Before the rise of Russia, Uralic languages were strong in the farther reastern and northern reaches of Europe, as well as Siberia. The spreading of Russia towards the east caused these languages to lose speakers over time. Even though they exist, Slavic languages overshadow them by far. Are there any known POD-s which could have produced strong Uralic-speaking polities, or even caused them to overwhelm Russia early on?
Maximum possible number of Uralic family language speakers?
- Thread starter Changundramon
- Start date
Have a Finno-Ugric state form in Russia and have it follow the same course as the OTL Russians did, minus any equivalent to the defeat/famine in WWI, the Russian Civil War, Stalinist oppression, and WWII genocide. Everything else is just window dressing. You could have this Russian Empire/Republic fall into a middle-income trap and end up with a population of 1 billion, the majority of who will be native "Russian" speakers and pretty much everyone else speak "Russian" as a second language.
I'm not sure of the best course for this, maybe the Slavs are assimilated by Baltic and Volga Finnic peoples and an alt-Moscow still rises to prominence in the middle ages, reinforced by Slavic nobles from the Kiev area fleeing from the Mongols (who also assimilate). And then we can have similar Russian history to OTL.
I'm not sure of the best course for this, maybe the Slavs are assimilated by Baltic and Volga Finnic peoples and an alt-Moscow still rises to prominence in the middle ages, reinforced by Slavic nobles from the Kiev area fleeing from the Mongols (who also assimilate). And then we can have similar Russian history to OTL.
No Indo-European expansion, Finno-Ugric takes that niche instead. Though it is quite early, the OP didn't specify whether he meant the political or cultural entity that would appear much later as opposed to the geographic entity, so technically it counts.
As has been mentioned above, a Uralic Russia in Eastern Europe, and a much stronger Hungary in Central Europe. Then have the Teutonic knights become Estonians in Estonia and Latvia, and Sweden becomes Finnish. Northern Norway could be Sami.
A smaller modern change would be to have the Bolsheviks interested in forming strong linguistic autonomous regions in the 1920s, that would protect the then still existing languages from Russification, instead of withering away as in otl.
A smaller modern change would be to have the Bolsheviks interested in forming strong linguistic autonomous regions in the 1920s, that would protect the then still existing languages from Russification, instead of withering away as in otl.
In theory, almost as many as there are Russian speakers today. Moscow dominated as the regional power the Mongols saw best fit to collect taxes on their behalf. If you could get an Uralic-speaking power on the ascendency at just the right time, willing to be cooperative enough with their conquerors, they could assume the same role.
Moscow was a Uralic place, so if there had been an early Bible translation into Old Church Uralic, and a Uralic Patriarch in a Uralic Church, then perhaps ...