Borovest II, Neritsy Emperor
Borovest II Zakon (High Secote: ꧁ⰁⰑⰓⰑⰂⰅⰔⰕⰠ ⰈⰀⰍⰑⰐⰟ꧂, Borovestĭ Zakonŭ; ⰁⰑⰓⰑⰂⰅⰔⰕⰠ Ⰱ, Borovestĭ II) was Universal Prophet from his election on 12 Floridy 1701 until his death on 21 Nollonger 1750. From 1701 to the Lethpol Covenant of 1735, he was also the Legitimist pretender to the title of Emperor of the Vesnites, making him arguably the last Prophet-Emperor of Great Neritsia. Only 16 years old when elected and acclaimed, his long reign covered almost the entire period of the Crown Wars. To date he is the longest-reigning Universal Prophet.
 ꧁ⰁⰑⰓⰑⰂⰅⰔⰕⰠ ⰈⰀⰍⰑⰐⰟ꧂
Borovest II, Zakon | |
|---|---|
| Universal Prophet and Emperor of the Vesnites | |
 | |
| Reign | 1703–1750 (47 years) |
| Period | Crown Wars |
| Election | 12 Floridy 1701 |
| Born | 14 Fabricad 1684 |
| Died | 21 Nollonger 1750 |
| Predecessor | Burya II |
| Successor | Zafuvniprourkah Borovest III (as Neritsy Emperor) |
| Dynasty | Neritsovid (Ratiborovid) |
Borovest was the eldest son of the one-time heir presumptive Ratibor and the grandson of Spytistan II, and was raised between Great Pestul and the Prysostaia (the Princes' School) as had become standard for prospective Neritsovid heirs. Although too young to reasonably act as a candidate by late Neritsovid standards, he was nonetheless the subject of an attempted kidnapping by the Voivode Party during the palace coup that installed his uncle Chistibor in 1697, after which he fled east to the Prysostaia and was given refuge by the Castellan Guard; his father, who would spend the rest of his life under de facto house arrest in Axopol, was not so lucky. After Chistibor's death in 1700 and the expulsion of the Voivodes from Pestul, the favoured choices to succeed him were Borovest's father – still in prison – and, failing that, his uncle Sudovlast. After Sudovlast's death at Kibish Field, the complete breakdown of negotiations with the Voivodes and Spytihnev Rozoevsky's proclamation of the Great Imperial Restoration, however, Borovest was plucked out of obscurity, and his election was secured by a Pièche coup.
Young, timid and with little experience of court life, Borovest was a weak leader whose advisers and defenders generally took great pains to keep him away from serious decision-making, although his position meant that there was a limit on how much he could absent himself from politics. During the Rule of the Sergeants, access to him was closely controlled by Puhtaus and Zhelteis, the most prominent Pièche commanders, and his public image leaned heavily on the transcension cult of his namesake Borovest I, another exceptionally young Neritsovid Prophet-Emperor. As he got older he became somewhat more assertive, and he played a significant role in the sidelining of the Pièches and the rise of the 'New Voivodes' led by Andromir Pashegy in the early 1720s; his naming Pashegy his Lyubim at a grand feast in 1721 facilitated the final soft purge of the High Captains from senior office at Pestul. While his patronage was to prove key to the careers of several prominent Legitimists, however, he continued to rely heavily on the guidance of others, and preferred the fashionable mysticism and revelries of the Court to the detail of government. In the later 1720s, he became attached to Vladimir Inevsky, whom he helped secure leadership of the High Noble party after Pashegy's de facto retirement in 1729.
As deteriorating relations with the Procuratorate of Anabbah and an abortive Pièche coup (the Captains' Coup) began to undermine the Legitimist position in the early 1730s – and with a groundswell of support for peace from a weary and irritable Scholarchate – Inevsky began a concerted campaign to convince Borovest of the need to compromise with the southerners, commissioning a board of Imperialist luminaries including Skoun Bes Hmadya and the Lacrean émigré Zakon Bako to put together a comprehensive list of the legal and hierological arguments. Although Borovest resisted at first, in 1734 he finally gave his assent, and the following year Inevsky (acting on Borovest's behalf) and Spytihnev II concluded the Lethpol Covenant, under which Borovest ceded his imperial title to Spytihnev in exchange for recognition as Universal Prophet. This triggered an immediate Pièche coup in Pestul, and Borovest was (according to later Legitimist accounts, at least) detained by the High Captains, who denied the legitimacy of the Covenant; the Grave of Lacre, Kalodar II, likewise launched an immediate intervention to save him from the 'theft by daylight of the imperial dignity'. After being rescued from his confinement by Inevsky's troops in 1738, he was dispatched to the Prysostaia for safe keeping, only returning to Pestul with the end of hostilities in Tormetia in 1740. Upon his return, he was symbolically re-elected Universal Prophet before investing Spytihnev with the imperial title.
Although the Lethpol Covenant had been imposed on the Rashimic Littoral and Argotea from around 1740, continuing violence in Lacre and Anabbah meant that Spytihnev II was unable to secure the recognition of many of the peripheral regions, and Borovest spent his last decade propagandising in turn for and against the new order depending on relations between Axopol and Pestul. In 1747, after Inevsky's death, he retreated to the Prysostaia to grieve, and less than three years later he died there, the first Prophet to die on the Rock for around a quarter of a millennium. Although it had already been agreed that he would be succeeded by Zafuvniprourkah – a relatively unknown quantity in court politics – the election had to wait several years because of Spytihnev III's elaborate plans for the Majestic Peace. Immediately upon his election, Zafuvniprourkah announced that Borovest had transcended.