New Elmiesia
New Elmiesia is a region of northern Translacunia, at the north-western edge of Inner Joriscia in the Rastovid Confederacy. It overlaps the transition from the savannas in the western areas of the Great Lakes to the eastern grasslands of the steppe, and is bounded to the north by the Severnistine mountains. Its place within Messenia is disputed, with its mainly Messenian cultural identity overriding for many its purely geographical status within Joriscia.
New Elmiesia is named after Elmiesia and its people. Elmiesians had moved out of the Valderfall-Leucasian mountains to settle lands around the Great Lakes during the late Secote Empire and the Neo-Messenian period, and were pushed northward in the early 14th century after the Great Plague. They settled in the scattered savannas of northern Translacunia and the Severnistine piedmonts, and spread eastward over the subsequent centuries, eventually reaching the White River Steppe by the 16th century.
The wider definition of New Elmiesia includes all territories ever occupied by Elmiesian settlers; the most conservative definition covers only the area bounded by Benovia and Transturby in the west and the Ougle Massif of the Severnistines in the east, which corresponds to the modern autonomous province of New Elmiesia.
Geography
New Messenia is located in the north-west reaches of Inner Joriscia, west of the Ougle Massif, in the southern slopes of the Severnistines and the scattered savanna of the alluvial plains of the river Sarantaporos (a right-bank tributary of the Védomagne).
The region is part of greater Translacunia, sitting at the transition between the savanna of Translacunia and the grasslands of the northern steppe, with the natural biome mostly in the form of low-density savannas and some gallery forests along the major rivers. The climate is mostly continental although the north-east and higher-altitude foothills of the Severnistines are classified as boreal. Like most of the Rastovid Confederacy there is little precipitations during the winter over the region.
Historical outline
Divided states
Only the south-western-most area of New Elmiesia was part of the Neo-Messenian Empire, until its collapse following the Great Plague. Most of the region was colonised during the 14th and 15th centuries, as Elmiesians were displaced from the Great Lakes region by a massive influx of Sabamic settlers. In turn, they replaced the indigenous Western and Northern Secote, driving the semi-nomadic tribes southward. The settlers significantly developed the region, transforming it into a vast patchwork of cultivated fields and pastures, with the northern drainage basin of the Sarantaporos providing regular water for intensive irrigation. With this improved agricultural wealth, New Elmiesia quickly became the stage of ongoing power plays between the growing Sabamic powers of Dordanie and Ceresora to the west.
The Messenians’ steady expansion eastward into the steppe, as well as into Transvechia to the north, drew in a patchwork of small independent states in the north and north-east of the region; less exposed to nomad raids from the steppe, those states were nonetheless torn between the battle of influence played by Dordanie and Ceresora, whose merchants had growing interests along the region’s trade routes and in its agricultural output. The region also provided an alternate route to the Grand North Way, via the central passes of the Ougle Massif, toward the growing commercial port of Saint-Auguste-du-Grand-Nord. Although it had other underlying causes, the Fifteen Years’ War (1673-88) between Ceresora and Dordanie was directly triggered by a Dordanian punitive expedition in New Elmiesia in 1671, following tensions between Savamese traders and Elmiesian settlers further east in the White River steppe.
By contrast, southern New Elmiesia was, for most of its history, controlled by nomad confederacies, to which the Elmiesian settlers paid tribute. It gained its independence following the Great Steppe Rising in 1861, and this was formalised when the Andravid Confederacy was dismantled following the Congress of Mir in 1867.
Religious turmoils and the Holy Respublic
Elmiesians were originally Sirians, but of the Elmiesian Rite, a version of Siriash heavily influenced by Cairan practices; however, missionary efforts from Sabamic powers led to the conversion of a significant part of the population to proper Cairony, with the Orthodox interpretation dominating among Cairan Elmiesians after the Cairan Reformation. The city of Orthihierapolis became an important religious sanctuary for the Elmiesian-rite Sirians and syncretics; but by the middle 19th century the Elmiesian Rite in New Elmiesia had drifted significantly from its prototype in the Valderfalls.
In the 1860s, the region was swept by religious fervour inspired by the poet and lamneant Nikandros Grivas the Elder. Grivas and his son Nikandros Grivas the Younger attempted to meld Cairony and Elmiesian-rite Siriash into a formal religion called the "Joint Rites". Their movement quickly rose to pre-eminence in the difficult context of the Great Steppe Rising, and they led a popular revolt in 1870 that formed a state unifying New Elmiesia, the so-called Holy Respublic.
Although neighbouring Savam and Ceresora initially accepted the new development, the Holy Respublic quickly became hostile to both powers, and a threat to their interests both in the region and further east and south in the steppe. Although Savam had regained control of the main route of the Grand North Way through Transvechia in 1867 and no longer needed a close control of its southern leg through New Elmiesia, the Respublic was sighting the White River Steppe, where Elmiesians had been settling for decades and were growing in numbers, transforming the steppe into more productive land as they had done in New Elmiesia. An influx of Elmiesians there threatened the interests of Savam and the small local Kérate population, on the last part of the main leg of the Grand North Way. Further south, operating in the power vacuum left after the crushing of the Great Steppe Rising, the Respublic threatened the Liski-Tiperevesk Axis and, potentially, areas even further afield to the south, such as the trading centre of Bogograd and the newly-developed Ceresoran-controlled coal mines of Lescomia.
Savam and Ceresora formed an alliance of convenience in Floridy 1873, invading the Holy Respublic, which they destroyed and partitioned. In the north, the Elmiesian Principality was formed as a Savamese client-state, whereas the south, with its large North Secote minorities, was placed under the control of the Bronislavids, a nomad group that had remained loyal to its Ceresoran patrons.
The Long War and after
The situation carved out in 1873 remained in place until the Long War. During the Ceresoran Civil War, the Bronislavid Commandery lost its patron and became briefly independent before being conquered by the neighbouring Rastovids in 1951. Nomad raids sponsored by Joriscian powers intensified in the north, especially during the Third Northern War (1954-58) when Savam and Kiy jousted for the Transvechian Far East and the White River Steppe. Nonetheless, New Elmiesia remained largely at the periphery of the Long War.
Following the negotiations at the Congress of Kethpor, the Rastovid Confederacy was greatly enlarged to create a large neutral zone between Messenian and Joriscian powers. New Elmiesia was reunified, but lost its independence, becoming an autonomous entity of the Confederacy. The shift may be seen as a Joriscian attempt to impose limits on Savamese influence in the northern steppe, alongside major territorial changes in the Transvechian Far East, and prevent it from becoming the sole Messenian player in the northern steppe following the collapse of Ceresora.
Nonetheless, during the post-war period, Savamese influence and economic control in New Elmiesia has grown again (although arguably much less so than in the neighbouring White River Province). Today, New Elmiesia is considered a peripheral region in the greater power struggle within the Rastovid Confederacy; it has little valuable natural resources, and the southern leg of the Grand North Way receives only about a quarter of the overall freight traffic that goes through the northern route. Although Ceresoran interests have recovered since the 1965 peace accords, the main power plays within the Rastovid Confederacy, between Savam and Lutoborsk, have focused south- and eastward, while Savam’s conflicts with Kiy remain centred on the Blaisine Sea.