Bilgedoghan
Bilgedoghan | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
 | |
| Capital and largest city | Aghzikara |
| Official languages | Sularin |
| Religion | Siriash |
• Compact | Sophoran |
| Demonym | Bilgedoghanli, Keretuli |
| Government | Respublican monarchy |
• King | Yildirim |
| Legislature | Grand Assembly of Bilgedoghan |
| Establishment | |
• Original kingdom established | 1670 |
• Invasion by Busar and creation of the Keretul Protectorate | 1951 |
• Restoration of the monarchy | 1998 |
| Area | |
• Total | 58,241 km2 (22,487 sq mi) (84th) |
| Population | |
• Estimate | 5.2 million |
• Density | 90/km2 (233.1/sq mi) |
| Currency | grosi (BGG) |
| Time zone | Western Lestrian Time – IAT-M -2 |
Bilgedoghan is a respublican monarchy located in northern Lestria, bordered by Busar (to the north), Gekit (east) and Oturech (south), with a long western coast on the Prothenian Ocean. It is largely synonymous with the Keretul region, known as one of the centers of the Sagan civilisation and descendants, and the area where its original forms developed.
History
The name Bilgedoghan is Sularin in origin meaning "wise falcon". The first reference to anyone so known in the region dates from 1447, when a man named Indir Bilgedoghan – claimed by the modern house as its first known ancestor – is named on a contract for land in the vicinity of Aghzikara, today the country’s capital; he is thought to have come north as part of a larger family group from somewhere in what is now Oturech. The claim of wisdom in the name has suggested that Indir may have been a priest in the Pyranist tradition long held along the Lestrian west coast.
The Bilgedoghan family became one of the dominant landowners around Aghzikara over the next century, although disputes within the family – principally centred on inheritance rights – resulted in discord and a division, with a smaller branch, the Sözel, breaking away in the middle 16th century and returning to northern Oturech. However, its elevation to a position of rulership did not begin to emerge until around 1660, with Dürüs Bilgedoghan beginning a gradual campaign of political alliances, mutual settling of grudges and, where needed, force of arms to bring substantially the whole of the modern country under his control – and, indeed, his name also – before the end of 1670.
Small and relatively weak as it was, the newly unified country became a potential delicacy for outside forces showing interest in the region. Messenian states were becoming a more significant factor in local trade, and their presence was increasingly resented by the growing power of the Tionastrian Empire in southern Ascesia. With news coming out of the south of the White Sun movement seizing the reins of control in the Linghsi region, Dürüs’ son and successor Korumar – a man of some solid faith, if not, perhaps, of the iron-ribbed quality of the White Sun – chose to cast in his lot with his co-religionists, making a lasting alliance with Tionastria which pushed back against the Messenians – and against unfriendly coastal communities in Oturech and Kerkes – while at the same time turning aside any Tionastrian threats against his own lands. The strategy worked – after a fashion – although it earned Bilgedoghan the enmity of an array of Messenian states during Tionastria’s string of wars against them in the early 18th century.
The Bilgedoghan dynasty would become proteges of Madaria during the Nekhseri of the early 20th century, and by 1946 king Tolga IV had embarked on an ambitious Madarian-backed aphypnist programme. This was cut short with the outbreak of the Sleepwalker War in Fabricad 1951, when Busar, under the claim of supporting its Zepnish allies, invaded and occupied Bilgedoghan, expelling the monarchy.
The Busari government under Erdem Dagh sought to treat Bilgedoghan as a compliant ally due to local pressures and Zepnish objections, putting in place a compliant placeman government under the deigmation lecturer Aksungur Tughal. The sham was too obvious to pass muster, and Dagh’s patience lasted mere months before breaking. Early in 1952 he brought down the hammer, installing a turncoat Bilgedoghanli army general, Bashtugh Aksoy, as military governor, purging the Bilgedoghan name and putting the new Keretul Protectorate on a path to annexation. Interordinate protests and Zepnish objections stalled this in 1965, but Busar’s successes in the Arisian War (1974–77) put it back on the agenda.
Siursk intervention in the First Keretul War (1979–80) forced Busar to loosen the leash on Keretul, and the ham-fisted attempt by Guch Beshtashli to wrap his government in the flag with a second war (1995–97) failed dismally, with the Protectorate forcing Busari troops out and Yildirim Bilgedoghan returning to take up the throne from which his grandfather had been evicted.
In the aftermath of Yildirim’s return, Siurskeyti held out a hand in support. Ostari had maintained a not-entirely-discreet presence in Keretul after the first war and had provided equipment and the backing of a technical and training cadre (mainly through facilities in Gekit), and a more open hand in friendship was seen as a requirement for the Siursk government to have a place in the great powers’ wider conversation on the Prothenian coast. Siurskeyti was the first country to formally re-establish an embassy in Aghzikara since 1980, and has provided advisors and administrative support as Yildirim and his government seek to strip out the more problematic aspects of the Ordu-tinged aphypnism which Busari rule had sought to put in place during the Protectorate.
Government and law
A policy on which the new king and his advisors collaborated closely was the reconstruction of representative government in Bilgedoghan. The base frameworks had been allowed to atrophy in large part during Busari rule and the Protectorate, with only limited changes being made to the aphypnist model since the end of the war in 1980 and the drastic scaling-back of Busar’s influence. Yildirim spoke forcefully for the Siur model which he had seen at close quarters in Helminthasse and Siurskeyti while growing up, and the Grand Assembly of Bilgedoghan (Büyük Kurul, as it is called locally) which was created out of these plans is much along Siur lines as a result. This even extends to the franchise being governed by modified amskyldr principles.
Law in Bilgedoghan, however, remains very much in the mould which the Busari imposed upon it. A modified version of the Universal Code used in Busar – itself adapted from the Zepnish original – was put in place by the Aksoy government in 1952. While superseding – and to an extent consolidating – a wide range of local practice, the change was principally intended as a step towards the formal annexation of the Protectorate into Busar proper. Its basic utility, however, has not been seriously disputed, and serious efforts towards reform have struggled for support as the Assembly dealt with more serious and more pressing issues.
Language
The Bilgedoghanli as a general rule speak Sularin of the Keretulian dialect, although the differences between this and the Kerkean form spoken further north in Busar are comparatively minor and both are heard routinely in the north of the country. Since the restoration of the monarchy in 1997 some efforts have been made to identify Kerkean as a language in its own right, but these are ignored by language scholars and have failed to gain any real traction at street level.