The Dukes of Fernau, for now.

[Zygmunt Stary]

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia was not yet fully in rhythm when it came to the logistics of its own Sejms, independent of Poland. So their new Grand Duke simply invited the realm's bajorai (the Cossacks never wanted the word szlachta used again, one of a few growing pains of the new pairing) to the largest room in the Trakai island castle. Grand Duke Sigismund Rákóczi agreed with the Cossacks that the new union should not default to resembling the old. And so Trakai again became the royal residence. It might indeed be well on its way to displacing Vilnius as capital. At least it was still in Lithuania proper, thought the bajorai.

Ukhmmm...why would Cossacks want to use "bajorai" in governance, they don't speak Baltic Lithuanian, no one in nobility actually does around that period, the government lanaguage of GDL in which all three Statutes of Lithuania were written was Ruthenian (something like Old Belorussian) and it would probably be still used, especially if Cossacks are major force in the new state, as they are speaking Old Ukrainian, which was very close to that language and therefore easier to accept for Khmelnytsky's Cossacks. Speaking Polish should be probably still common for that nobility, since even Cossacks who hated Poland (like Danylo Nechay) could still speak it well and even sometimes wrote in it.

"Only there is the matter of what strength we wish the Grand Duchy to have. And what strength is sufficient for me to wish to remain as your Grand Duke. Therefore... for today, and only today, when we are gathered without taxes tallied, I will manage the veto differently. Should any man here call out his veto, I shall shoot him with this crossbow. After that, the veto wielder shall be dead, and because the rest of us are all equal as men, you shall perhaps arrest me for murder, and shall perhaps decide to remove me as Grand Duke. Or, perhaps... not? Hmm.... Well, if you do remove me, it will be for the best, as you will have shown me you have no intention of allowing necessary improvements to your Grand Duchy's governance. And I will want no part of leading it without such improvements."

Liberum veto didn't exist yet and Lithuanian separatists sometimes vouched for hereditary power of the Grand Duke (Lithuania went elective far later than Poland) and more power vested in the hands of the Grand Duke, so I don't think Rakoczi would have that much trouble.

 

[traminer]

Ukhmmm...why would Cossacks want to use "bajorai" in governance, they don't speak Baltic Lithuanian, no one in nobility actually does around that period, the government lanaguage of GDL in which all three Statutes of Lithuania were written was Ruthenian (something like Old Belorussian) and it would probably be still used, especially if Cossacks are major force in the new state, as they are speaking Old Ukrainian, which was very close to that language and therefore easier to accept for Khmelnytsky's Cossacks. Speaking Polish should be probably still common for that nobility, since even Cossacks who hated Poland (like Danylo Nechay) could still speak it well and even sometimes wrote in it.

I thank you very much for the corrections. Language in contemporary usage seems to be a domain where I need to invest a little more attention, or else be willing to accept what corrections will come, or (more likely) both. I believe my best option, for want of a good 17th-century-Ruthenian-English dictionary, will be to remove bajorai in favour of an English word denoting a role or responsibility. If you have a recommendation for a word (or source) that would better get towards contemporary Ruthenian, though, I'll happily heed it.

Liberum veto didn't exist yet and Lithuanian separatists sometimes vouched for hereditary power of the Grand Duke (Lithuania went elective far later than Poland) and more power vested in the hands of the Grand Duke, so I don't think Rakoczi would have that much trouble.

Your knowledge exceeds mine here, but I have some. (Alas, I see I've still trapped myself a little with what I do know.) I've seen reference to the veto existing in law, and even being used to pause proceedings before being talked through and seeing the veto withdrawn. That doesn't help me here, though, for two reasons. First: I'm confident your point is that the liberum veto was not yet being used in the problematic ways that undid Poland-Lithuania OTL. Second: I stupidly wrote the undoing of the veto before even showing an example of that problematic use. One of which was coming OTL right at the end of this decade, and all I needed to do was show a version of that story here, first.

So, in addition to language-related edits, a problematic use of the veto has to be injected prior to the episodes above. I've told the punchline without the joke.

I'll think on it and edit episode 15 within a day or two. Done (see below).

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

I thank you very much for the corrections. Language in contemporary usage seems to be a domain where I need to invest a little more attention, or else be willing to accept what corrections will come, or (more likely) both. I believe my best option, for want of a good 17th-century-Ruthenian-English dictionary, will be to remove bajorai in favour of an English word denoting a role or responsibility. If you have a recommendation for a word (or source) that would better get towards contemporary Ruthenian, though, I'll happily heed it.

Ruthenian version of that world would be probably something like: "bojarje", after all it's not that much different from modern Ukrainian and Belorussian.

Your knowledge exceeds mine here, but I have some. (Alas, I see I've still trapped myself a little with what I do know.) I've seen reference to the veto existing in law, and even being used to pause proceedings before being talked through and seeing the veto withdrawn. That doesn't help me here, though, for two reasons. First: I'm confident your point is that the liberum veto was not yet being used in the problematic ways that undid Poland-Lithuania OTL. Second: I stupidly wrote the undoing of the veto before even showing an example of that problematic use. One of which was coming OTL right at the end of this decade, and all I needed to do was show a version of that story here, first.

Pause procedure existed, but in 1640s it just sent House of Envoys into state of passivity while it still existed (was not dissolved), but couldn't pass any new legislation.

 

[traminer]

Ruthenian version of that world would be probably something like: "bojarje", after all it's not that much different from modern Ukrainian and Belorussian.


Pause procedure existed, but in 1640s it just sent House of Envoys into state of passivity while it still existed (was not dissolved), but couldn't pass any new legislation.

Am I wrong in my understanding that on paper, it was the same, with the difference being only in how it was used or abused? When everyone is reasonable, a veto that pauses all other discussion until the objection is resolved can be functional. When someone calls out their veto and then rides away on horseback, preventing the resolution of their objection, that's still pause procedure, just maliciously used.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

Am I wrong in my understanding that on paper, it was the same, with the difference being only in how it was used or abused? When everyone is reasonable, a veto that pauses all other discussion until the objection is resolved can be functional. When someone calls out their veto and then rides away on horseback, preventing the resolution of their objection, that's still pause procedure, just maliciously used.

The main difference was that liberum veto dissolved house of envoys entirely, everyone went back to homes, while previous pause procedure kept them intact, just unable to pass anything until one member which did pause rescinded the pause.

 

[traminer]

I have gone back and edited away "bajorai" wherever it appeared in episode 15

The main difference was that liberum veto dissolved house of envoys entirely, everyone went back to homes, while previous pause procedure kept them intact, just unable to pass anything until one member which did pause rescinded the pause.

For this, I have edited in the addition of the Ballad of Jan Bilesky, and references to it or its story in both the Krakow and Trakai parts of the episode. The approach is a bit minimalist, but injects a prior example of abuse of a pause veto to prevent a Sejm from doing its work. With that, the episode's focus on the veto comes with a smidgen of background, and hopefully makes more sense.

Zooming waaaaaay out, now, why bother nipping the liberum veto in the bud before it become such a problem? Poland and Lithuania-Ruthenia (probably especially the latter, but maybe both equally) looked all the more ripe for conquest, once separated. But in this timeline, most of this neighbourhood is heading toward lasting stalemate, not toward even greater upheaval. For that, having Poland and Lithuania-Ruthenia divided helps. Having them diminished may cause more instability, but having them more resilient should make them survive... and drag the stalemate(s) out.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

Zooming waaaaaay out, now, why bother nipping the liberum veto in the bud before it become such a problem? Poland and Lithuania-Ruthenia (probably especially the latter, but maybe both equally) looked all the more ripe for conquest, once separated. But in this timeline, most of this neighbourhood is heading toward lasting stalemate, not toward even greater upheaval. For that, having Poland and Lithuania-Ruthenia divided helps. Having them diminished may cause more instability, but having them more resilient should make them survive... and drag the stalemate(s) out.

Well, you're author and you can do whatever you want within rules of that site, as long as it isn't strictly ASB, period. But tho I can't exactly believe in Poland and Lithuania-Ruthenia not bothering each other, for Poland Lithuania-Ruthenia's existence is slap in the face and in addition, rump Poland will become Habsburgs's puppet and Habsburgs would very much not like Rakoczi big domains next to their door, so they would pit their puppet against Lithuania-Ruthenia.

 

[traminer]

Well, you're author and you can do whatever you want within rules of that site, as long as it isn't strictly ASB, period.

😈
But seriously: I'm here to learn, and to discover what to learn next. History has never been so alive to me as it is now that I'm avidly consuming it to twist and write it into something new. And part of that coming alive is through what you and others here tell me I missed, got wrong, or what opportunities might lie beyond my present awareness. For my part, I hope any resulting edit is seen as me trying to honour the suggestions I receive, in order to tell this story as convincingly as possible. My audience is better aware than I am of so many ways it might become unconvincing. I can only hope to repay your collective attention by paying attention to you in return.

 

[Jürgen]

One idea, a way for Courland-in-exile to survive would be to swear vassalage to someone.

The obvious one would be.

1: The Emperor, this would protect them against the English and Dutch, but would risk making them a target of the French.
2: The Dutch, here they get access to the Dutch trade work and Dutch protection, but risk being target by the English and French, also they risk the Dutch taking them over.
3: The Danes, the main benefit here is that the Danes in general didn’t go to war with the major colonial empires and their colonies was mostly left alone, but the Danes also have limited ability to protect them.

 

[traminer]

One idea, a way for Courland-in-exile to survive would be to swear vassalage to someone.

Or someones.

The obvious one would be.

1: The Emperor, this would protect them against the English and Dutch, but would risk making them a target of the French.

I’ve done a little reading to this end. I believe OTL Jakob had himself declared a Prince of the empire at some point (still in the future, hence my uncertainty - not a focus for my research). Also, the reason Courland is Poland’s vassal rather than Lithuania’s is because, as a German subject of the Empire, Jakob claimed he could not swear fealty to anyone of rank lesser than king. TTL, that’s convenient now. Momentarily.

2: The Dutch, here they get access to the Dutch trade work and Dutch protection, but risk being target by the English and French, also they risk the Dutch taking them over.

Everyone is happy to take over everyone else in the game of colonies / trading forts…

3: The Danes, the main benefit here is that the Danes in general didn’t go to war with the major colonial empires and their colonies was mostly left alone, but the Danes also have limited ability to protect them.

…including the Danes, who were happy to pick off Swedish trading posts on the Ghana coast after Sweden humbled them OTL.

We could always just…. not save Courland.

 

[Tirion]

A functional government instead of noble democracy in Poland and Lithuania certainly makes for bigger changes than whatever Courland is up to... For now.

 

[traminer]

A functional government instead of noble democracy in Poland and Lithuania certainly makes for bigger changes than whatever Courland is up to... For now.

The precise forms the governments will take remain undecided. They could just be mildly better-functioning noble democracies , they could be headed for a false start before their present rulers die as scheduled OTL. Voting in rulers without heirs has a way of keeping noble democracy going.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

The precise forms the governments will take remain undecided. They could just be mildly better-functioning noble democracies , they could be headed for a false start before their present rulers die as scheduled OTL. Voting in rulers without heirs has a way of keeping noble democracy going.

Tho Poland's government after such reduction in size will be decided by Habsburgs and whatever governance Vienna considers fit, it'll impose on Poland.

 

[traminer]

Tho Poland's government after such reduction in size will be decided by Habsburgs and whatever governance Vienna considers fit, it'll impose on Poland.

…almost setting up Courland as a second-order vassal. An interesting possibility.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

…almost setting up Courland as a second-order vassal. An interesting possibility.

It'd be like in OTL XVIIIth century, while Courland was on paper PLC's vassal but Russia ruled the duchy in practice.

 

[traminer]

It'd be like in OTL XVIIIth century, while Courland was on paper PLC's vassal but Russia ruled the duchy in practice.

Both OTL and TTL, Courland is already mostly a paper vassal. And yet, we are very much going to explore the value of that paper.

 

[Jürgen]

The precise forms the governments will take remain undecided. They could just be mildly better-functioning noble democracies , they could be headed for a false start before their present rulers die as scheduled OTL. Voting in rulers without heirs has a way of keeping noble democracy going.

Honestly, if the crown can just get funding for a central administration and army, Poland is vastly better off.

In case of Lithuania the crown will increase its power, simply because it will monopolize the education of Reformed clergy, which will mean it can enforce state ideology and the nobles have to let the crown have some source of income for that at least.

 

[traminer]

The Mapmaker of Mitau

Jakob's capital was still Goldingen, as it had been for his father William before him. His uncle Friedrich's capital had been Mitau, mostly because he had started as the Duke of Semigallia only, and hadn't seen reason to relocate once William's exile put him in charge of Courland as well. Friedrich's widow had relocated to Dobele since her husband's death, a little West of Mitau on the way to Goldingen.

But Jakob was spending more and more time at Libau. While all Courland's industries had a way of helping each other along, there was more excitement or novelty to seeing what new ideas emerged for these industries with the new Academy drawing in so many bright minds, even if many were only passing through. Glassworks that tried to keep up with the needs of ships' optics or land-based telescopes were more interesting glassworks than those turning out flat panes of glass for buildings, however well they made them.

Other endeavours not rooted in local geography also shifted toward Libau now. One was cartography. And for the second day in a row, Jakob had come to the academy to discuss matters of cartography and exploration with one of his favourite collaborators - Tevel ben Elisha.

Ben Elisha was sitting by a window, sipping a warm cider. He rose upon seeing his duke.

"My lord. Welcome again to your academy. You are spoiling us to stay so long."
"Tevel, it is simply that you are such fine company. I remember meeting you on the day you arrived in Semigallia. Even with weeks of road dust and misery, you were still a man of note." Jakob sat. A second warm cider was on the table within seconds. "You said you might have a request of me today, after you spoke with your new bride."
"Indeed."
Tevel had recently wed a woman from Polangen, from a Jewish merchant family of growing influence. Moving to Libau seemed an easy thing when it was closer to her family, and the place in Courland where cartography most mattered. "My lord, you nicknamed me your Mapmaker of Mitau, though I was never truly a mapmaker, and I did not live long in Mitau before your great changes in this country started drawing me further and further West. I seem to be your Letter-writer of Libau these days, corresponding with your agents and others to acquire new geographical knowledge and have it brought to Courland."
"As you know, patience is not a virtue I have in abundance, Tevel. Speak your mind."
"My lord, I..." he raised his mug for a sip, indexing and ordering his thoughts as quickly as possible. "Being in your service has brought so much to my life, so quickly. In Mitau, Goldingen, and now here. I wish again to serve you in a new place."
Jakob did not interrupt, even to prompt Tevel to continue.
"You have spoken of places for your duchess' third garden, and plantations, and trade with Gambia and Guinea. When you send ships to the Gambia and to to Captain Sellin's islands 'all in a straight line south by southwest,' I wish to travel there. I will serve as your diplomat, your coordinator of cartography, your trade agent, your head gardener or even your governor if you wished. But I would wish to serve there."
A moment's pause betrayed Jakob's surprise. "Why?"
"I have been corresponding more and more with Lisbon and Barcelona, my lord - there is no longer a hub of mapmaking in Mallorca as there was in my ancestors' time. How much do you know of conversos?"
"Some. Little."
"Portugal and Castile and the rest of Iberia either forced Jews and Muslims out or forced them to convert. Or simply killed them. Conversos are those who converted, or those who made it appear they'd converted until they got somewhere safer - like my ancestor there. At one point, Portugal had an excess of Jewish orphans, apparently mostly girls. The fate of their parents seems easily guessable and unfortunate. In the late 15th century, Portugal sailed these orphans to Africa in much the same way they are beginning to ship slaves from Africa today. They were forced to convert, and were brought to at least one or two of these islands."
"And you wish to go, to... to find their great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren?"
"Yes. There may be no Jewishness left to find in their descendants. But maybe, just as I have a heritage of maps going back to Iberia of the same epoch, maybe some child there hears a Portuguese pidgin version of a story one of those orphans might have heard in Iberia."
"And if you were to find such a story being told there?"
"Then I might hope to invite the teller of the story to come with me to make a garden for a duchess, and invite the child hearing the story to play in that garden."
"Presumably, not as slaves."
"No. The children of mixed European and local descent are already facilitators of trade for the Portuguese and their neighbours. A natural caste of merchants and middlemen. They would have immense value to you as you pursue your own trade in the area. In a way, to gather sufficient people of such a heritage and role to your cause would accelerate your Guinean trade by a generation."
"Rather literally."
"My lord, this little sliver of land between the Baltic and the Düna" - he tapped a map of Courland and Semigallia - "is becoming a force in part for the diversity of people you welcome here, and for how you have chosen to enable rather than restrict what they can do. If you mean to create similar growth in a little sliver of land between the Gambia and the Atlantic," he tapped another map, then placed a third one on top of it, "or between the Rio dos Camarões and the Rio do Volta... or is that da? - forgive my weak Portuguese. I am only learning - I think you will need similar freedom for those who most deliver or design that growth. Were I to serve you there, I would seek to reproduce what has worked so well here with a diversity and enterprise tuned to what I find there."
"Your Portuguese is better than mine. It is not a language I've yet tried to learn. I know only that the 'a' with a tilde before an 'o' sounds like the French 'an' before a half-swallowed 'o' sound. I honestly don't know what sound you have to swallow when the tilde is over the 'o' though."
"Your ambassador to Lisbon described so many of those sounds as tipsy noises half-passed through the nose. I haven't met the man, though, I've only read his letters."
"Indeed. I wonder sometimes whether all your correspondence shows as much talent for espionage as for gathering maps, Tevel."
"In which case you'll quite like the man I'm recommending as my successor."
"I'll accept him on your recommendation before I even hear his name. Thank you. If I can send you to the straight-line islands and keep you in my service, I shall be glad to do it. I accept your proposal, Tevel ben Elisha. You will still have to keep the craft of Couronian map-gathering alive on your island, though. You're forever the Mapmaker of Mitau."
"I'll be the Fool of Fernão do Po, with his fool wife at his side."
"I'm afraid that neither rolls of the tongue nor does you enough credit. If Portugal is kind enough to let us set up a colony on an island they've abandoned, we can be kind enough to not call the place Fernando Po like all those Spanish maps do. But when you make me a map in German, you can write it in a way we can pronounce."

It was the Duke's turn to tap his finger on the map.

"I name you Fürst of Fernau - spell that with a 'u' if you please. Go find your conversos great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren, make a garden with them, and teach them to either make maps in that garden, or else go find things to draw on those maps."

 

[traminer]

Honestly, if the crown can just get funding for a central administration and army, Poland is vastly better off.

In case of Lithuania the crown will increase its power, simply because it will monopolize the education of Reformed clergy, which will mean it can enforce state ideology and the nobles have to let the crown have some source of income for that at least.

It surely will. But not quickly. There are both growing pains to be had, and at least one more election and King to deal with.

 

[Talus I of Dixie]

"I name you Fürst of Fernau - spell that with a 'u' if you please. Go find your conversos great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren, make a garden with them, and teach them to either make maps in that garden, or else go find things to draw on those maps."

So that's Fernau? Well, that's interesting. Also a twist, didn't expect to the Duke's future refuge end up being "cultivated" by the wish of a jew to find his, uh, what? 8th degree cousins? , but now i wonder, was Courland's dealings with Fernando Pó an IOTL event?