Mezveim, Universal Prophet

꧁ⰏⰊⰈⰂⰅⰉⰏⰀⰔⰖⰃⰄⰤⰞⰊⰏ꧂ Mezveim
Universal Prophet
Reign	9 Dominy 1817 – 12 Nollonger 1833 (16 years)
Period	Post-Neritsovid
Election	9 Dominy 1817
Born	9 Dominy 1772(1772-07-09)
Birthplace	Great Pestul, Terophan
Died	12 Nollonger 1833
Place of death	Prysostaic Citadel
Predecessor	Hanzar
Successor	Kavylat

Mezveim (Rashimic: ꧁ⰏⰊⰈⰂⰅⰉⰏⰀⰔⰖⰃⰄⰤⰞⰊⰏ ⰏⰔⰊⰓⰕⰋ ⰞⰅⰎⰍⰅⰕⰒⰑⰖⰓ꧂ Mĭzveimhsugdešĭm Msĭrti shelKetpour), meaning in full 'Preserver of the Sacred', was Universal Prophet from his election on 9 Dominy 1817 until his death on 12 Nollonger 1833. A Rasheem and native of Great Pestul, Mevzeim was the first Azophine Scholar to ascend to the Prophecy after the collapse of Great Neritsia. Mezveim is perhaps best known for his extensive internal reform of the Prysostaia, which built on the Three Principles of Politics and the thereunto untapped resources of the Prophetic position to build an advanced modern state bureaucracy. He was also the first Prophet to fully capitalise on the symbolic power of the Sacred Prophecy, embracing and encouraging Cathedralist tendencies across Outer Joriscia and doing much to establish the modern-day Prophetic cult.

Born in Great Pestul in 1776, Mezveim was the eldest son of Imhashoum Msirti, a Scholar of the well-known Msirti family (originally of Kethpor) who at that time was Second Auditor of the Pestul Mint. His father was closely associated with the Terophatic garrison that occupied the city from 1756, and was quickly pensioned off to the Azophine Uplands when the occupation came to an end in 1785. As a result, Mezveim grew up in a relative backwater, and only returned to metropolitan life as a teenager when he was permitted to take up a position at the Red Mokykla. His arrival in the city coincided almost exactly with the election of Ostrobor IV as first Emperor in the North, and the two were educated together, soon becoming intimates. The Emperor's patronage afforded Mezveim many opportunities during these early years, and he rose rapidly through the ranks of the Scholarchate. He was included in the Azophine delegation to the Prysostaic Debates of 1797 (which ultimately elected Hanzar) and remained in the Prysostaia until 1804. While abroad he corresponded regularly with Ostrobor, and in 1806, still only 34, he was recalled to Azophin and appointed Vocation Scholar of the Mokykla of the Gardens, one of the Great Schools of Pestul. Although between 1808 and 1809 he fell from imperial favour – apparently due to his marriage to Vikina shelAshtour, who became his Principal Wife that year – he soon returned to the capital, where he was made part of the Emperor's household.

Had Mezveim's fortunes not been tied so closely to those of Ostrobor, his career would likely have continued in Azophin itself and perhaps taken him to the highest levels of government there, his non-aristocratic origins notwithstanding. But the events of the Interpellation in 1811, which triggered a standoff between the Emperor and the massed ranks of the aristocratic elite, sent him off along another trajectory entirely. As a friend of Yorheprourkah ShelMekhdoum, he played a prominent role in the attempt to assert imperial power, and when Ostrobor was forced to back down in 1812, he suffered the consequences. After being held briefly under house arrest, towards the end of the year he was allowed to leave the country and subsequently made his way to the Prysostaia, where he joined an ailing and bitter ShelMekhdoum in exile. With ShelMekhdoum's death a year later, he became the effective head of the Azophine community there. He was also able to use his prior contact with Hanzar – who he impressed with his (somewhat sycophantic) Elucidations on the Neocracy – to secure a series of senior position in the Prophetic household. By 1816, he had achieved the remarkable feat of establishing himself as a possible successor, having won the favour of the Neocratist establishment within the Prysostaia itself. Nonetheless, his election as Prophet in 1817 came as something of a surprise, and reflected his lack of association with any major power (he was only grudgingly rehabilitated in Azophin after his election) as much as it did his actual popularity.

Mezveim's sixteen years as Universal Prophet saw a great increase in the prestige of the Universal Prophet. In part, this was the result of a more propitious interordinate climate: Lacre and Terophan had already begun to compete to outdo one another in their largesse to the School, and under Hanzar it had resumed its place as one of the leading centres of Vaestic knowledge. But it was also due to Mezveim's own preoccupations with internal reform and, perhaps more significantly, with self-promotion. He was the youngest post-Neritsovid Prophet and, not coincidentally, the first to tour Vaestdom widely, a choice that contributed to as well as feeding off the growing popularity of Cathedralism in the 19th-century world. He worked energetically to resolve the question of the Prysostaia's exact status, eventually succeeding in extracting from Spytihnev the Arbitrator a joint Utterance confirming the existence of a distinct territorial entity approximating the borders of Prysostea as it exists today (although Azophin and Lacre continued to contest this). Perhaps most significantly, he proved an energetic institutional reformer, creating a model bureaucracy (the Offices of the Prysostaia) rooted in Neocratic ideas but drawing heavily on Neritsovid nomenclature in a clear bid for 'imperial' status. By the end of his tenure, Prysostea had emerged de facto as a state much like those around it.

Mezveim suffered throughout his life from a recurring respiratory condition, possibly asthma. During his last years in the Prysostaia, breathing problems would frequently confine him to bed for days at a time, and he often left the Prysostaia itself for a retreat in the highlands of what is now Argah to allow him to breathe more easily. By this time he had become enormously popular across the Vesnite world. In the process, he had alienated all the great courts of Joriscia, who perceived a powerful Prophecy on the Cathedralist model as a threat to their own authority. As his poor health became more obvious in 1833, the imperial courts mobilised all their influence in the Prysostaia to exclude Mezveim's faction almost entirely from the electorate for the next Debates. As a result, Mezveim's death in Nollonger of that year was followed almost immediately by the election of the more pliable Kavylat, an unambitious and uncharismatic conservative. The news of his death led to violent outbursts of spontaneous public mourning in many Joriscian cities.