Yufet
The High Lamneary of Yufet (Pilas Ifti: mnt-hōnt čise ieft) is a country in north-eastern Lestria, bordered by Neyet, Matal, Holy Empire, Turgal, Gekit, and Abranoussa.
High Lamneary of Yufet ܡܢܬܗܘܿܢܬ ܛܝ݂ܣܹ ܝܝ݁ܦܬ mnt-hōnt čise ieft (Pilas Ifti) | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
 Yufet in northern Lestria | |
| Capital | Nubbnow |
| Official languages | Pilas Ifti |
| Religion | Siriash |
• Compact | Sophoran Compact |
| Demonym | Yufeti |
| Government | Respublican monarchy |
• High Lamneant | Ghmot VII |
• Grand Maintenant | Apot Eiernoh |
| Area | |
• Total | 315,823 km2 (121,940 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• Estimate | 25,300,000 |
• Density | 80/km2 (207.2/sq mi) |
| Time zone | IAT M-1 |
Etymology
Yufet, known in Pilas Ifti as ieft, is a descendant of Classical Carcharian iafet, meaning 'claw'.
History
Early history
The area making up modern Yufet has been diverse since ancient times. The coast was dominated by the Carcharians, the highlands of the interior populated by hill peoples related to the Tikliwin and various Abranoussan cultures, and in general the south of the country came under the influence of antecedents of the Tarshi, such as the Ikhwani empire. In the 1st millennium Siriash arrived in the region, although given the disorganised nature of any proselytism, and the introduction of successive waves of contradictory Compacts and other practices, the Sirians that populated Yufet by the turn of the 2nd millennium was a patchwork of Siyettists, hierophane mystics, and syncretists of local Pisticism; any presence of what remained of Sirian orthodoxy was weak, and to its neighbours religious quirks combined with the marauding lifestyle of inland tribes contributed to a reputation of barbarity. Ghet, Moobe, and Nubbnow were the three main coastal cities, while Tepi, Nofret, and Presiny were known as the three great highland realms south of the Takessart.
First lamneary
In the 11th century the rise of Tarsh to the south, the expansion of zealously Sirian polities to the north, and a rise in Sirian reformism inspired by the vibrant landscape left in the wake of the collapse of the Empire of Qund, and then the Secote Empire's conquests across Messeno-Joriscia, all brought attention to Yufet. Even before the Coseptran Restoration, proselytisers were venturing into Yufet from all directions to purge the region of its infamous errancies, while on a less confrontative note this also meant busier trade and greater high-cultural exchange through the area. In 1130 a band of Qundi zealots seized control of Ghet, forcing the Siyettists and other local Sirians to submit to the Lamneary of Gaugura at swordpoint, and in 1156 it was annexed by the Kingdom of Gaugura, beginning a long history of Gauguran and later Matali involvement in eastern Lestria. In 1209 the king of Nofret, whose predecessors had already made moves towards reinforcing the new ideas of reformism and orthodoxy in the region, was overthrown by the Lamneant Hiamenrot for attempting to relax the persecution of Pisticism; Hiamenrot established the first High Lamneary of Yufet, and, backed by Neyeti allies, Tarshi mercenaries, and Gauguran gold, conquered Tepi, Presiny, and other realms east of the Tloule by 1230.
Although obviously inspired by Tisceron as a 'lamneary-empire', Hiamenrot and his successors either chose to or could not consolidate power, leaving inland Yufet as a confederacy of fiefdoms. In the 14th century, the collapse of Tarsh and the rise of the Gemmarate of Khra made the lamneary's subject lords restive, and defying any moderating authority they started to raid Neyeti and Tarshi settlements yet again, throwing the region's reputation back to that of a dangerous backwater. In 1401 Khra, seeking to pacify the trans-Takessarti states, conquered the Yufeti interior and put the High Lamneary under its protection. Later in the century, the newly consolidated Holy Empire expanded to Yufet, seizing the southern half of the interior after some wars with Khra. Khra's collapse in the 16th century was followed by the full absorption of Yufet by the Holy Empire; after another episode of political unrest, in 1589 the Yufeti lamneary was dissolved and put under the High Lamneary of Elemot instead, imposing Sophoran practices.
Tarshi Yufet
In the loosely organised political patchwork of the Holy Empire, even as a subject of Elemot Yufet was to enjoy considerable autonomy if not effective independence, though, with an administration and standing army based out of Moobe now commanding a pacified interior, the long-reputed unruliness of the highlanders was to fade away in favour of an energetic integration with the cultural and economic life of the Empire. As with the rest of the Empire, polycentric conciliar bodies representing all walks of life flowered in the political scene, the Anointed Head Movement provided the latest invigoration of religious zeal, and untold riches were being brought in from the trade with Great Neritsia (in Yufet, primarily at Ghet and Nubbnow) and along the wider Great Golden Arc. But in the 18th century the suppression of the Anointed Heads, the interventions of the Tarshi oligarchy that curbed and bureaucratised local corporations and councils, and the brash interventions of the Pesrardic League Wars in the Messenic (themselves a theatre of the Crown Wars) irritated the local population and elites.
In the 19th century, with the failure of East Lestrian War, Tarshi dictators' attempts to assert centralised power over the Empire was met with particular opposition by the Yufeti, standing on its borderlands as they were. Although in 1830 an attempt by the Lamneant Siou Pediphe (later posthumously recognised as Ghmot I) to declare independence was suppressed and Pediphe himself executed, when the Houseless movement wracked the Empire in the 1840s Pediphe's acolyte Sourot Bebmeri was able to declare independence bloodlessly and receive Madarian protection by 1843. Bebmeri was invested as Ghmot II of a revived High Lamneary of Yufet, which duly joined the Sophoran Compact.
Modern history
Ghmot's regime was immediately faced with considerable challenges. The authority of this new Lamneary, based out of Nubbnow, was unclear to the inland lords, who remained religiously heterogenous and nonstandard; they felt that a lamneary of the Sophoran Compact had no direct authority over them at best, and that to practice the official creed of the Holy Empire itself was to suggest traitorous partiality on part of the Lamneant at worst. In other aspects, the Lamneary was thought to be a prejudiced instrument of coastal interests. These caused many episodes of political instability; Matal seized Ghet and annexed it as Aheed in 1844, and Abranoussa had annexed restive breakway territories to the northwest by 1847. Appealing for a second Madarian intervention in 1849, Ghmot II barely survived the tumult, and in the next few decades besides stability Yufet was also to even enjoy military successes against a paralysed Holy Empire. But in 1892, when Madaria simply stood aside when an Azophine-backed Tarshi expedition reclaimed those gains, and even permanently removed a sizeable coast including Moobe, from Yufet, the disaster caused a new round of instability, and demands for reform were further inspired by the Adjudication of 1891 in Qammam, and the rise of deictism around Siriandom.
Lamneant Nau III, however, was to decisively reject deictism, treating the intellectuals associated with it as Zepnish agents. Instead, Nau sponsored the growth of the Nroeis movement among the population, while later invoking some pancarist sloganeering in resisting interests from Powers he guarded against as well as to suppress upstart magnates in Yufet itself. Besides this, Nau also took on a Vaestophilic strategy, engaging in close cooperation with Lacre and subtly approving of Vaestopolitical ideas when they suited his authority; this tendency was made explicit in the 1910s by his successor Toouemoshi IV, who welcomed more Lacrean interests, although in an act of Zepno-Azophine cooperation he was deposed in 1919. The new Lamneant Taksulas was more cautious and pragmatic, cooperating with Zeppengeran's eminent hegemony over northern Lestria.
His successor Ghmot V, however, was to be more assertive, seeking support and levering opportunities that could allow for Yufeti expansion; this included an effective co-belligerent status in the Abranoussan War (1937-41). But with Yufeti gains forcibly reversed by combined Zepnish and Helmin effort, an enraged Ghmot stepped up expansion of the military, aligned with Madaria and Siurskeyti, and in the tensions brewing to become the Sleepwalker War sought to fight Zepno-Helmin power on the continent, starting with assisting the consolidation of Turgal against Gekit in the 1940s, while also intervening in proxy wars in the Holy Empire. After Zepno-Siursk rapprochement in the 1950s, however, Ghmot's successor Nau IV chose to abandon these projects and gains to avert being overthrown by the Zepnish. Dissent against these lamneants' haphazard rule had built up, however, and in 1961 during the years without summers a faction of aphypnists seized power and overthrew Nau in the Yufeti Correction.
The Correctionists sought to end the political backwardness caused by the Lamneants' reactionary anti-deictism, and undertook many radical reforms. Factional infighting and overzealousness (such as the infamous abolition of the Lamneary in 1963 and its replacement by a pancaristic collegial office, the so-called 'Yufeti Debates', until 1968), however, prevented them from success and threw the country into instability. By 1975, Siurskeyti, as part of the Straits Game, was able to support a faction known as the Companions' Party to oust the Correctionists in the name of reinstating the Lamneant's authority and general stability; for a while it seemed Terophan's cooperation would secure this arrangement. This government's defection back to Zeppengeran in 1987, however, struck a crushing blow to Siursk resolve to continue playing the game. However, the Party remained unpopular, and in 1990 Vaestophiles and horizontists, inspired by the Lestrian Reconstruction in the Holy Empire, seized power in a military coup backed by Azophin, the Yufeti Renovation.
Establishing an authoritarian state structure known as the Maintenancy of Yufet, the early years of this new regime was secured by a reinvigoration of the economy's extractive exports amidst the market panic of the Garden Wars. But the 2000s commodity slump burst the bubble, and resorting to drastic repressive measures the Maintenancy was confronted by new groups of aphypnists as well as a revival of the Nroeis, now supported by a commoner population disgruntled with heavy-handed restructuring by coastal elites. The Yufeti Civil War began in 2009, though with Zepnish mediation the Maintenancy agreed to shared power with the two other factions in a coalition government by 2011. By 2018 however continued economic stagnation and political corruption made the Nroeis withdraw from the government and resume the civil war.
Politics
Yufet is a sovereign High Lamneary, which primarily rules through the Maintenancy of Yufet, a state apparatus installed after the 1990 Yufeti Renovation. Headed by the self-appointing Grand Maintenant, the Maintenancy is staffed by technocrat laymen trained in the deigmation and mokykla. Each local Lamneary has its own Maintenancy, which exercises political and judicial functions in its name, and also effectively serves to surveil and restrict the power of Lamneants themselves. The Maintenancy overall forms a massive Vaestic-style hierarchy with the Grand Maintenant being invested with autocratic powers akin to a Standard-Bearer, although the coexistence with the Lamneary remains somewhat difficult to coherently justify. In official political theory, however, the Maintenancies are regarded as merely natural projections and manifestations of the Lamneary's authority. The 2011 settlement installed Literature Boards alongside Maintenancies, conciliar bodies meant to give non-Maintenant political forces some form of representation and power. A broad-based aphypnist organisation modelled on the New Alignment Society, the Companions' Party, serves as a more general representative body, although its real powers are contentious.
In the current state of the Yufeti Civil War, the Nroeis Tepi Council controls about one-third of the country, occupying most of the southwestern lands bordering Gekit and Turgal. The middle third of the country (traditional regions of Nofret and Presiny) has a major presence of Nroeis insurgents and sympathisers who undermine Maintenant control, and only on the coast is Maintenant authority really secure. The Nroeis continue to enjoy a great deal of support from commoners and even rural big men, using pancarist ideals, nostalgia for the assertive pre-1961 Lamneary, and populistic folk Siriash to mobilise supporters. Zepnophile aphypnists, now represented by the Companions' Party and Literature Board delegates in government, were formerly antagonistic to the Maintenancy, but its leaders have since effectively merged with the Maintenancy to create a bloc representing coastal elites; they still, however, are associated with a distinctive affinity for broad-based orduyabenzer respublicanism, and with the circles of Neyeti or Abranoussan high society. The Maintenancy itself is mainly associated with the latest tendency in top-down technocracy, and with support from Azophin, Matal, and the Holy Empire. In terms of interordinate intrigue, Zeppengeran and the Holy Empire have both been accused of supporting the Nroeis as some sort of bargaining chip with Azophin; locally, many inlanders have lost faith in the aphypnists' convergence with the Maintenants, and are thus throwing greater support behind the Nroeis. The Nroeis continue to reject partition, or indeed any solution short of another thorough governmental reconstitution.
Since the end of the Long War the country has been mired by political instability, with assertive bureaucratic regimes governing out of the coast being unable to secure lasting popularity with the agrarian and extractive interior and thus being alternatedly overthrown at the behest of foreign powers after bitter terms of ten to twenty years. The political, economic, and cultural divides between the coast and the trans-Takessartian highlands remain the most salient issues of Yufeti politics, and continue to occupy the concerns and anxieties of its residents.
Demographics
Yufet has a declining population of about 25 million. The civil war has caused about 3 million Yufeti to flee the country, and another 5 million are internally displaced. Most of the population belong to the vague and loose ethnolinguistic grouping of Yufetis, marked by use of Pilas Ifet as their first language. Within the Yufeti, geographic-cultural divisions and identities based on the traditional regions of Nofret, Tepi, and Presiny, and the coast, are present. The south is also populated by various Tarshi groups, and the west by Tikliwin and other Tloulean peoples.
Siriash is the prevailing religion of the majority of the population. The Lamneary itself professes the Sophoran Compact, though only strictly followed by a third of the population, mainly of the coastal cities; among the larger population, the Compact of Nemoure, Siyettism, various charismatic, hierophanic, or ragarme traditions, and the Incompact divide up a diverse religious life, often overlapping or intersecting. The Nroeis movement reveres the office of the High Lamneant but rejects Sophoran orthodoxy and indeed most major Compact affiliations, and also promotes some pancarist and populist messages as well. Vaestism and the Coseptran Compact both have a small presence on the coast.