Greater aspirations in the Aimos peninsula

[Kyriakos]

Aimos was the original name of the peninsula now mostly known as the Balkans. Balkans was a turkish term, which seems to have originated from the deeply forested area in coastal eastern Thrace, bordering the Black sea. Aimos was named after the myth that Zeus had bled there while fighting Typhon, and his blood (aima in Greek) tainted the earth.

Following my relative disapointment that my highly cutlured article on Kafka was met with general lack of interest, i decided to post a more warmongering article

Besides, the Balkans/Aimos has a lot of local aspirations for greater versions of the countries there. Here are some nice maps of those:

1) Greater Serbia

Link to history: Serbian Hegemony in Yugoslavia; to a lesser extent the short-lived "Empire of Serbs and Greeks" of Stephan Dusan.

A modern map of a Greater Serbia:

2) Greater Bulgaria

Link to history: Empire of Bulgaria under Samuel; Bulgaria in the treaty of San Stephano

Samuel's empire was the highest point of Bulgarian power. It was destroyed by Emperor Basil II in a very bloody war, and Bulgaria was annexed to the Byzantine Empire.

The San Stephano treaty was a treaty following the Russo-Turkish war of that period, but it was never implemented.

A modern map of a Greater Bulgaria:

3) Greater Greece/Rebirth of the Byzantine Empire

Link to History:

Byzantine Empire. (Although there are many different eras of the Byzantine Empire, it seems that now the main one used in Greater Greece maps as a point of reference is that Empire under Basil II) :

The Empire lasted for a millenium, although it went under various phases. After 1204 it was already very moribund, despite the attempts by some of the emperors to secure what was left, after the liberation of Constantinople in 1261 by the Empire of Nicaea.

Secondary link to history: Treaty of Sevres (1920) :

The treaty was cancelled in 1922, and replaced with the treaty of Lausannes.

A modern map of Greater Greece:

4) Greater Turkey/Rebirth of the Ottoman Empire/Pan-Turanist hegemony

Link to History:

Ottoman Empire. Most greater Turkey maps link the aspirations in them to the immediately pre-Balkan war Turkey, or at least keep a number of regions of it in the Balkans and in the Middle East.

A modern map of Greater Turkey: (Ottoman; i doubt the pan-Turanist maps are even as serious aspiration-wise as the rest of the modern maps of this kind...)

5. Greater Albania

Link to History: (?) I have seen the Illyrian Empire mentioned, but that is more than just tenuous. Albania under Kastrioti, its national hero, was still very small. Sometimes the Ottoman Vilayets which were run by Albanians (such as Ali Pasha) are used as basis too...

Ottoman Vilayets with Albanian local pashas at the early 19th century:

A modern map of Greater Albania:

6. Greater Fyromania ( )

Link to History: (?) The theory that ancient Macedonia was in fact the proto-slavic civilization. However the aspirations are mostly focused on the Ottoman villayets of Macedonia.

A modern map of Greater Fyromania:

Sadly i am not very aware of the Greater Croatia or Greater Bosnia maps. The first surely exist, the second may not, given Bosnia's state of multi-ethnic make-up anyway...

NOTE: It is important to note that in all cases, apart from the one of Albania and the one of Fyrom, there are a great many different maps floating around. I suspect this is because there is no real movement behind those aspirations elsewhere. In the case of a greater Albania and a Greater Fyrom the maps are almost always of the same regions posted in the respective pics here.

 

[Lord Baal]

One of your Greater Bulgaria maps is actually a map of Bulgaria during WWII. It's the only German ally to actually gain territory at the end of the war; it got to keep some Romanian territory.

The Albanians are probably the biggest current threat to the stability of the region, if one can ever refer to the Balkans as 'stable.' Macedonia is a lot like the angry midget biker on the Australian series Housos; he likes to talk a big fight and looks cool in his jacket, but he's absolutely no threat to anyone and can't get a girlfriend, even an underage one.

With all that said, I would strongly support just giving the whole damn region back to Austria and Turkey.

And while I can't speak for other people Kyriakos, I can say that I had no interest in your Kafka thread because I think he's a bloody terrible author. Consistently overrated. Even his own translators admit his fiction makes no sense.

 

[W|M]

Here is a map of Greater Croatia:

Spoiler :

 

[r16]

well , establishing prior ownership of territory , or the cultural roots of the Western Civilization will not make the lands available after Turkey falls . The reason that happened in 1919 was that there was this large population living this side of the Aegean and the possibility that we would go Commies . Masters of the new Middle East do not include the Greeks .

as for maps why not something like this ?

and the modern day version with provincial borders :

 

[Kyriakos]

For the same reason i did not post any Justinian or Alexander the Great map either: lack of relevance.

Thanks for the map West India Man...

 

[Traitorfish]

Greater Scotia:

 

[Kyriakos]

Sadly i did not find anything regarding a "Greater Scotland" on google

The first image on that search was this:

 

[IkM]

Greater Scotia:

You have my support

Spoiler :

 

[Lord Baal]

Greater Australia.

Seriously guys, we don't even want New Zealand. Too many sheep.

 

[Kyriakos]

Is Tasmania some sort of autonomous part of Australia?

 

[Lord Baal]

Is Tasmania some sort of autonomous part of Australia?

No, it's just another state. It's sometimes called the "Island State," due, no doubt, to the fact it is an island. But there's nothing special about it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Oh ok. I did not allude to some sense that it had a rebel movement

I just thought it was self-governed to a degree, although i do not know about states in Australia and how centralized their governance is.

 

[Lord Baal]

Oh ok. I did not allude to some sense that it had a rebel movement

I just thought it was self-governed to a degree, although i do not know about states in Australia and how centralized their governance is.

Australia is a federation. We have six states and various territories - most of the latter on small islands - all governed from local capitals, with the federal capital being in Canberra. Our states are New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia, with their capitals at Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide and Perth, respectively. Our two major territories are the Australian Capital Territory, which only has the city of Canberra (this is similar to Washington being the sole city in the District of Columbia in the US) and the Northern Territory, which has its capital at Darwin.

There's a push for the Northern Territory to finally be granted statehood, which I support, but don't care that much about. Masada lives in Darwin, so he might know more about it and have a stronger opinion, one way or the other. I live in Sydney.

We also used to have southeastern New Guinea as a territory, as it was annexed by Queensland before the various Australian colonies of Britain federated in 1901. Later, during WWI, we took possession of the German colony Papua, in northeastern New Guinea, which we formed into the territory Papua New Guinea. We granted this independence several decades ago, against the wishes of most of the populace of Port Moresby, the only city of note in the territory and its capital. We also briefly controlled Nauru after WWI. Both Papua New Guinea and Nauru were League of Nations Mandates, but we exercised a decent amount of direct control over Papua New Guinea that went a fair bit beyond that we exercised over Nauru. We also asked for Timor, both the whole island and just East Timor, after WWII, but we never really wanted it. It was more to enhance our bargaining position with the US when it came time to punish Japan.

Funnily enough, the Nauruans absolutely love Australians, at least in my experience. They seem grateful to us because if we hadn't demanded the island after WWI it would probably have been taken by the Japanese, who would have treated them far worse. We weren't competent rulers, but we were relatively benign. The Nauruans I've met have also expressed gratitude because if they'd been a Japanese colony they'd likely be a US territory now.

There is also a clause in the Australian Constitution for the creation of new states, which has never been exercised. It was placed there specifically to allow New Zealand to join the federation at a later date if it so wished, but obviously those lousy sheep-uh, lovers, don't want to join us.

 

[Tee Kay]

Oh ok. I did not allude to some sense that it had a rebel movement

The only part of the country that tried to break away was Western Australia, which actually voted for secession in 1933, but that fell through. Noises are still occasionally made about secession but mostly for humourous purposes.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Greater Scotia:

I got to try and dig out my semi-serious Greater Scotia map I made once.