Yugolski Empire

Flag of the Empire (adopted 1831)

Flag of the House of Kalantrov

The **Yugolski Empire** was an empire in western Eredan that ruled over modern-day Iljekya, Regit, Sedry, Dersochia and Aleurusia. It succeeded the Principality of Kalantrovsk when Fyodor I, ruler of the Iljeks, was proclaimed "Emperor", or "Czar". The rise of the Yugolski Empire coincided with the decline of neighboring powers, and ending the era of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples such as the Todorski, Urganin, and Cossacks. The reforms of Czar Alexei the Great modernized the empire's political system and military, leading it to become an industrialized military powerhouse by the time of Nikolay IV. The empire's military prowess and industrial advancement would eventually be blunted after the end of the Ninety Years' War, which led to a 50-year period of stagnation and gradually rising unrest. The reforms of Pavel I and their revocation under Lev I would lead to the intense radicalization of politics, allowing extremist ideologies such as communism to spread rampantly. This, combined with several famines and the rise of nationalism, resulted in the Red March and the formation of Soviet Iljekya.

## Regnal Chronology

### Beginnings (1558-1591)

The Yugolski state originated from the Grand Duchy/Principality of Kalantrovsk (it's the same word in Iljek). At the time, the Slavinsk people in modern-day Iljekya were organized into numerous petty kingdoms (or duchies/principalities, whatever) that were terrorized by and vassals to nomadic peoples further north. Some Slavinsk adopted certain nomadic customs and settled in the same nomadic steppes, in semi-nomadic *sichs*.

**Fyodor I/Fyodor Iosefevich:**

**Peter I/Pyotr Fyodorevich**

**Alexei III/ Alexei Petrovich**

### Reform and Industrialization (1591-1803)

**Alexei the Great**

**Michael I/ Mikhail Alexeyevich**

**Nicholas III/ Nikolay Mikhailovich**

**Vladimir I/ Vladimir Nikolayevich**

**Michael II/ Mikhail Vladimirovich**

**Nicholas IV/ Nikolay Vladimirovich**

### Coal and Steam (1803-48)

**Dmitri II/ Dmitri Nikolayevich**

**Fyodor II/ Fyodor Dmitryevich**

**Ivan I/ Ivan Dmitryevich**

**Alexander I/ Alexander Ivanovich**

### Decline and Stagnation (1848-68)

**Vladimir II/ Vladimir Alexandrovich**

**Paul I/ Pavel Vladimirovich**

### Reformism and Red March (1868-91)

* **Pavel Vladimirovich** ascended to the throne at the peak of Yugolski stagnation. With the economy and military both incredibly exhausted and literacy rates at a record height, internal dissent had grown to a level that would soon become difficult to manage. With an unknown disease--likely tuberculosis--beginning to take effect, Pavel met with several right-leaning liberal intellectuals and agreed to some of their concessions, namely safer working conditions, a state-run labor union, and greater political participation through a (largely powerless) elected assembly. He was acclaimed among many other Eredanese powers for being an 'enlightened monarch' and many Helinskan powers for being a 'Michaelist monarch', before succumbing to his disease and falling into a coma 2 weeks later.
* **Lev Pavelovich**, furious with his father's reforms and believing they would drive the nation into decadency, immediately reneged on prior promises made, disbanded the Royal Labor Group, and dissolved the assembly. This greatly intensified prior unrest, immediately prompting several large-scale strikes and small-scale workers' revolutions. When liberals and intellectuals demanded Lev's abdication, many aristocrats agreed and Lev was forced to step down.
* **Fyodor III Levovich** was intended to succeed Lev, but refused to take the throne and fled to nearby Prithania for his own safety alongside some of his distant family, such as the father of future Prince Stanislaw Ivanovich Kalantrov.
* The subsequent **Interregnum** sent Yugolski aristocrats into fierce infighting, with two possible successors both with ties to differing noble families. Small skirmishes between noble retinues were recorded in Yuragrad and Kalantrovsk. All the while, civil unrest continued to skyrocket after the revocation of reforms and the incapability of the Yugolski government to reinstate them.

#### Red March (1891)

With nationalism and separatism spreading like wildfire around Eredan, many intellectuals amongst the Yugolski minorities campaigned for their peoples to secede and arm themselves. Before a new monarch could be appointed, 12 independent states had wrenched themselves from the Empire. Underground labor unions, largely made up of splinters from the Royal Labor Group, began to likewise arm themselves, barricade the roads, and seize urban centers. In what came to be known as the Red March, various labor unions, soldiers' committees, and sailors took control of Kalantrovsk and declared the new socialist state of Iljekya.