The Historical Basis for Catalonian Independence

It's now :p

They are illyrians, which had large territories at some point, and I believe the roman emperors were illyrian at some point.

"Glory" is not what I think about the Sami.

Albanians have a monopoly on the Illyrian thing, as do Bosnians and Croats. FYROMia also lacks any glorious history, [Alexander and his empire were Greek].
 
Albanians have a monopoly on the Illyrian thing, as do Bosnians and Croats. FYROMia also lacks any glorious history, [Alexander and his empire were Greek].

But Croats are slavs, and bosnians is only a "kind of"-thing.

Not to mention that Kosovans are albanians...
 
That's what Russians claim. But please note that modern Russia developed from the Duchy of Moscow - which was just one part of Rus. :p

Of course that is what Russians claim, they want to justify occupying Belarus and Ukraine, and disregard centuries of culture and history that evolved in Litva separately from Russia.

But at the end of the day, Ruthenia and Russia are literally two sides of the same coin, with each side having been influenced by the West and East respectively.

In the modern day, following a century and a half of nationalism, the invention of the modern "Ukrainian" identity, Cossack migration and the impact of both Imperial and Soviet Russia, you could rightfully justify their self-identification as a distinct group from Russia, but that is not quite what we are discussing.

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Anyway, I think Kashubia has little claim to greatness. I mean their sausages and bread are pretty good and fondly thought of throughout Poland, they have a cute little local dialect, dance, dress and traditions, but they never really did anything. :p
 
But Croats are slavs, and bosnians is only a "kind of"-thing.

Not to mention that Kosovans are albanians...

True, but its like the British pride on Roman or Celtic heritage...or French Gualic pride.
(Illyrian homeland was from Croatia to Albania, so Croatia has a few sites even though they aren't usually considered core Illyrian provinces)
 
True, but its like the British pride on Roman or Celtic heritage...or French Gualic pride.
(Illyrian homeland was from Croatia to Albania, so Croatia has a few sites even though they aren't usually considered core Illyrian provinces)

My point isn't that the Kosovans (and Albanians at large) live in Illyria, but that they are Illyrians. In the migration period Slavs pushed them away from areas they had previously lived in (and they (the Albanians) do not have "rights" to these areas, by the way).

So really, Kosovans taking pride on their Illyrian heritage is more like Mongolians taking pride in their Mongolian heritage, of which a great part is that mongolians ruled China for a while.
 
How cute. You guys trying to find reason inside Balkan nationalism. :lol:
 
TheLastOne36 said:
In the modern day, following a century and a half of nationalism, the invention of the modern "Ukrainian" identity, Cossack migration and the impact of both Imperial and Soviet Russia, you could rightfully justify their self-identification as a distinct group from Russia, but that is not quite what we are discussing.

You are right that the modern Ukrainian national identity was built largely around the myth of Cossacks - the alleged founders of the Ukrainian state.

The reality was somehow different and original Cossacks would be surprised that someone considers them as "founders" of some nationality.

Kozacy (Zaporozhian Cossacks), were basically outlaws and social drop-outs, who settled in the Wild Fields (sparsely populated area of steppes in the south-eastern part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the borderland area with the Crimean Khanate), became pirates and created their own community and a political-military organization called Sich (also known as Host). Kozacy were neither peasants, nor townsmen, nor nobility, even though members of the Cossack community came from each of these groups. Cossacks were also not people of any nationality or ethnicity. Undoubtedly ethnic Ruthenians were the most numerous group among them, but there were also Poles, Russians, Hungarians, Greeks, Germans, French people, Spaniards, Italians, Jews and Tatars. Kozaczyzna (the Land of Cossacks) was also not a monolith when it comes to religious beliefs, even though Orthodox Christianity dominated there. And ethnic or religious factors were not important for the Cossacks - what united them, was their style of life and their sense of common social affiliation. They lived off what the steppe gave them, as well as off piracy - plundering raids, especially against various towns and villages of the Ottoman Empire and its vassal states. Their own ethos also presented them as defenders of the frontiers Commonwealth against the barbaric Tatars (Crimean Khanate) - they sometimes described themselves as "knights of the steppes". They undoubtedly loved freedom and their riotous lifestyle of a swashbuckler more than enything else. As is presented in the movie "With Fire and Sword", Cossacks did not hate the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. They were eager to fight for their homeland, they wanted to be hired to Polish armies and they frequently were (see: Registery Cossacks, who served as paid soldiers, receiving money for their service, even though it was much smaller than payment of other troops). Apart from Registery Cossacks, also other Cossacks fought as part of Polish-Lithuanian armies in various military campaigns - they were not paid from Polish-Lithuanian State Treasury, but fought under command of their own, Cossack Hetmans. But undoubtedly Cossacks were opposing any attempts of excessive interference in their internal matters by central authorities of the Commonwealth - i.e. they were "a state within a state", remaining loyal to the Commonwealth, but they wanted to be autonomous and out of range of jurisdiction of Polish law. Attempts of subordinating Cossacks to state authorities (as well as to the power of magnates and nobility) and various legal rules were one of the main reasons of the Cossack uprisings in the 17th century. And those attempts in turn were caused by the fact, that Cossacks frequently caused tension between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire, because Cossacks generally did not want to respect Polish-Turkish ceasefires and peace treaties and continued to raid various Turkish towns along the coast of the Black Sea.

When it comes to Zaporozhian Cossack military power, they fielded both infantry (pikemen and troops armed with firearms), light cavalry, dragoons, artillery and their own fleet, comprising of boats called czajka (plural: czajki), which had crews consisting of 50-70 sailor-soldiers each. The Cossack fleet in various sea battles frequently numbered even 200 - 300 and more boats, they often fought against the Turkish fleet and often were successful in those sea battles. When it comes numerical strength of Zaporozhian Cossacks - they could mobilize up to 120,000 troops, but this included troops recruited from amongst local peasants, who were frequently joining them in their military campaigns. When excluding troops recruited to Cossack armies from peasants, the total number of Cossacks was about 50,000 and of them about 20,000 - 30,000 were "constant Cossacks", who had no other profession apart from piracy, and lived only off piracy.

When it comes to Cossacks serving as part of Polish-Lithuanian armies. They were often present in great numbers, for example:

- in the Khotyn campaign of 1621 against the Ottoman Empire, there were ca. 40,000 Cossacks in the Polish army
- in the war against Russia of 1609 - 1611 in total at least 30,000 Cossacks took part (not all of them at once, though)
- in the campaign against Russia of 1618 around 20,000 Cossacks were in the Polish army
- Polish king Wladyslaw IV wanted to mobilize 100,000 Registery Cossacks for his planned invasion of Turkey in 1648, but he died before doing this*

*Following his death, the Khmelnytsky Uprising started - the straw that broke the camel's back was the cancellation of that planned invasion.

During the Khmelnytsky Uprising, when Cossacks fought against Poland rather than for Poland, they fielded even more troops:

- in the Siege of Lwów in 1648, the joint Cossack-Tatar army numbered 150,000 of them around 115,000 - 120,000 were Cossack troops

The "capital city" of Cossacks was Sich - a large and well-fortified fortress located on one of islands on the Dnieper River.
 
Text wall alert! I think I'll just skip past posts like that, especially when I have no knowledge of the subject matter.
 
especially when I have no knowledge of the subject matter.

Skipping knowledge is not a good idea - it is better to read and learn something new. If you skip, you never learn anything new!

If you doubt in credibility of my description, I can tell you what were my sources.

Basically it was the book "Polish armies in the period of the Polish-Swedish war of 1626 - 1629. Crisis of power" by Radosław Sikora.

I translated the title of course, the original one is in Polish.

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Too bad that the Treaty of Hadiach did not work out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Hadiach

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Another interesting military formation of the time, were the Lisowczycy light cavalry founded by Aleksander Lisowski and also consistsing of various swashbucklers. They served both in Polish armies and also as mercenaries - for example during the Thirty Years War, supporting the Habsburgs.

Like Cossacks, they were famous for being great soldiers and for their brutality (which was, however, nothing uncommon during wars of that time).
 
I learned a thing or two Domen, thanks. :)

How did the Zaporozhian Cossacks differ from other Cossacks such as Danubian, Don, Kubin, or Azov Cossacks?
 
Hasn't the aragonese become castillians?

In my experience living in Zaragoza, the Aragonese regard themselves as Aragonese rather than Castillian and as having distinct elements of culture. They're not from Castille after all. They just generally see no conflict between that and being Spanish because they are different levels of identity. Think of being both Virginian and American or Welsh and British.
 
Why don't we create a thread called "The historical basis for "X" Independence". :mischief: Because certainly the Catalonians don't have a monopoly on separatist nationalism.

If I am in the mood I might rant tomorrow about Chan Santa Cruz separatism. The Cruzob state needs to be revived. Expel every tourist from Cancun and raze the ports, the cross commands us to
 
Couldn't we just give Catalonia a Bantustan in Palestine?
 
See my earlier proposal to give them an uninhabited Mediterranean island off the coast of Morocco or a islet of Palau.
 
We need a "Historical basis for why "X" should not be independent/why nations should unify" thread
 
I'm still waiting for Domen to explain why I'm a communist.

I probably confused you with someone else, sorry.

Because certainly the Catalonians don't have a monopoly on separatist nationalism.

Separatism is a different thing than nationalism.

See my earlier proposal to give them an uninhabited Mediterranean island off the coast of Morocco or a islet of Palau.

I would give them the uninhabited Henderson island (37,3 square km), if not the fact that I plan to annex it myself for the Duchy of Lechistan.

It is more than half the size of Liechtenstein or San Marino and 20 times bigger than Monaco - so not that small !!!
 
Of course...?
 
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