Haugen

Kingdom of Haugen Κϙνιγρειχ Άϭγεν Königreich Haugen (Zepnish) Σεδμιειτκά κράλοϝστϝί Sedměstká království (Lidian)
Flag Seal
Motto: Translit. Keine Ruhe für Bosheit "No respite for wickedness"
Location of Haugen in Messenia.
Capital and largest city	Kostopol
Official languages	Zepnish, Lidian
Recognised regional languages	Dortradic, Elmiesian
Religion	Siriash
Demonym	Haugenite
Government	Respublican monarchy
• King	Valdemar III
Establishment
• Independence from the Palthic Empire	1708
Area
• Total	177,529 km2 (68,544 sq mi)
Population
• 2022 estimate	20,770,951
• Density	117/km2 (303.0/sq mi)
Currency	Haugenite westul (HGW)

Haugen (Zepnish: Άϭγεν; Lidian: Σεδμιειτκο, Sedměstko), officially the Kingdom of Haugen (Zepnish: Κϙνιγρειχ Άϭγεν, Königreich Haugen; Lidian: Σεδμιειτκά κράλοϝστϝί, Sedměstká království), is a country in south-eastern Messenia, occupying the northern end of the Prasinian peninsula. It is bordered by Reinwald (to the north-west), Boehren (north and north-east), Settecia (east), Nation 37 (south), and Zeppengeran (west).

Haugen is home to a number of different major ethnolinguistic groups, the two largest being its Lidian-speaking plurality and the Zepnophone community which historically dominated the country. It is also home to sizeable minorities of Elmiesians in the country's north and Dortradic-speakers in its west and north-west. This diversity results in a unique Haugenite culture that incorporates the country's many influences, but also in recurring intracommunity tension over linguistic policy, income inequality, and, in the case of the Elmiesian community, sectarian strife.

Haugen is a newly-developed, middle income country. Foreign direct investment is a significant driver of the Haugenite economy, with major sources of investment including Madaria, Zeppengeran, Ceresora, Zemay, and Lacre. The fastest-growing segment of the Haugenite economy is export-oriented manufacturing, as a result of extensive outsourcing of industries into the country. Its rapid economic growth has contributed to accelerating income inequality in the country, resulting in a sizeable disparity in the standards of living between Haugen's highest and lowest quartiles.

While traditionally classified as a Zepnish client state— a result of its historically close political, economic, and cultural ties to Zeppengeran— since the middle of the 20th century Haugen managed to assert an independent interordinate relations policy. Indeed, in the early 21st century Haugen is an emerging regional power in its own right.

Etymology

The first known official instance of the term "Haugen" used in reference to the present-day region dates to a 1553 proclamation by Palthic Emperor Callicles, with contextual evidence suggesting that the term was already used in common parlance. It is likely derived from an Old Zepnish word meaning "enclosure", a possible reference to the manner by which the Alphios river valley is enclosed by the Valderfall mountain ranges. Previously, the region was often known as the Heptapolis, a Neo-Messenian term literally meaning "the seven cities", in reference to the seven Messenian city-states of Upper Prasinia. Haugen's Lidian name, Sedměstko, literally translates to "land of the seven cities", in direct reference to the Heptapolis.

Geography

Haugen is the most climatologically diverse country in Messenia, and one of the most diverse in the world. The country is bordered to its north and west by the Valderfall mountains, including the Thronou sub-range along its north-eastern border with Boehren.

Haugen's most distinct hydrological features are the Alphios and Ladon rivers, with the Alphios-Ladon basin encompassing much of the country's surface area, playing a vital role in the country's historical and contemporary development. The Beidor marks much of Haugen's western border with Zeppengeran. Haugen also possesses a short coastline along the Bay of Meklet, its only outlet to the sea.

History

Antiquity

Main article: Messenian civilisation

The oldest known historical records indicate that the Alphios river basin was an early centre for human settlement, owing to its fertile soil and irrigation from the Alphios-Ladon river system ideal for early agriculture. Around 3600 BCE, the Alphios valley was home to the Psari culture, a sophisticated society with extant evidence suggesting that the Psari peoples possessed early metalworking techniques, indications of a proto-writing notation system, and involvement in trade with the peoples of southern Prasinia. This group was named for Psari, the largest settlement associated with this early civilisation, and one of the first known city-states in the region. While the settlements of southern Prasinia began to coalesce around the Kingdom of Lison between the 27th and 23rd centuries BCE, the city-states of the Alphios valley remained politically fragmented. Existing records suggest that the Alphian city-states united at varying points in response to external threats, such as a Lisonite invasion c. 2325 BCE and a major nomadic raid c. 2290.

By the 14th century BCE the Castopolite Empire, centered on the city of Kostopolis (present-day Kostopol), had emerged as a major power in southern Messenia, encompassing the entire Prasinian peninsula and reaching as far north as the Haute-Génestre (in present-day Cantaire) and as far east as Pesrard; Castopolite colonies were also founded on the northern coast of Lestria in modern-day Neyet. At its apogee, the Castopolite Empire played an important role during the Spring of Democracy period in facilitating the development and spread of pluralist, proto-respublican systems of governance. The Castopolites were also responsible for the propagation of the Messenian alphabet, the basis of many contemporary script systems across Messenia and Joriscia. Frequent conflicts with the Antissan kingdom of Dammuri to its west, the degradation of political ties between Kostopolis and its peripheries, and the Western Palaces Crisis (1147 BCE–1142 BCE) all fatally weakened the Castopolite order. During the eighth century BCE the Hilima Eruption and the arrival of the first Palthians in the First Great Invasions marked the end of the Castopolites, and of Old Messenian civilisation more broadly.

The seismic changes of the eighth century BCE facilitated the rise of a new society in the Alphios valley: the Paltho-Messenians, which developed as the Palthic invaders made themselves the new elites amongst the Messenian city-states and integrated elements of their culture with that of their subjects. Early Siriash was first introduced to the region in the sixth century BCE by itinerant Protosirian bands arriving east from conquered Antissan lands. During the Sundering, these Protosirian warriors clashed against Alphian institutions rooted in the Messenian pantheon, but the violence did not reach its peak until after the sea-change brought about by the embrace of Siriash by the Neokoi elite; beginning first with Emperor Westaras's open conversion in 524 BCE and culminating in the 521 BCE Edict of Styra which made Siriash the state religion of the Neokoi. After the suppression of Old Messenian cities under Neokos rule in Hattanas's War (510 BCE–507 BCE), the Neokoi turned their attention westward towards the Alphian city-states. Under Neokos domination, the last vestiges of Messenian religion were dismantled in favour of Siriash. The Alphian valley remained a peripheral part of the Neokos Empire until its conquest by the Bregovid Kingdom in the early eighth century CE.

Secote domination

The Alphios valley was dominated by the Vechrian Princes who arrived in the area from the east during the sixth century. The Princes, once the retinues of late Neokos warlords, established their own states outright by the eighth century, when the Third Great Invasions brought not just the cognate Bregovids but a wave of nomadic Zhyagedevids into southern Messenia. The integration of many of these new arrivals was facilitated through clan connections among the ruling Vechrian elite, though it also resulted in Bregovid rule soon being overthrown by later nomadic conquerors. Under the Secote Dominion, the depopulation of the major urban centres of the Alphios and Ladon valleys due to long-term decline saw the kunentsyist system introduced by the Secotes reorienting southern Messenia's political economy towards manorialism. By the ninth century, the region was subjugated by the Branimirovids, becoming tributaries to the court in Borimirsk until the succession crises of the middle ninth century allowed local dynasties to assert their independence. Mistivey I conquered the Bregovid Kingdom as part of his broader campaign into Messenia from the Steppes during Mistivey's War of the 1030s, and it became part of what would become the continent-spanning Secote Empire for nearly a century until the death of Volomir the Magnificant in 1120.

Neo-Messenian Empire

Amid the fragmentation of the Secote Empire, Alphia was frequently contested between the Secotic Lestekevid Commandery and the Elmiesian-dominated Kingdom of Epis during the Lestekevid Wars of the 1140s. With Lestek's death at the Battle of Minderthal in 1144 and the Lestekevids’ withdrawal secured in the 1145 Treaty of Stravopel, Elmiesian control of the Alphian valley was secured. Under the rulership of Arsenios I, the Epicene kingdom evolved into the Neo-Messenian Empire, reflecting his own imperial aspirations. For Alphia, this involved a resurgence in interest in the forms and norms of the Old Messenian civilisation, with this interest making the Alphian valley a focal point for scholastic interest. Under Neo-Messenian rule, the many Sirian communities in the Alphios valley adopted the Elmiesian Rite, aligning with the Compact of Epis established with Arsenios II's patronage. However, cities like Stravopel remained bulwarks of Coseptran Siriash, much to the consternation of the court in Epis. While Alphia remained economically vital to the Neo-Messenian Empire, the difficulties in traversing the Valderfall-Leucasian range and the empire's focus on expansion north-eastward towards the Great Lakes kept the region on the political periphery.

Fortunes changed dramatically with the arrival of the Great Plague in 1312, likely from contact with Secote tribes in the westernmost steppe; this swept across Messenia with devastating effects. In the Alphios valley, the plague claimed between 40% to 50% of its pre-plague population between 1312 and 1317, a situation exacerbated by the region's large cities and relative population density. The sudden deaths of Kassandros II and much of the imperial family in 1313 left the empire politically decapitated, with catepans across the empire scrambling to take power in the vacuum. The plague's progression also resulted in extensive famines, which hastened the depopulation of the Alphian cities. It was under these circumstances that the apocalyptic Soterian heresy gripped Alphia, and the Soterians held sway in the region until the 1350s.

Medieval Haugen

With the disintegration of the Neo-Messenian Empire, the Catepanate of Kostopol emerged as the most powerful Neo-Messenian successor state in Alphia. The Kostopol Catepanate's chief regional rival was the Secotic Kyrilevid Solovate, which stretched from the Doreander river down the western coast of Prasinia. While the last major vestiges of the Soterian heresy were put down by the middle of the 14th century, no individual compact dominated in the ensuing vacuum, a consequence of the previous decades of political and religious fragmentation. What followed instead was a period of intense religious and, by extension, intellectual, artistic, and cultural activity known as the Thousand Blossoms period. By the 15th century, the Catepanate of Kostopol had become a tributary state of the Palthic Empire, submitting to the Palthic Emperors under the principle of selship.

Sendabia

Main article: Sendabia

In the early 16th century, the combinations of Great Neritsia established a commercial presence on the Meklet coast in the form of trade factories, treaty ports, and other territorial possessions. The zamorsk presence in cities like Pader and Stravopel formed the first Vesnite communities in northern Prasinia, and missionary efforts were encouraged by Joriscian factors as greater leverage in securing further concessions from local rulers. However, they, and the “Sendabian Compact” which their beliefs inspired among local Sirians, proved to be a key lever in goading a dissatisfied Kyrilevid populace into open rebellion. Over a four-year period (1553–57), this rising, under the leadership of the Pesrardian expatriate Semovit Pogorosky, brought down the weak and decentralised Solovate, creating the state of Sendabia – for the period, a unique experiment in which distinct forms of Siriash and the Vesnite import were found side by side.

Pogorosky’s singular talents as a military planner and commander saw Sendabia expand its remit well beyond the old Solovate. The new state gained some clear support from elements of its expatriate Vesnite community – and, indeed, within Neritsia itself – despite much argument over the precise relationship of the Sendabian Compact to mainstream Vaestism, and the extent to which supporting the Sendabians threatened the zamorsky community and the Great Golden Arc trade. The new rulership, threatened by anger and calls for retribution from the Coseptran Sirians of the Palthic Empire, sought advantage from this favour – even to the extent of claiming marshalate status under the Neritsovid banner, although the submission was seemingly ignored in the east – and court and private causes in Neritsia did likewise. The first serious naval assault – the beginning of the “incursions” ordered by Prophet-Emperor Ostrobor I, as they became known – took place in 1560, and these would continue intermittently over the next eight years.

Sendabian expansion reached its limits during 1568, with a frenetic defence of the Palthian homelands at Jaldsburg seeing the death of Pogorosky on the battlefield and a gradual retreat under his successor as monarch, Vladislav Vody. By the end of that year Vody had agreed a border – essentially the same as Zeppengeran’s border with Haugen today – and agreed a peace in the west; and Sendabia’s not necessarily firm grasp over fringe territories gradually loosened, leaving the country in control of modern Haugen, with much of Boehren and the north of Nation 37.

Even though so diminished, Sendabia still kept a pugnacious and determined existence as a liminal area between Messenia and the Vesnite east. Indeed, for its time Sendabia represented a remarkable experiment in religious tolerance in what had been an area not well known for such – Pogorosky had been sympathetic to Vaestism and the Sendabian Compact without necessarily professing either, and this position continued for some years under Vody. Over time, though, later rulers of Sendabia became much more openly tolerant of Vaestism, prompting a sizeable wave of opinion in the Palthic Empire that the Emperor must live up to the title “Guardian of Siriandom” attached to the imperial crown after Jaldsburg and remove the eastern menace. The most prominent tool of this work, the Court of Reconciliation, was established by Emperor Sigmund with the vigorous support of the Coseptran Compact in 1607 to root out native Vaestism in Sendabia (and, in time, non-compliant Coseptrans).

The Court’s work went hand-in-hand with the Sendabian Purgations during the early 17th century were the clearest manifestation of this, with a slow and meticulous campaign by the Palthians to subjugate Sendabia and hammer into submission any manifestations of the Vaestic menace. The shrinking Sendabian defence shrivelled gradually to nothing; in the week of his enthronement in Dominy 1623, the new emperor Zahhias received the welcome news of the fall of Stravopel, and he later proclaimed much of the seized territory as the Grand Duchy of Haugen.

Palthian and early independent Haugen

Under renewed Palthian rule, Haugen became a focal point for imperial attention; Zahhias relocated his court from Steintor to Kostopol in 1624, in order to expand the imperial presence in Prasinia and near the eastern frontiers. However, the Crisis of the Seventeenth Century undermined the Urgamitz emperors' efforts to build a centralised, bureaucratic state. The debts incurred from the disastrous Twenty Years' War saw the empire resort to employing the Steuerstaffel to squeeze the Prasinian elite for revenue in the Scourging of Prasinia. While Haugen avoided the excesses of the scourging seen in Madaria, the campaign widened the gulf between the imperial court and the Haugenite elite enough to warrant shifting the capital away from Kostopol and back to Steintor in the 1670s.

In the succession crisis following Perunas II's unexpected death in 1702, the loyalist Prince-Regent Erwin von Eisenfurt tenuously bore the support of the Haugenite nobility and the Reconcilers early on in the War of the Regents. However after the Mutiny of the Pesrardic Armies in 1704, a Stravopelite clique led by Heinrich von Lohne and backed by the Reconcilers (the Court of Reconciliation’s enforcement arm) declared Haugen neutral in the conflict, before briefly siding with Aristide von Tranuvalt shortly before his death in 1705. With Ceresoran and Reinwalder support, Lohne's faction successfully repelled several loyalist invasions and uprisings between 1705 and 1707. The 1708 Treaty of Spatzberg established the Baldwinian system, providing for a functionally-independent Kingdom of Haugen only nominally subject to the Palthic Emperor.

Independence left Haugen under the control of a Coseptran, Zepnophone elite ruling over an ethnically and religiously pluralist society, with their rule enforced through the continued loyalty of the Reconcilers. External pressures, like repeated conflicts with Nation 37 and the cities of the Pesrardic League, also served to foster a shared sense of identity among the Haugenite nobility.

In the 1870s, the Ceresoran Empire embarked on the Great Southern Strategy, an effort to secure maritime outlets on the Bay of Meklet through a concerted infrastructure project. Ceresoran foreign minister Ernesto di Fargnoli and his successors competed against Zeppengeran, which sought to construct its own railway into the steppe, for influence and concessions within Haugen. Pro-Ceresoran and pro-Zepnish camps emerged in Haugenite high society. This competition brought the first elements of the Messenian Industrial Revolution into Haugen, although it would not be until the early 20th century that the country would see significant industrialisation. For the remainder of the 19th century, Haugen remained a primarily agrarian and pre-industrial society beyond the foreign concessions present in the country.

Contemporary history

As Haugen moved into the 20th century, Sirian reform movements such as the deictists and the later aphypnists found it difficult to gain traction within Haugenite society. Thanks in large part to the continued presence of the Court of Reconciliation, Haugen remained a bastion of noble reaction, suppressing nascent reform movements of various stripes despite growing foreign influences from Zeppengeran, Ceresora, Madaria, and the Orient. While the Reconcilers maintained a fearsome reputation, in the over three centuries since its foundation the organisation had evolved considerably; by the 1920s, it was an ossified bureaucracy operating as a parallel state, largely unaccountable even to much of the nobility, and waning in its effectiveness. This, combined with its unpopularity among the public and segments of the elite, made the Reconcilers a focal point for public discontent.

Compared to other Sirian states, Haugen appeared economically and institutionally backward, and its small bourgeoisie feared that the country would remain a peripheral part of interordinate affairs. The Elmiesian Rising of 1928, a pancarist-influenced Elmiesian rebellion (the quelling of which required Zepnish assistance), made Haugen's institutional shortcomings apparent. Native elites – many of whom were educated in Madaria, Settecia, and Zeppengeran, where deigmations could operate freely – quickly exhausted their options for pursuing domestic reform. In 1932, the Revolution of Ashes saw the Reconcilers brutally put down an aphypnist uprising in Kostopol, resulting in a tightening of restrictions across the country. With many of the leading moderate Haugenite reformers imprisoned, exiled, or dead, the rump aphypnist movement fell under the sway of more radical elements. Anatol von Stavern was an influential thinker, educated at the Vergental Deigmation in Zeppengeran. Here he was introduced to Horizontism by the Cult of Speed, who quickly became the new face of Haugenite aphypnism after the events of 1932. Stavern and the Mechanical Council seized power in Ediface 1934, inaugurating a horizontist regime.

From 1958 until 1984, Haugen was under the regime of Barnard Dasch. Under Dasch, Haugen forged closer ties with Savam, especially after the Mesentente with Zeppengeran. Although horizontism remained the state's official ideology during the Dasch regime, Dasch's influence and political pressures proved to be a moderating force in the country. After Dasch's death in 1984, the monarchy was restored.

Government and authority

The Kingdom of Haugen is a respublican monarchy under King Valdemar III, whose reign began in 2011. The unicameral Diet of Haugen is comprised of 325 members; the majority of these are elected, with the remainder appointed by the king on behalf of different domestic interests. The Diet handles many of the legislative functions commonly seen in Messenian parliamentary systems, including electing the head of government, the Premier of Haugen. The Haugenite legal system is heavily influenced by the Universal Code in addition to incorporating elements of traditional Sirian jurisprudence in its judicial system. The country is subdivided into 38 districts (Ορτστειλε, Ortsteile), with governors appointed by the monarch. Districts maintain their own distinct language policies based on their particular demographics. Haugen's constitutional order retains many influences from its Horizontist era despite its official repudiation of Horizontism, including the restoration of the monarchy and many other pre-revolutionary institutions in the 1980s.

Foreign policy

Haugenite foreign policy is focused on carefully balancing its relationships with the major powers invested in southern Messenia while avoiding falling entirely into any particular sphere of influence. This approach is strongly informed by Haugen's complicated relationship with neighboring Zeppengeran, which at various points in its history has been Haugen's suzerain power or has otherwise exercised extensive influence over the country's internal affairs. While Haugen and Zeppengeran continue to share close economic and cultural ties, since the late 20th century Haugen has sought to minimize its dependency on the Zepnish by diversifying its foreign interests, most notably by rebuffing invitations to join the Zepnish-led Zweibeck League in favour of bilateral trade agreements with a variety of other powers.

Relations with Boehren are generally positive, but are a source of domestic contention within Haugen. There are long-standing cultural and familiar ties between Haugen and Boehren's Zepnophone elites that have long facilitated good relations between the two states. However, tensions between Zepnish Boehreners and its large Elmiesian population, in addition to Boehren's frozen conflict with the theocratic breakaway state of Neokratos, are major sources of discontent for Haugen's own Elmiesian community. Haugen does not diplomatically recognize Neokratos, in an effort to contain Neokratian influence over Haugen's own Elmiesian minority, and the country is a major supplier of small arms and other materiel for the Boehrener military regime.

Haugen maintains cordial ties with the tripartite powers of the Pact of Clachán (Odann, Tassedar, and Yfirland). However, its diplomatic corps stops short of embracing the group's revisionist stance, as this would put Haugen directly at odds with both Siursk interests and those of the Savamo-Zepnish Alliance, a position that could leave it vulnerable to direct confrontation with some of its largest markets.

Haugen is not a formal colonial empire, as it possesses no colonies or overseas possessions, despite sporadic, abortive efforts during the 18th and 19th centuries. Nevertheless, Haugenite firms maintain a modest presence in regions like Serrinea, Domradevid Joriscia, and the Lestrian Neutral Zone. Many of these overseas ventures rely on the support of other powers to maintain and expand their position, but are often seen as a secondary concern for these powers. While a small lobby advocates for the expansion of Haugen's presence abroad, concerns over cost and the risk of inciting conflict with other powers has made this position unpopular among Haugenite politicos.

Military

The Haugenite armed forces consist of two service branches, the Army and the Navy. The army, which includes Haugen's air force, is the larger of the two branches, in total consisting of about 95,000 active personnel; it is primarily supplied by the country's sizeable domestic arms industry and supplemented by foreign imports, most notably from Siurskeyti and Madaria. The navy is considerably smaller at roughly 15,000 active service members, given Haugen's relatively short coastline. The Haugenite Navy incorporates many of the functions of a coast guard, with its primary concentration on patrolling the Bay of Meklet with its small fleet of mostly cutters and corvettes, many of which are secondhand acquisitions from foreign navies. In the 21st century, the Haugenite military has been sparsely deployed beyond its borders.

Finance and economy

The traditional mainstays of the Haugenite economy are extractive: nickel, copper, and tin mining in the Valderfalls and agricultural produce like olives and grapes along the Alphios valley. Copper, in particular, remains Haugen's single largest and most important export. Successive governments made diversifying and industrialising the country a top priority, and the most apparent result of these efforts is the country's extensive export-oriented production, fueled by outsourced consumer goods manufacturing from other Messenian economies since the late 20th century. Service industries, such as call centres geared towards the Zepnosphere (made possible thanks to Haugen's substantial Zepnish-proficient population), are also a fast-growing segment of the economy.

Haugen also possesses a large arms industry for a country of its size, a lasting legacy of the Horizontist period. Haugen is one of the largest arms exporters in Messenia, with its largest markets being smaller Messenian states in addition to Ascesian and Lestrian polities. Much of this industry is concentrated on the production of small arms and support equipment, along with jet trainers/light attack aircraft and artillery. Some licensed, export-model versions of older Jorisician equipment are also produced by Haugenite defense firms.

Transportation and overland logistics (railroad into the steppes and OJ, access into Ceresora)

Demographics

Lidians, who speak the Secotic Lidian language, are a plurality of Haugenites at 47% of the population, or 9,762,347 people in total. Lidians are a majority in most rural districts across the country, particularly in the country's east and centre.

Zepnish speakers, or Zepnophones, comprise about 34% of the population, or approximately 7,062,123 people. The Zepnish are most commonly found in larger cities; they are the largest ethnolinguistic group in the capital city of Kostopol, and are a narrow majority in the urbanised corridor between Stravopel and Patra. Zepnophones in Haugen are broadly divided into two communities; Zepnophones with ancestral ties to Haugen are often referred to in Zepnish as Haugenish (Haugenisch), as opposed to the generic adjective "Haugener." In contrast, Haugenite Zepnophones with more immediate familial ties to Zeppengeran are colloquially known as Fernseiter (literally "far-sider", in reference to the far side of the Valderfalls, that is, Zeppengeran). For centuries, Haugen's Zepnish community dominated its politics and economy as an enduring legacy of Palthian rule, a situation that persists to a somewhat lesser extent through the present given the Zepnophone community's over-representation in a number of key positions and fields relative to their size.

Dortradic speakers, some 9% or 1,869,385 people, live mainly in rural parts of western Haugen through the foothills of the Valderfalls. As Dortradic is related to Zepnish to the point of mutual intelligibility, this group was historically categorized together with the Zepnish, especially as part of efforts to standardize Zepnish language use in the country. However, since the late 20th century, Haugenite Dortradic speakers have enjoyed recognition as a distinct community. Haugen's Elmiesian community numbers approximately 1,500,000 people, or 7% of the total population, as of 2020. This group is primarily concentrated along a number of Elmiesian-majority districts along Haugen's northern border with Boehren, although there are also significant urban communities of Elmiesians. The remaining 3% consists of a myriad of other groups, most notably various central Messenian and Inner Joriscian peoples who have immigrated into Haugen.

Religion

Like much of Southern Messenia, Haugen is a predominantly Sirian country. The Coseptran Compact is the largest Sirian compact in the country and enjoys official state patronage. A large number of Haugenite houses are not formally affiliated with any compact, a legacy of the country's complex sectarian history, although most follow the Coseptran rites. Between 1941 and 1959, Haugen embraced Functional Siriash and the Mechanical Council attempted to radically deemphasize supernatural and folkloric aspects of Siriash in order to restructure religion in Haugen along horizontist lines. While this was overturned shortly after Barnard Dasch came to power, Functional Siriash remains more widespread in Haugen than in the rest of Siriandom. The Compact of Epis is the most popular compact among Haugenite Elmiesians and enjoys a degree of legal recognition. There is a small Westünzers minority present in Haugen. Although many may be descended from Sendabian Vesnites, the bulk of Haugen's Westünzers are more recent arrivals, predominantly originating in Neokratos.