School Homework
V0.2 (corrections and expansions)
Considering the back-story of Discworld's "Russia", a place hinted at in canon but barely developed.
Elaborating on the bare bones of the canonical Discworld timeline and sketching out a backstory.
And what better way to do this than….
A short, or shorter, an interlude while the longer next chapter (continuing the previous one) is in preparation.
"Miss Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons. In this School, we refer to it as "Prep" and we do not call it "homework". That's a frightfully common word, and one we do not use at the Guild School. Thank you."
Essay Topic: On The Geography And History Of The Rodinian Territories
For: Miss Y.L. Garianova
By: Famke Smith-Rhodes Stibbons, 2 Raven
The defining feature of that part of the Central Continent which was once occupied by the Imperial Rodinian Empire at its height is that it was big. Seriously big. It occupied a massive land area. Remnants of Imperial Rodinia may be found as far away as the Widdershins Sea coast of the Continent, to the widdershins of today's Nothingfjord and the Swommi country. Hubwards of Genua and the land claimed by Aceria is the enclave known as the Bloodibostok Oblast, named after its principal town and seaport. In this enclave, the Rodinian language and cultural customs persist, pressed on all sides by Genua, Aceria, and the nearby Agatean Empire.
An almost unbroken chain of people, shared culture, society and above all a common language (though with many dialects) passes from the Vortex Plains, Siber'ya to its people, past the Hub, and down through Zlobenia, Mouldavia and Far Überwald into Kazakhstan. On the further side of Mouldavia is the Great Mouldavian Sea, the inland sea, or very large lake, known to the Rodinians living on its Rimwards shores as Lake Baikal.
Approaching from the most Turnwise extremity of what was once the Rodinian Empire, a visitor perhaps sitting on a very fast flying carpet will come to the first of the four great rivers known as The Four Sisters Of Rodinia. The Lipshitz, known as the Lipsczista or the Lipshitsa depending on first language, has historically marked the outermost border of Rodinia, marking the point where three peoples, three languages and three cultures meet. Near Überwaldeans, Fistulans and Rodinians have a long history of interaction and mutual animosity which will be covered in the section on History, below, and it is possible that this River marks where they gave up fighting each other out of sheer exhaustion. Everything to the widdershins is regarded as Rodinian by default. It is interesting that a tributary of the Lipshita, the River Musckovada, is not regarded as one of the great Four, but is home to the city of Blondograd, formerly the Imperial Capital but now a lesser satellite city of Bonk and Far Überwald.
All four sister rivers run approximately from Hubwards to Rimwards, and this also has a significance not just to Rodinian but also to world history. (see remarks below, under History, attributed to the great General Tacticus)
After the Lipshita comes the Diapr (also known as the Slipnir) , a wider and longer river that acts as a conduit for the effluvium of its wide basin, an agricultural heartland described as the breadbasket of a continent. This in its turn gives way to forest and woodland leading to the third sister, the River Ron, which comes to the Circle Sea at the port of Duztkloff-on-Ron. (Like Chirm City (Rottendam), a former great port now suffering from centuries of silting and decline).
The Ronbas region served by the Ron is also agriculturally significant, especially as this river flows in its higher reaches through Zlobenia and the capital city of Rigour. River trade is especially important here as there are few good roads and only at present a single Rail Way line serving the regional capital. Agriculture remains the principal industry in this region, although there have always been mines for coal and metals, with a growing industrial presence around the cities of Rigour, Pinsk, Blinsk and Stinsk..
The fourth of the sisters is the Vulga, geographically furthest away from the heartland of the Central Continent around Ankh-Morpork and the Sto Plains. Mother Vulga sustains heavy river traffic in and out of the river port city of Astrakhan Peren, renowned for its fabric trade, its distinctive heavy clothing, and its manufacture of very distinctive fur-based headwear. Elsewhere, largely nomadic Cossack peoples roam the great Steppes tending to their horse-herds, with a network of permanent towns known as stanitsas providing fixed points at which the Hosts store fodder for the winter and which provide logistical support, such as distillers, farriers, leatherworkers, tack-makers, and in surrounding areas the necessary agriculture to provide things which horses cannot, such as grain, foodstuffs, meat from non-equine animals, clothing, and of course vodka. Vodka is big business in Rodinia. This requires lots of land given over to grain and potatoes, some of which is even used for food. Potatoes are also a staple crop and so vital that there is a potato God, Epidity, who is honoured by his own Orthodox Church.
Churches and monasteries are also big business and even the smallest village or Stanitsa will invariably have its own Church. The largest cities also have Cathedrals, sometimes more than one, competing for the collection plate revenue on an Octeday. Religion is big business here.
A Brief Outline History of Rodinia:
As with so much else in Discworld history, the earliest beginning of the peoples now known as Rodinian is wrapped in speculation, conjecture, myth, folklore and not nearly enough in the way of written record. This is a situation that my History teacher, Miss Alice Band, publicly describes as "the great challenge of the Historian", to make some sort of objective sense of it all and to establish some sort of objective record of what happened, and when it happened, and to whom it happened. In private I understand she has described it as "bloody aggravating" and that she has said some unkind things about "bloody History Monks making it ten times more difficult than it ought to be."
There is no denying that the fabled History Monks can be viewed as a sort of gremlin in the works of History, especially during the more confused periods of Discworld History where nothing seems to quite properly fit together and there is a suspicion of multiple pasts colliding. My father, Professor Ponder Stibbons, will at this point sigh heavily and put it all down to Quantum. I asked him to elaborate on this. My father explained it could be called Historical Uncertainty. That you can know what happened, or when it happened, but never the two at once. Not in this world. Miss Band agreed with him, and I witnessed what I understand is a rare moment in academia, when a scientist and an arts graduate are completely in agreement and understand each other perfectly. At this point my mother, Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes, who is a zoologist and has to deal with anomalous examples of wildlife and where they fit into the biological record, poured three large drinks. My mother, after recent events in Ankh-Morpork, is currently trying to find an explanation for the Patrician concerning Osibisi, the flying elephants of Howondaland, concerning where they come from, how they fit into the zoological picture, how in the Hells they got here, and if they pose any sort of threat to the City.(1) It irritates her that they do not fit into the known chain of causality which is Evolutionary Theory and I have noticed she has been taking larger drinks recently. She is considering that History Monks may also have been messing with the evolutionary timeline.
Rodinia, especially where historical periods like the Mage Wars, the Dark Empire and the purported time of the Sourceror where nobody is properly sure what happened and nobody who was there wants to talk about it very much (such as my father's older colleagues at the University – they go all sort of shifty and shuffle and mumble)(2), is a prime example of the Theory of Uncertainty.
As with most people at the Dawn of History (ie, where people actually started writing things down, as opposed to just telling the stories at night for entertainment purposes), peoples linked by common culture, language, et c, got together in larger and larger groups, for the usual sorts of reasons. For defence of what they had, for offence in grabbing more at the expense of the neighbours, and for society, as talking to the same half dozen people all the time must get boring and annoying. (I love my sisters but if I was stuck in a room with them like for ever with nobody else to talk to, I'd go spare). Also because more people equals more possible husbands and wives and therefore means you don't end up like one of those Shires where there are Rumours.
These early social groups ended up with Priests telling them not to do things or the Gods would get annoyed, and more importantly with people who got to the top, mainly because they had the biggest clubs with nails through the end, who got to call themselves Princes and Kings. After a while there was less club and more nail (spears) until they hit on the idea of doing away with the club pretty much altogether (they kept the spears and got lots of other people to carry them), carrying only big long sharp nails which had sharpened sides as well as points.
Having invented Swords, the various Kings and Princes then started fighting each other, so as to have bigger war-bands, lots more potential wives and larger areas to rule and generate personal wealth from..
This is, as far as I can see, Universal.
In the area of the Central Continent which is now Far Überwald and is being currently described as the Greater Kneck Confederated States' Economic Co-operation Area,(3) several millenia ago(4) many contending princes emerged. They were Princes of people who spoke recognisably the same language and followed the same social customs, so it could be argued that Union was inevitable, and depended on which Prince had the biggest and best sharpened nail.
We know that these interchangeable Princes all had names like Beleg, Oleg, Veleg, Greleg, Zeleg and in one case McSweeney.(5) It is possible they were also fighting for sole custody of a limited and scarce resource, a small pool of precious phonemes.
The region of Muskovady, around the river and the settlement that later became Imperial Blondograd, is thought of, historically and archaeologically, as the birthplace of the Rodinian people. Blondograd, at this time called something like Keith after an early ruler, was more of a stanitsa, a walled village. It was the principal settlement of people fighting for their lives and liberties and independence against encroaching almost-powers on all sides, the principal of which was the Latatian Empire, then seeking to extend its hegemony to the Widdershins and the Rimwards.
Rurik the Grandfather, hailed as the first King of the Keithan'Rus peoples, the man who united the early scattered tribes, then fought wars of mobility and attrition against the Latatians, exploiting the speed and mobility of his cavalry-based warbands and making the point to the Latatians that my people really are not worth your while.
His sons, Oleg, Beleg, Igor and Keith, continued the fight against encroaching foes, who also included the Klatchian Empire in their Hubwards, ever looking for their own imperial expansion.
Predictably, the ever-present threat of other people helped unify the Keithan'Rus peoples. This would become a theme down the following ages: nothing unites the Rus, or later the Rodinians, more than an external enemy who invades their country. Again and again, would-be conquerors with no talent for pattern recognition would learn this uncomfortable truth.
"Invade Rodinia, and inevitably one morning you will wake up and discover Cossacks looting your capital city." (attrib. General Tacticus, who had many things to say about this country.)
At this point there were no Tsars. "Merely" Kings, such as King Igor I, also known as King Igor The How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You I'm Not THAT sort of Igor?
I am advised the difference between a King and a Tsar is like the difference between an everyday working Witch, and the late Esmerelda Weatherwax. Tsars, Kings of Kings (or Queens over Kings) come later in the History.
Keithan'Rus had now become the larger and more stable Kingdom of Muskovadian'Rus, based on the River Muskovada.
At around this point, several things happened which are historically confused. The first of the Dark Wars happened. Muskovadia's role in this sequence of events is not at all clear, but something happened at the place called Loko, which is a shortened version of the Rodinian placename Chernobyloko, about which even today, Wizards around the world appear to be sworn to silence if asked, and they also get to be very embarrassed if pressed.
Loko is now an uninhabited un-natural valley surrounded by concentric circles of mountains where humans do not care to go. It does not appear on very old maps, nor on written accounts of the region, and it seems to have suddenly appeared, practically overnight.
I asked my father, Sir Ponder Stibbons, Vice-Chancellor of Unseen university. He was reluctant to talk about it, so I had to get persistent. I got the impression there may once have been a magical research establishment, perhaps like the one my father runs in Ankh-Morpork, where an accident happened. My father said he is very careful about the High Energy Magic Building and the Thaumatalogical Park, as there are lots of Examples in the History of Wizardry as to what can go wrong.
My father also hinted Loko might have seen the use, millenia ago, of the fabled Explosive Metal Bomb, dropped on the place by a rival. At this point my mother urgently requested my father to change the subject, as she did not want the girl to get ideas of THAT sort, Ponder.(6)
Anyway, Dark Wars happened at intervals for some time, with Muskovadia becoming somehow larger and stronger. In such glimpses as we see in this period of history, the country quietly gets on with it, despite war going on all around. At most, it is an ally, rather than a vassal, of the Dark Empire and the Dark Queen who arose in Bonk.
When the Dark Empire finally fell – or discreetly receded into very deliberately cast shadow – Muscovadia was settled and strong, but aware of even stronger nations, and confederations of nations, to its Turnwise.
The Vilnessian Commonwealth, called Lividia, based on the city of Vileness, (today called Rigour) in what is now Zlobenia; the Fistulan Confederation, based in its heartland of the River Fistula and the Tetris mountains. And Prussica, most powerful of the states arising in Near Überwald.
In the centuries following the last Dark War and the re-arranging of the world into new nations and coalitions, the Muscovadian'Rus fought so many wars with its Turnwise neighbours that it completely failed to see the threat about to fall from the Widdershins.
A coalition of Muscovadians and the neighbouring state of Nobinobgorod met the army of the kingdom of Prussica at Tannensalon. This appears to have been such a favoured arena for battles that there have been sixteen Battles of Tannensalon in the years since. The wily King Vladimir of Nobinobgorod, noting the Prussicans had elected to invade Rodinian lands in early December and duly almost unable to believe they'd been so obliging, lured the heavily armed knights onto a frozen river. This strategy worked spectacularly well when the early-winter ice gave way under the Prussicans.
Unfortunately Generals find it hard to give up a winning idea and it didn't work quite so well on the susbsequent fourteen occasions. Like the thing with Ephebians and wooden horses, or my own people with building Redoubts. Especially now the Zulus appear to have got wise to this, and are evolving counter-strategies, ie very accurate long-distance artillery.
In a centuries-later battle, the Prussicans rolled right over the river at Tannensalon, with the defeated Rodinian general (a product of long generations of inbreeding in the then Imperial Family of the Godenovs(7)) being told, on capture, "Look, it's bloody February. Three months of ice. You might have noticed we don't wear so much armour these days, and after three months that ice is four feet thick. I could have marched an army of bloody Trolls over that ice!"
Indeed, at Third Tannesalon, the high Über-Grand-Master Feldmarschall und Óberbefehlshaber of the Prussican Army unleashed his crack force of Tectonic Knights, Trolls in the service of Prussica, who in winter became not only lethal fighting machines but also in the January cold, hyper-intelligent ones. As a troll can hold his breath underwater for up to fifteen minutes – this is an evolutionary defensive mechanism – they not only crossed the river unscathed, but were invigorated by the icy-cold water and could help each other out on the far bank, shattering the ice again this time from underneath.(8)
Vladimir of Nobinobgorod and Vassily of Blondograd secured the Turnwise integrity of their lands. However, the biggest threat was in the Widdershins.
Here, the Agatean Empire had once spread its influence and its lands a long way into the widdershins extremity of the Central Continent. It had largely found nothing here to interest it, and had long since retreated back to the Agatean continent and started building walls.
However, colonies had been left behind. Many had died or had been assimilated to the local conditions. But one significant ~Agatean colony remained, right at the outermost extremity.
Rehigreed. Still claimed by Agatea as a Province and renowned for vul nuts and reannual grapes.(9)
Details are hazy, but a population explosion happened here. Rehigreed suddenly became too small for its people. A particularly charismatic and visionary warlord may have been drinking glen livhid or reannual wine, and saw a vision of himself as a world-striding conqueror. of course, he would then have felt obliged to go out there and conquer, because of Causality.
This warlord united the horsepeoples of Rehigreed and led them on that war of conquest. This even saw them conquering their former imperial lords in Agatea and founding a new Dynasty. It certainly saw them strike to the Turnwise and conquering, among other peoples, the Nobinobgorodians and the Muscovadians.
The armies of the horselords also drove escaping peoples before them and were the last death-knell to the failing Latatian Empire, overcome by waves of displaced peoples, and finally by the deadly weapon which is twenty thousand mounted archers.
Strangely enough, they also - technically – conquered Ankh-Morpork. The then King of Ankh and Morpork prostrated himself in surrender to the Rehigreedians and invited them to enjoy the amenities of the City.
A few months later, a thirty-thousand strong army had vanished and all the plunder it had amassed in its Turnwise campaign of conquest vanished. Ankh-Morpork, in contrast, appeared to have been subtly enriched.
However, the Rus peoples were now traumatised vassals of Rehigreed, allowed to maintain puppet kingdoms under Rehigreedian governors.
This situation lasted for two centuries, until the Grand Prince of Muskovadia, Ivan II The Fair, started to notice the Rehigreedian conquerors, particularly those who had seized the luxury of Muntab and the nearer parts of Klatch, were starting to look distinctly fat and unathletic. Prince Ivan thought about this, concluding these were not the deadly horse-warriors from the widdershins, the feared fighters of two centuries before who could ride for fifteen days, sleeping in their saddles, and fight a war at the end of the ride. Ivan the Great realised these Rehigreedians would today be hard-put to manage a ten minute ride on a placid donkey.
He led a revolt, destroying the Rehigreedians at the Battle of Kulikovo, managing to unite all the greater and lesser kingdoms and principalities of the Rus people under his banner.
Sergius, the Metropolitan of Blondograd, spent the battle imploring the Gods to come to the aid of our Rodina, Ruskiya'Mat, the Motherland, the sacred soil.
People tend to notice an insane priest who tours a battlefield, wearing no armour and carrying no weapons, to preach what he thinks is an inspiring sermon.
A new nation was born at Kulikovo. There were still wars with Rehigreed, with Prussica, with Lividia, with Fistula. There were also civil wars as the various noble families contended for the prize of ruling a vastly expanded unified kingdom, now almost an Empire as the Rehigreedians were progressively forced back and new lands were claimed.
The words of St Sergius of Blondograd were remembered. The one word, endlessly repeated.
Rodina.
The land of Rodinia had been born. Its rulers were now Tsars, not just Kings and Princes. My sister Rebecka would go off on one at this point and say something like "ooh, that's interesting! That's almost the Latatian word "Caesar", meaning "Emperor". I wonder if that's where Rodinian gets the word?" But then, Bekki's got a weird mind and she thinks this way.
With the unification of the Peoples under the dominance of Blondograd rather than Nobinobgorod, the Prince of Muscovadia was elevated to a new rank, that of Tsar. Tsars were now to reign over a united Rodinia for a very long time.
The first Tsar, Ivan Godenov II "ivan The Terrible", earned his title by, simply, not being very good at it. Rodinia was saved from disaster by the Tsarina, Yelena Glinskaya (Romanoff. The Imperial Families cross-married a lot), who quietly and discreetly said the right things to the right people and simply bypassed her husband. In this time, the last hold-out minor principalities and states submitted to the Tsarate and Rodinia expanded still further, taking in all those who spoke a range of related dialects of the same language and held to common customs.
(Today there is a Standard Common Rodinian which all can speak, although I am advised there are still localised and dialect forms).
The next trial for united Rodinia was the first rise of Ankh-Morpork and the meteoric rise of its Empire. However, the attitude of Tacticus to Rodinia can be summed up in aphorisms of his which are still taught in military colleges today:
-If you wish for a fight in midwinter, invite your opponent to a friendly snowball fight in the garden outside a comfortable house, to which you can retreat for a hot drink after snowballing is over, so as to watch the snow falling from the right side of the window, whilst in a warm dry place. Always arrive at an armistice with General Winter.
-Do not invade Rodinia in winter.
-In fact, do not invade Rodinia in summer either. An army marching into Rodinia in June will still be marching into Rodinia six months later when - inexorably – it is December, there is still a lot more Rodinia in front of you, and you are by now still invading Rodinia. In winter. A Rodinian winter.
-If you do not have the support of a very well-resourced Corps Of Military Engineers, people who can quickly repair deliberately destroyed bridges over four rather large rivers, then do not invade Rodinia. Cross the Diapr and the Ron will soon be in front of you. After the Ron there is the Vulga. There may be other rivers on the far side of the Vulga, but nobody has ever got that far to definitively find out.
-Make friends and allies of Rodinians. Not the opposite.
General Tacticus chose to bypass Rodinia. He concluded a treaty with Tsar Boris Gudenov respecting the sovereign rights of the Tsar in his lands, and suggested there was always room for volunteer soldiers in the Army of the Ankh-Morpork Coalition. Thus, several full brigades of Cossacks, the best fighting cavalry in the world, came to him to augment his forces.
Apparently not all the Rehigreedians left Rodinia. Genetically, they left a certain "Agatean", or at least Auriental, streak in the Rodinian gene pool (10), as well as their fighting-from-horseback skills: the Cossacks, certainly the further widdershins you go, are a survival (or the inheritor) of Rehigreed's conquest of most of the known world.
Time passed, the heirs of Tacticus could not keep hold of the empire he forged, and Rodinia took advantage of its dissolution to push onwards and further.
This came to a somewhat humiliating halt when Tsar Peter the Stupid asked if there was any reason why these Swommi people should not be assimilated into the Empire.
Disregarding Generals who said "errr…" and taking their stunned silence as consent, this Tsar took a step too , Tsars are absolute rulers and their word is Law. Even a command to lead an Army to certain destruction in winter. Against a people who are better at Winter than Rodinians.
Six months later, with a battered Army stuck in snowdrifts in the Swommi country and getting smaller and more battered by the day, Peter Ignatieff, Peter the Stupid, was deposed and sent to a monastery. His wife took over the throne as Tsarina Catherine, soon earning the title of "The Irritable." Catherine got annoyed a lot at people being stupid, especially men, and frankly I can see her point.
Catherine the Irritable's first act as Tsarina, having called a ceasefire and requested to speak to the opposing Leader, was to surrender to the Swommis. Meeting the Swommi leader Field Marshal Waffleheim, she took off her sword belt, bowed, and handed it to him. The dialogue is reconstructed.
"What is this for, madam?"
"I'm handing you my swords. It's symbolic. When a Tsar surrenders, the whole Empire surrenders. It's yours."
"Errr.. may I have a word with my advisors, ma'am?"
"Go ahead. I'll wait."
After a while, Waffleheim came back.
"Errr… the whole Empire? Everything?" he asked.
"Yes. Everything." she confirmed.
"errr…if it's all the same to you, ma'am. We're only a small country. We wouldn't know how to run a huge Empire. No practice."
I imagine Catherine smiled at this point.
"Good. Listen to me. We've established we can't beat you and conquer your country. We've lost thousands of people and we're barely off the start line in a war that was meant to get us to Hell's Sink inside a week. If we can't do that in six months then we'll never do it at all, and my duty as Tsar is to end it. Agreed? You've conceded that you don't want the Empire. Didn't think you'd take it, for one minute, but you've got to agree that caught your attention, yes? I imagine what you really do want is for us to stop fighting, agree where the border is, and for us to stay on our side of it and never try to invade you again, yes? And for your inconvenience you can have the Karenian province, it's all snow and forest anyway, and it's full of Swommis who really don't want to be Rodinians, so no big loss, and it enables us to straighten the border up a bit."
Again, I imagine Marshal Waffleheim considered this for a few moments, said something short and meaningful in Swommi, and then handed her swords back and saluted her. Then they wrote down a peace treaty and signed it.
Then Catherine Romanoff, Catherine I the Irritable and the first Romanoff Tsar, realised the problem with a big Empire was that having concluded a peace at the Hubwards end of it, she had to get to the other end of it. Very quickly. As the Klatchians and the Muntabians, sensing weakness and disarray, had just invaded from the Rimwards end.
History records her journey to the new war at the Rimwards took thirty-five days, gathering an Army on the way, then leading a battle she could win. Just to be sure, she sacked the general and took command herself. The resulting campaign split the Klatchian Empire in two, forever splitting Muntab off from Klatch, and creating a new Rodinian land, based on Mother Vulga and naming itself Kazakhstan.
As the Tsarina said, the bloody damn Klatchians invading her country just as she ended the ruinous expense and the embarrassment of the Winter War with the Swommi, well, this was the kind of thing that could really irritate a woman. She went on to incorporate the declining former enemy of Lividia, now called the Principality of Zlobenia, into the Empire, where it was to remain for several centuries and would be extensively colonised by Rodinians – including the Romanoff family, who acquired extensive lands here, intending their Zlobenian estates to be a sort of retreat and a holiday home.
Over the following centuries, Tsars came and went. There were revolts, needing to be Put Down, and there were further wars, mainly with the Prussicans. Although the Hubsvensskans, in a half-hearted fit of Empire-building, tried to encroach into the Vortex Plains (Siber'ya) and needed correction, as did the Quirmians during their bid for world power status. What is called the Just After Ten Past Six In The Evening invasion by the Quirmian Coalition did not end well, although it is generally remembered for a cool piece of music with some really amazing percussion effects. I'd really really love to be part of the percussion section in that orchestra! (11)
The collapse of the Tsarate came suddenly, following a prolonged and ruinous war with the Old Enemy, a Prussican-dominated Überwald. Previously, a losing war with Agatea right at the edge of the Empire had left the Bloodibostock oblast isolated and cut off, and now this latest war was draining resources faster than they could be replenished. The Bonk Front was being likened to an open wound, and the people were beginning to question why so many of the nation's young men were matching off and not coming back. The Soviet Party was gaining lots of committed people, especially in the cities, and the land was becoming impoverished by the enormous drain needed to pay for a massive Army.
Tsar Alexander was forced to concede the idea of a Duma, a People's Assembly, which would make decisions and even restrict the absolute rule of the Tsar. This elective assembly did not last long. In any of its forms.
And finally there was the business between the Tsarina and the Court Wizard. The Tsar was away at the Front and she needed cheering up. The court Wizard, Gaz Putin, was there, and…. Apparently, he was very popular with the Ladies of the Court, most of whose husbands were away at the Bonk front fighting the Prussicans. (12)
Several things happened after that.
The Tsarina had a child, who was counted as a Romanoff and was the long-desired Son.(13)
This apparently annoyed his older sister Olga, who had got to the age of nineteen thinking she would be the next Tsar, and frankly I can see her point. You get some grub of a little brother and you suddenly discover you're not getting the inheritance after all because he's a boy and you're not. That would drive any girl totally spare.
The Court wizard, Gaz Putin, was invited for dinner one night and discovered that his dinner companions were Army officers home on leave, who were married to Court Ladies.
Gaz Putin became aware that in some quarters he was not as popular as he thought he was, and he was then shot, stabbed, forced to drink poison, and finally thrown through thin ice into the chilly waters of the Musckovada.
I located a version of his final words after some searching, and this is it;
Aagh, what did you do that for, you bastards? That really bloody well hurt! Listen, you have just killed a Wizard,. Aaaargh! Gods, it hurts! You know it's given to a magic user to speak truth as he dies, right? You get to AAAARGH! make a prophecy on the way out? Well, bloody well listen! The FIRST thing, the first thing, that happens, right, is that Alexander's the last Tsar, you get that? Oh Gods that hurts. You are going to get something else, and nobody's going to like it. Tyranny of the People, you bourgeois bastards No more nobility, you stuck-up heads-up-your-own-arsehole bastards AAAARGH! No more Rodinia. Everything you know goes up in flames. And I will tell you another thing. Urgggh… there's a streak of magic in the Romanoff family now. I put it there. It won't go away. They'll be able to hide it, if it's a minor family member they can hide away somewhere or put into exile, and this really hurts, you know that?
"And these are the final words of the wizard, Gaz Putin. Sooner or later there's going to be a Romanoff in direct line of succession to the throne, right? They can't hide her. She'll be in plain view. She'll have magic. And I will tell you bastards she, this Romanoff to come, she will have so much power at her command, power to destroy, power to obliterate, and beleive me she will shake the bloody world, that you'd better hope she's got a good temper and she isn't in any way at all a bloody- minded irritable bitch and… urrrgh…. glug, glug, glug..."
It is noticeable that every part of this prophecy has come true, with the exception of "the Romanoff yet to come" who will be a woman with very great power at her disposal. The Rodinian Empire crashed in flames. The Duma ended. The Party of the Man of Iron took control after the revolution and promptly killed – liquidated - as many members of the old Imperial families as they could.
While there are still a few Ignatieffs out there, the only Imperial House to survive the Civil War and the revolution were the Romanoffs, who saw what was coming and fled to their estates in Zlobenia – a country that asserted its independence from Rodinia in the disarray following the War.
Somehow, the Royal Treasury was spirited out of Blondograd along with the Crown Jewels. Nobody quite knows how, but informed speculation is that the adventurous Royal Princess Olga Romanoff, a girl made angry at the recent birth of a baby brother who would become first in line to the Throne rather than her, somehow ensured several river barges were loaded with the bullion. As these were the sort of river-craft commonly known as honey-barges, either nobody gave them a second look nor did guards on the river passages care to examine their holds too closely.
At about this time, significantly large and rather smelly sums were paid into the trust of the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork and other institutions, in the name of the Romanoff family. It is possible these two things are linked.
The second part of the Wizard's prophecy also came true. The Rodinian Empire collapsed. The Tsars were deposed. The Union of Soviets began on the basis of liberty, egality, freedom and liquidating the bourgeoisie and sending people who were dissident or malcontent to the Gulags.
Eighty years of communal socialism later, Rodinia completely disintegrated, a failed state, and has been this way for several centuries now. But people keep hoping. Maybe the Romanoff Yet To Come will emerge from wherever she is and take leadership. Perhaps she will descend from the skies?
"Well, what do you think?" Yelena Garianova asked Miss Alice Band.
Alice put down Famke's essay with a resigned sigh.
"At least she quoted me accurately." Alice remarked. "And in context, too. That's the thing with this girl. She pays attention."
"She is bright and able in my classroom." Yelena said. "Good pupil. One of the best in the class, in fact. And in yours?"
"If the subject matter interests her, she is very able indeed." Alice said. "If it doesn't, she switches off, and does the bare necessary minimum it needs to get a pass grade. I've spoken to her about that, and pointed out a bit of visible effort would be nice."
Yelena smiled.
"I'm pleased they all took the exercise seriously." she said. "I teach Rodinian Culture as well as language. I have a good general grasp of the history of my people. I felt the history matters less than discovering what my students were prepared to find out about it, what they selected as important. Their overall impressions. They are learning to speak my language. They should also know about our history and culture. The two are inseparable. But since you are the History teacher, it is only courteous to ask for your advice, in case you feel I am straying into your subject area."
Alice nodded, understanding.
"Whereas I'd focus more on the History." she said. "Famke started well, but it got perhaps a little rushed and sketchy towards the end. I'd have liked her to use citations for the facts she quoted. Footnote style. Less of the casual asides and slang. And I'd really like to know where she found that piece about the last words of the wizard Gaz Putin. That needs a citation and provenance."
"Da." Yelena agreed. She frowned. "I have heard there is such a thing as the Romanoff Prophecy. But I also know agents of the Romanoff Family have taken care to locate such records as there are, and to either destroy books where it appears or else make sure original manuscripts are locked in a strongbox, securely. Also, Famke is not stupid. I suspect that as she is being very careful not to mention the current Olga Romanoff even once, that is a telling omission."
"Just as well." Alice agreed. "It's the kind of thing Olga would get irritable about. If I were you I'd ask Famke to rewrite that last page and leave the Gaz Putin stuff out. That could be pushing her luck too far, if Olga ever got to see it. I know she's sensitive about how the Romanoff family got the streak of magic. She doesn't like to talk about it."
She paused, and added
"So is Natasha. And Natasha Romanoff is an Assassin who has got just enough magic. Just a trace. But it surfaces in her from time to time. Assassins are not supposed to have magic. She likes to keep that quiet. Ye Gods, she even hid it from me, and I was looking out for it."(14)
Alice frowned.
"There's no denying Famke can write competently." she said, thoughtfully. "I remember some of the stuff her aunt wrote for the school magazine in her time here. At the same sort of age, Mariella could put words together very well indeed. And this sort of thing runs in families."
Yelena considered this.
"She quotes no source." she said. "I wonder if Famke heard only of the rumours concerning the last words of the wizard, and concerning the Romanoff prophecy, and made up a fiction, something plausible, to fill the gap? It is possible. We know or we suspect these things were said. Many legitimate texts refer to them. We just don't know what was said."
Alice smiled.
"I'd give her a B+, anyway. With less casual comment, more footnotes and citations, and more about recent history, such as the fall of the Union of Soviets and what came afterwards, I'd have made it an A."
Famke Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons carefully replaced the book in her locker. She sensed it was not the sort of thing you drew attention to. With only a week to finish the Rodinian History essay, she had discovered the relevant shelves in the School Library had been denuded of books relevant to the topic. She expected that; she wasn't the only person in the Rodinian Culture class, and it was a niche subject the School had never taught before. Therefore the book shortage.
Famke had thought about it and grinned. The Assassins' School library wasn't the only library in town. And if her own father couldn't get her some little privileges, what was Dad for? Well, apart from money. And he said the university library isn't just about magical books.
She arrived at the University Library clutching a large bunch of bananas. Famke believed in preparing adequately for a mission. Three quarters of an hour and a lot of Ooks later, she had a stack of books on loan. One of the Ooks had conveyed the idea of I know your father. That gets you privileges. I know where you live. I know you respect books. Fill in these reader's tickets for me, please. If they're overdue - or damaged - I'll talk to your parents.
Famke had got her books on Rodinian history. One gem had been a drably covered hardback that had long since lost its dustcover, entitled Peculiarities and Exoticisms of the Muscovadian Region and of Rodinia, by Stripfettle and Oblamovsky. It appeared to have been privately produced as a limited edition.
The bits about the Romanoff prophecy were in a chapter about the roots of the Revolution that overthrew the Tsars and ushered in the Union of Soviets. Famke had read that with deep absorption and thought "Jackpot!"
She didn't know what she could do with it or if it was going to be a good idea to even hint at it anywhere near Olga Romanoff. A self-preservation instinct was sending out urgent prompts about this. But she'd work it into her essay for Miss, anyway.
Famke grinned a happy grin and set about writing.
I may come back to this and expand some points and change others. But this is an outline of the history of Discworld's "Russia", anyway, pulling in canon where canon is known. The rest is based loosely on Russian history on our world and adapted a bit. Next chapter after this interlude - back to Spa Lane and various conversations and events.
(1) Cross-reference this to The Price of Flight – tying up the threads here
(2) Go to Sourcery by Terry Pratchett
(3) in the Compleat Discworld Atlas, there is a section detailing how long-sundered in the general Far Überwaldian area are coming together again to form at least an economic copllective. Depending on whose political philosophy prevails, this could end up as perhaps a Union of soviets or else a "Russian" Confederation. The CDA notes this is at the moment embryonic and requires, for instance, the setting aside of long-held animosities, for instance between Zlobenia and the more "Slavonic" bits of Borogravia, or between Mouldavia and everybody else. A sort of post-USSR "Russia" and its former co-Soviet states is quite possibly canonical!
(4) Famke might have remarked that precise dating is impossible, because History Monks. Ask Miss Band.
(5) Later localised to Swenovitch. A long-established Rodinian family dynasty who at one point even provided a Tsar or two.
(6) "I am starting to find out about the fabled Explosive Metals and while this belongs to Alchemy and not to History, I am seriously going "Wow!" and "how cool is this!" I might ask Dad again, ideally when Mum isn't around." - (F S-R-S)
(7) The House of Godenov had a reputation for applied mediocrity in all things, as in "that'll do, that's good enough". Their time as Tsars did not last long and it is believed this Family did not survive the Revolution or the Union of Soviets.
(8) Admittedly, a deep-frozen troll becomes so intelligent that they see no purpose in fighting for somebody else. They promptly ripped through the Rodinian lines just to make the point, then deserted en masse into the surrounding forests, never to fight for humans again.
(9) Go to The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett. Twoflower talks about "The Rehigreed Province." Which is nowhere near the rest of Agatea. On the map it's a long distance away, on the Central Continent.
(10) In Book One, Bekki notices her Witch-tutor Irena Politek has high cheekbones and perceptibly slanted eyes which suggest something Agatean, or at least Auriental, in her remote ancestry. in our world this is a Russian thing too. Ghengis Khan's Mongol hordes left a few genes behind even after the post-Kulikovo retreat from Moscow and Novgorod. There are also lots of people in Siberia and the East who, although they are Russian for all purposes, have a genetic which is more Central Asian than European.
(11) Miss Glynnie had organised a school trip for her music students, to a performance of the Just After Ten Past Six Overture at the Opera House. She pointed out that her music students should be exposed to orchestral music and see performance and to listen to the music, and for her class of percussionists to pay attention to all the many and varied ways percussion is used in this piece, as she would be asking questions later. Famke had spent the performance going "Wow!", especially at the percussion-heavy bit right at the end.
(12) There's even a song about it. Go, go, Gaz Putin, lover of Rodinia's Queen... Romanoffs tend to get irritable if this is sung where they can hear it.
(13) Exiled to Zlobenia, the ex-Tsar Alexander thought about this, and ensured his son was eventually married to a distant Romanoff cousin from elsewhere in the Family who also counted in the Imperial Bloodline, so that nobody could argue about whether his descendents were truly of The Family. Not that he'd ever thought otherwise, of course.
(14) go to my story Fresh Pair of Eyes, in which the inconvenient streak of magic in the Romanoff family emerges, at need, in Natasha.