Presidency Lutoborsk
Lutoborian Imperial Realms | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1775–1936 | |||||||||
 | |||||||||
 Expansion of the Lutoborsk up to 1845
1720 1760 1800 1820 1845 | |||||||||
| Capital | Hremel | ||||||||
| Religion | Vaestism | ||||||||
| Government | Respublican monarchy | ||||||||
| Vozhd | |||||||||
• 1780-1835 | Vladibor VI | ||||||||
• 1933-1937 | Vladibor X | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• End of Polcovodate | 1775 | ||||||||
| 1850 | |||||||||
| 1855 | |||||||||
| 1881 | |||||||||
| 1936 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Presidency or Presidential Lutoborsk was a period of Lutoborian history from 1775 to 1936. During this period, the vozhd's regal powers were limited by the Lutoborian nobility via the Flank and Plinth States; 'president' refers not just to the position of a vozhd as merely ceremonially prominent among a powerful aristocracy, but also the historical Undughu elected war-leader, who had limited responsibilities and powers.
History
Vladibor VI
The long reign of Vladibor the Conqueror (1780–1835) begins the Presidential era on a positive note, continuing the territorial expansion of the Lutoborian Zenith. While the humiliating Imperial War had destroyed the knyazy and even resulted in the imprisonment of Vladibor V, in whose wake the younger Vladibor rose to power, reconciliatory concessions by Lacre in former Great Doyotia served as somewhat of a sop, and in 1775 the Vozhd repudiated the Neritsovid title of Polcovode to some celebration. Vladibor focused on two fronts: the conquest of the remainder of the Khuikhland to wrap up the Tardy War, and expansion into the Steppe. This was supported by the replacement of the army in the wake of the knyazy and their Tovaryshi's destruction, with reforms introducing horse artillery, mounted infantry tactics, and a larger banner-guard. Vladibor destroyed the Gnagnagaly Confederacy in the 1790s, pushing Lutoborian frontiers onto the Sluch River; seized the Homul Peninsula from the Kadalkhian Confederacy in the 1810s; opportunistically entered the Sisters' War between Lacre and Azophin in the same period; and finally in 1831–33 fully conquered Kadalkhia with the March to Foshky. Orthodox Vaestism was imposed over the 'semi-Vesnite' sects of Khuikhland by the paternalistic Garden Lectures. These all enriched the dominant knyazchik gentry and the Captains, on whose favour Vladibor's powers rested.
Though these achievements have made Vladibor VI's reign to be popularly remembered as a golden age, the decline that would set in later in the century was already showing, as the failed invasion of Kiy in 1812, the defeat by the Jogh at the Battle of Myrne Camp in the 1820s, and the Race to the Centre against Azophin for Inner Joriscia all showed the limitations of Lutoborian military might. Uprisings known as Incidents became a regular occurrence in Khuikhland as a response to overbearing knyazchik rule, while in suppressing them local nobles claimed more and more independence from the government. The introduction of the Radiance was also hampered by a general sentiment of conservatism, new political models promoted in Vaestopolitics meeting particularly strong resistance against noble privileges. Vladibor himself was already reduced to a 'president', enacting almost no meaningful domestic interventions or policies during his reign out of courtesy for the gentry that put him in power. Rather, he simply recognised the rights of the Plinth State through an ever-growing list of exemptions and favours for the nobility and their domains, and only appointed agreeable figures approved by aristocratic consensus to act as ministers and mediators.
Reconstitution
During Vladibor VII's reign (1835–1849) the Great Peninsular War swept across Outer Joriscia. The Lutoborian invasion of Lacrean Zemay was less successful than expected, and the Treaty of Tharamann, while awarding the Lutoborsk with Doyotia and Rasintia, snubbed Lutoborian ambitions at taking over Zemay, Solniai, or even just Užjūris. While Tharamann could pass as a minor victory, it was followed by more unambiguous failures: in the late 1840s, setbacks against Azophin in the Steppe saw the humiliating concession of much of Lutoborian Chuzastrana to Azophine influence. In reaction to this, after Vladibor VII's death in 1849, power was assumed by one Dobromir (r. 1849–1873) in the Solotvyn Coup.
Starting in 1850, Dobromir attempted to reform the Lutoborsk in a way concordant with the Plinth State, known as the Reconstitutive Action. These created or recognised regional units over which powerful local governments were tasked with undertaking modernisation along Radiance prescriptions, known later as 'Concessions'. The official recognition of the Lutoborsk as an independent Empire at the 1855 Purity Council seemed to justify changes that would create a government befitting a Vesnite monarch, as 'Emperor' was officially added to the Vozhd's titulature. But despite the opposite intent of the Imperialists at Dobromir's court, this further fractured imperial authority, while bolstering the power that Plinth State nobles could impose over and draw from their domains. The rise of aristocrats as practically independent governors was only tenuously justified by the doctrine of Galactic Government, which as championed by Dobromir became an opposing school of thought to centralising Imperialism in its own right. Nevertheless, the construction of new mokyklos, railways, and other infrastructure proceeded with remarkable speed, while as the Joriscian Peninsula industrialised the Lutoborsk also welcomed its own economic boom as both importer and exporter.
Nedimir II (r. 1873–1881) acceded the Lutoborian throne with none of Dobromir's prestige or popularity with the aristocrats and all of the baggage of increasingly controversial Strong Externalists and other radicals being employed by the court. Cultural anxieties about industrial development cohered into a movement of neo-dubitants, who now demanded that moralistic governance clamp down on the destabilising projects of the externalists. When the 1879–82 Rasintian War against Lacre and Zemay rapidly turned out to be a disaster for the Lutoborsk, Nedimir was deposed in the Spring Insurrection of 1881, which also ousted all the Imperialist reformers and inaugurated the supremacy of the Concessions. In 1882 the war came to a humiliating defeat: only Azophin's largesse as part of its ascendancy while mediating negotiations prevented the loss of significant territory. The Treaty of Starigrad thus established foreign spheres of influence over the Lutoborsk, and a policy that ensured other Joriscian powers would not stake out interests in the country by aggression, securing decades of respite from further military humiliation or any war at all.
Concession era
A combination of weakened central power and foreign influence have meant that the Lutoborsk from 1882 to 1933 is generally not evaluated kindly in Vaestic historiography, but many of the leaders of Concessions were fairly proactive reformers and enlightened rulers in their own jurisdictions, and through their separate efforts the Lutoborsk attained a degree of industrialisation and prosperity, as well as the establishment of efficient government in select areas. Some Concessions even became hubs for Imperialist sentiment and experimentation, such as Doyotia. As evermore complex matters of administration meant responsibilities were now devolved to namestniks, the importance of the landed gentry was also steadily displaced by the rise of new classes and milieus, such as the hlavy, scholars, or other meritocratically promoted commoners.
By the 1910s, the efforts of the reformer Hataly Tsinajinie and increasing conflict of interests due to economic integration meant that court politics began playing an important role once again. The participation of regional interests in imperial government now aimed to either secure empire-wide reforms favourable to themselves, or to deter such impositions. The benefits of a strong Lutoborsk for one's own allegiances was also now almost universally recognised. The Machine Lords of Unscany and the Dovhyi Tableland wanted a clear division of labour across the Empire where they were industrially dominant (though between the coast and the Tableland there were also disputes about the order of precedence). To this end they demanded more regulation of the north, which starting in the 1920s rapidly industrialised thanks to Kainish investment and influence, and offered potentially dangerous competition. Even Lacrean and Zemayan clients in Greater Doyotia, or the Kainish interests to the north, regarded strengthening the imperial government as potentially securing an immensely powerful ally to their suzerains. The bombastic rhetoric of Vaestopolitical idealism also remained a potent force. These anxious hopes converged upon Vladibor X on his accession in 1933, but given the conflicts of stakes involved, his Reconstitutive Edict of 1936 that abolished all noble and local privileges in a move clearly favouring the south could only lead to the Lutoborian Civil War.