia/Podillia, or limit its initial borders to the current area of Podillia, which is present already in EU5.
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