Lefdim
Lefdim (pronounced [ˈlɛfdɪm]; Lefdic: ⰾⰡⱂⰴⰿⱏⱅ, Lọpdmət, [ˈløpd.mɤt]; Rashimic: ⰾⰵⱂⰴⰹⰿ, Lepdiem; High Secote: ⰎⰑⰒⰑⰜⰍⰀ, Lopocka; Lacrean: ⰎⰦⰒⰦⰄⰑⰓⰔⰡⰃ, Lọpọdorsāg), formally the Marshalate of Lefdim (Lefdic: ⰽⱆⱈⱏⰶⰰⱀⱏⱎ ⰾⰡⱂⰹⰴⱏⱀⰿⱏⱅ, Kugəžanəš Löpdənmət), is a coastal state in southern Outer Joriscia, bordering Terophan, Lacre, Ephgil, Agamar, Meshrati, and Dekoral. It is governed as a rescapitan monarchy by the Marshal of Lefdim, vicegerent of the Terophatic Emperor, who rules with the advice of a broad group of hereditary and merit nobility. The name 'Lefdim' refers (via the Rashimic name) to the Lopts, an ethnic group historically dominant in the southern half of the country in the heartland of what was, prior to its conquest by Great Neritsia in 1558, the Kingdom of the Lopts.
Marshalate of Lefdim ⰽⱆⱈⱏⰶⰰⱀⱏⱎ ⰾⰡⱂⰹⰴⱏⱀⰿⱏⱅ Kugəžanəš Lọpdənmət | |
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  Flag | |
| Motto: ⰹⰶⰵ ⱆⱎ ⰴⰵⱀⰵ ⰵⱃⱏⰽⱏⰿ ⱎⱆⰰⱎⱏⰴⰰ · ⰹⰶⰵ ⱆⱎⰵⰿ ⰴⰵⱀⰵ ⱆⱎⱏⰿ ⱎⱆⰰⱎⱏⰴⰰ (Tr.: Iže uš dene erəkəm šuašəda · iže ušem dene ušəm šuašəda) Through knowledge alone shall you gain freedom: through unity alone shall you gain knowledge. | |
 Lefdim in the Terophatic Banner | |
| Capital and largest city | Chiklar |
| Official languages | Lefdic, Rashimic |
| Religion | Vaestism |
• Banner | Terophatic |
| Demonym | Lefdian |
| Government | Rescapitan monarchy |
• Marshal | Sillis II |
| Establishment | |
| 1855 | |
| 1969 | |
| Area | |
• Total | 68,437 km2 (26,424 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• 2018 estimate | 26,569,729 |
• Density | 388.2/km2 (1,005.4/sq mi) |
| Currency | Lefdian vlod |
History
Medieval Lefdim
Neritsovid Lefdim (1558–1701 CE)
After the destruction of the Kingdom of the Lopts, modern-day Lefdim became part of Great Neritsia. Initially, the upland Sirian population were permitted to keep their religion, and their Lamneants were grouped together with other High Lacrean and Adur officiants as the 'Thirty-Five' and made collectively responsible for their coreligionists. A Pièche garrison commanded by the 'Prince of Lopocka' was stationed in Chiklar, although after the Sirian Revolt of 1558 the uplands were made the responsibility of the plenipotentiary Grave of Lacre and the Prince's jurisdiction was restricted to the coastal areas. Indeed, while Lopocka (and its Rashimic and Lacrean counterparts Lepdiem and Lọpọdorsāg) saw some use to describe the broad geographical area of Upper Lefdim or Lefdim as a whole, the region was frequently treated by the Neritsovid authorities as a part of broader Low Lacre, High Lacre or Dekoral. The coastal cities continued to Lacreanise apace, while the establishment of Kyames in the interior created a nascent Rashimophone population, with Lefdic used in writing only by the Sirian priesthood. With the coming of the Errancy Era, moreover, Lefdim was swept up in Sirian unrest in the continental interior, and soon became a theatre of fierce and brutal fighting. The victory of Lyudodar and the Oblitors in the 1600s (the Edict of Oblition) marked the final destruction of all remnants of the pre-Vaestic Lefdic order.
As in other areas of the Starroz Krai, the 17th century saw the development of a new elite quite separate from the post-Tirfatsevid High Nobility that had dominated local politics via the Commandery prior to Lyudodar's abolition of that institution. In the coastal cities, in particular, a complex coalition of hereditary Pièche soldiers and merchants (some of them junior Noble-Profiteers), often sealed by intermarriage, sat at the centre of political life. The administrative reforms of the early 1600s which saw the introduction of Hierarchies and the partial rationalisation of the Scholarchate projected state power into the region in a new way. But across all of Lefdim and neighbouring Dekoral, and particularly in the uplands, complications of geography and patronage meant that the Protologues often had much smaller jurisdictions and financial resources than their counterparts elsewhere, and were correspondingly easy to co-opt into local power networks. A related development – the shift towards residence in the coastal cities on the part of major landlords from the interior – increasingly made Lefdim into a rural and in many cases mountainous hinterland subordinate to a Lacrean-speaking littoral elite, many of whom maintained a dubious Pseudolacrean identity in order to access broader networks of late Neritsovid aristocratic privilege. Alongside their close commercial links to the west and their resentment over the New Rates, this bound them far closer to the Rashimic Littoral and to Axopol than their counterparts in Low Lacre proper, and as a result a Restorationist faction proclaimed for Spytihnev Rozoevsky following the Great Imperial Restoration (1701). The leader of the Restorationists there, Vladimir Borodarhazi, was given the revived title of Prince of Lopocka in gratitude.
Contested Lefdim (1701–1855 CE)
Over the course of the 18th century, Lefdim was to serve as a major theatre in a series of bloody conflicts. While far from the obvious front line between the Restorationists and the Legitimists, a Legitimist campaign of assassinations against Borodarhazi's supporters during Spytihnev's War nonetheless claimed many lives, and encouraged the Legitimist Government in Pestul to land troops and set up a military government in Chiklar in 1714; this prompted a Lacrean invasion and occupation from 1719, in the course of which Kalodar II made great efforts to incorporate the region into his domains. The Lacreans in turn were driven out of Lefdim in the late 1730s by the 'Covenantist' alliance and forced to recognise Axopol's direct control of the region, which was first defined cartographically (at least along its border with Lacre) at the Majestic Peace of 1754. The Ukugozamat and Yazimovtsy factions of pièches struggled for power, culminating in the 1769 Fejedelem's Coup by Kugoza Ipdut, which fed into the Imperial War between Terophan and Lacre in 1771. Ipdut was ousted by Terophan in the war, and despite Lacre's ultimate victory, Axopol retained authority through a revived Procuratorate. The attempts of the newly elected Krasimir II (r. 1785-1809) to consolidate his regime by suppressing Pièche regiments, among other measures, provided the pretext for yet another war – the War of the Third Emperor – in 1788. By this point, the Chotarian Restoration had led to the spread of Neo-Chotarian feeling among much of the Lefdic elite, which supported Ipdut's return to power in the Emperor's Coup. In 1790, they welcomed Lacre's occupation of Lefdim, and Everlasting Peace of 1791 recognised Lefdim as subordinate to the Chotarian Emperor in Kozrat.
Unlike Kalodar II, Katapan of Lacre was initially willing to allow Lefdim to remain autonomous, and although Ipdut was invested as a mere Fejedelem (provincial governor), his jurisdiction and autonomy were far greater than any other Fejedelem in the country. Katapan's tenure coincided with some four decades of peace in southern Outer Joriscia, providing Lefdim some much needed respite from land warfare, and he oversaw the rapid expansion of Lefdic industry (the Industrial Revolution), benefiting from Lacrean investment and technical know-how and from Lefdim's huge coal deposits. However, this prosperity invited greater control from Kozrat, as from the 1810s Katapan began a steady campaign to roll back Lefdic autonomy and incorporate it fully into his domains. While broadly unpopular, this campaign was largely successful, and when war broke out yet again in 1837 (the Great Peninsular War) Lefdim fiercely resisted the Terophatic invasion. But as the Terophatic position collapsed towards the end of the war, the Lopts organised their own movement, separate from the guerrilla fight against the occupiers in Lacre proper, and by the end of the war much of Lefdim was under the control of Cheten-Dragodar Nagi. After a botched attempt to restore Lacrean control, the Treaty of Tharamann recognised the country as a largely autonomous Marshalate of the Chotarian Empire, although it lost almost one third of its territory to Lacre in compensation (including much of its largest coal field). Although Lacre made one final attempt in 1852 to re-establish its dominance in Lefdim, the Circuit War, the Lopts managed to repulse this attempt and win sovereign Empire status at the Purity Council in 1855.
Radiance Lefdim and Dekoral-Lefdim (1855–1932 CE)
The Purity Council ushered in a long period of quiet for Lefdim after more than a century at the heart of almost every regional conflict. Now independent and peaceful, its task was to carve out an identity for itself within the new imperial context. Although the general spread of industrial technology meant that the entire Lefdian economy grew and diversified during this period, the identity that it ultimately assumed was largely as an energy exporter, fuelling the 'Mechanisation' of other Outer Joriscian powers. The migration of Lefdic speakers into the cities, as well as hostility to neo-Chotarianism, fuelled a steady language shift away from Lacrean everywhere in the country, creating for the first time an indigenous common tongue. Archaeologists like Merdush Yarodarhazi developed an ex post facto Nostalgist account of the new Lefdic Empire rooted in the Kingdom of the Lopts. Neo-Chotarianism did not entirely disappear as a force among the urban elite, and there were disturbances in the early 1860s, but within a generation the existence of a Lefdim independent from Kozrat was no longer actively contested. Instead, more radical opinion turned towards various forms of Cathedralism and, as the century drew on, Strong Externalism. Culturally sleepy and scientifically underdeveloped as Lefdim was, however, these forces were never particularly strong. Closely allied with Azophin, Lefdim was one of the intervening powers in the Consistence War following the Monsoon Revolution (1888). This was to have dramatic consequences: in 1890, as a token Lefdic contingent advanced over the border into what is now Dekoral, a clique of nobles around Viacheslav Zhenilev swore allegiance to the Lefdic Banner, an event known as the Malarat Affair. Dekoral's secession and its formal subordination to Lefdim was confirmed a year later, beginning seventy years of 'Dekoral-Lefdim'.
In practice Dekoral-Lefdim was never closely integrated. The two countries maintained independent armies and political institutions, and the Emperor's functions in Dekoral were largely ceremonial, with the Marshalate run for all intents and purposes as a separate entity. In foreign policy and the economy, there was more cooperation, although on both fronts the tendency was for Dekoral to try and have its cake and eat it: a powerful Dekoralese lobby prevented Lefdim from pursuing its own independent relations abroad, while the Fejedelem's government were happy to circumvent the Emperor when it served their interests, and while a partial customs union was established in the early 20th century, high tariffs continued to protect a range of Dekoralese industries against Lefdian competition. Generally, however, Lefdim maintained its previous position of Azophine ally, with politics in the first part of the century dominated by continuing industrialisation and by the effort to bolster its image as an independent empire, an effort that bore fruit in 1911 with the Lefdian Cession. In the 1920s, however, Terophan's resurgence and the influence of notions of Solar Government spreading rapidly across Outer Joriscia as a whole saw Lefdian high politics increasingly polarised between those who sought a stronger and more assertive central government driving rapid industrialisation on the Terophatic model (the so-called Camarilla) and those who preferred a more conservative approach. Contained during the reign of the widely respected Aldiar II, these tensions exploded upon his death in 1932, triggering the Lefdian Confrontation and beginning the Long War in Outer Joriscia.
Long War and modern Lefdim
After the Long War, Lefdim was severed from Dekoral, which became a marshalate of Terophan, and itself fell under effective Terophatic protection. In 1969, under the Union of Aleon, Lefdim abandoned its Banner and became a formal marshalate of Terophan, though public disorders broke out immediately after this decision, reaching a particular intensity in the Lefdian Revolts of 1976 during the Constellation Crisis. After an ineffectual Zemayan intervention in the 1981 Crisis at Chiklar, the Vaestic Powers confirmed the Union at the 1983 Congress of Molot. Since then anti-Terophite sentiment has remained prominent in Lefdim, despite the best efforts of the Banner-state.