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Knabian Historical Overview

Nunlaess Knabiara

Archaeologists have found remains in northern and southwestern Knabia that show that Homo erectus lived in these locations hundreds of thousands of years ago. Evidence also suggests that the northwest corner of the Knabian peninsula was once connected to what is today Kanjiri by a land bridge, which was likely a common thoroughfare for early nomadic peoples.  The Ilelae tribes were most likely present in southern Knabia as nomadic herders out of Kanan-Mori as early as 1500 AE. It is believed that the first Keekmiké tribes visited from Niveria by boat to the peninsula as early as 1400 AE, though evidence suggest that permanent settlement was not made until around 1000 AE.  The earliest recorded writing in primative Tsuxjé hieroglyphs was found in Keekmiké and dates back to 700 AE.

By the year 26 CE the explorers from Valanian Empire had reached as far as the Knabian Peninsula and had fought with the native Keekmiké and Ilelae peoples for control of a small portion of the easternmost islands and shoreline.  However, the great breadth of the Ingallian Ocean made it difficult for the Valanians to maintain proper connection with their homeland and thus resulted in a small but very effective rule over the easternmost tribespeople of Knabia.

The impact of the Valanians’ rule in eastern Knabia is most visible in three ways: (1) the establishment of a third “tribe” that came to be known as Drexik, meaning “new land” in old Tsuxjé; (2) the establishment of Cruisianity as a major religion in both Drexik and parts of Keekmiké; and (3) the adoption of the Valanian alphabet in place of hieroglyphs.  Governmentally, the presence of the Valanians also heavily influenced the establishment of kingdoms in place of the old tribes.

The decline of Valanian control was nearly complete by 219 and was made official in 225 when Mortsik Beshrajek threw out the Valanian lieutenants and declared himself King Mortsik I of Drexik.  Likewise, King Graeduus declared himself to be the leader of the Kingdom of Keekmiké.  Less influenced by the Valanian occupation than the others, Ilelae would remain somewhat tribal, still following its ancient Krashkaenism religion until 286 when Chief Orodek proclaimed himself king after holding off the Keekmiké at the battle Exéta.  However, Ilelae would not adopt Cruisianity for another half century, when King Orodek II converted on his deathbed.

The next 500 or so years saw little change in the national makeup of the three kingdoms and each developed largely separately of the other, Drexik being mostly concerned with attempting to dominate Saraphian kingdoms.  On the other hand, Ilelae struggle constantly to defend its borders from attack from both Saraphian troops and those of Keekmiké.  However, by the late 400s, Keekmiké had shifted its interest to nearby Niveria shores.

The era of the three kingdoms saw much growth in the areas of art, poetry, law, and military tactics, though very few people in any kingdom could read, the great majority of them bound in serfdom to vassals (the exception being present day state of Yipilelae, which maintained Krashkaenism and a form of tribalism).

In 748 King Praemont III of Drexik sent an announcement to the King Léramaen I of Ilelae and King Rukluus of Keekmiké declaring the “purity and strength of bond of Knabian Brotherhood,” calling for “unity of Scandia’s greatest Kingdoms under one Holy Empire.”  The kings of all three nations gathered in the Drexik town of Shaekra in what became known as the First Shaekra Conference.  It soon became clear to the kings of Keemiké and Ilelae, that Praemont had no intention of preserving the independence of the individual kingdoms, and that he was only trying to expand his own empire.  They rejected his proposal.

However, in 749, Praemont rode into Keemiké through the Aktipatas Mountains with a force of 3,000 men and attempted to take the Rukluus’s castle at Regiss.  Desperate and taken by surprise, Rukluus sent an urgent message to Léramaen calling for his help.  On the fifteenth day of the Siege of Regiss, Léramaen arrived with 5,000 reinforcements and Praemont was driven back into Drexik.

Over the course of the next six years, Praemont mobilized his army against both kingdoms, who, forced to ban together, called themselves, ironically, the Knabian Brotherhood.  In 755, Praemont was fighting at Paoa when he received word that Léramaen had died of mysterious causes (some believe he was poisoned by an agent of Praemont’s).  Rukluus, having no heir, had left Keemiké headless.  Praemont and his force abandoned Paoa and headed for Ilelae to take command in the ensuing chaos.  Praemont never made it, however.  He was killed in an ambush crossing the Keemiké/Ilelae border. 

Praemont’s son took his father’s place and became Praemont IV, and, seeing the futility of attempting to conquer so much land, offered to meet Rukluus again for the Second Shaekra Conference.  There it was agreed to unite the three kingdoms as equals.  A compromise was reached for kingless Ilelae as it was agreed that Praemont’s daughter would marry Rukluus’s son who would then become the new royal family of Ilelae. The three Kings would meet three times annually (at alternate capitals) to convene the Council of Three and discuss pan-Knabian affairs.  Thus was the Empire of Knabia born.

After the death of King Praemont IV in 779, his son King Isharb I took the throne and began to take more and more control of the Council of Three.  Slowly, over the course of his reign, more and more of the Knabian Empire came under the control of Kingdom of Drexik and by the time of the king’s death, the Council of Three had power in name only, while almost all of the real power resting in Drexik.

The successive kings of Drexik increased their control on the Knabian Empire and expanded it beyond the borders of the peninsula as the Empire gained more naval power.  The introduction of gunpowder in the early 800s lead to the use of cannons, which in turn helped the Empire of Knabia to gain dominance over the region.
Between 851 and 854 the kings of both Keekmiké and Ilelae had died of mysterious causes (some historians believe it was an early strain of Gerghaas, while a few think the kings may have been poisoned). King Isharb II officially dissolved the two kingdoms and promoted two vassals to replace the kings on the Council of Three. With the growth of cities as cultural and political centers, Isharb moved the capital in 861 from Wexja to the port town of Vergamon.

Isharb personally financed the building of an imperial palace, theater, and library.  He also contributed to the formation of Vergamon University, which, under his guidance, was opened in 870 and which, in 877, published the first edition of the Vergamon Tsuxjé Dictionary (VTsD).  Across the empire there was a flourishing of art, poetry, and the sciences, with Vergamon as its cultural center.

However, behind the scenes of this renaissance an ugly epidemic gripped the country.  Outside of the cities, hygiene was extremely poor and there seemed almost no way to resist what became known as Ma Gerghaas (gerg meaning large or great and haas meaning disease).  At the time, it was widely believed that the disease had spread from the south of Ilelae where the people still practiced Krashkaenism and lead to wide spread persecution of Krashkaenites. 

However, many historians believe the disease, which caused the body to swell at the neck and extremities, was brought by sailors and merchants returning from elsewhere in Morlel, Niveria and Kwasina.  Knabians, relatively secluded prior to the imperial age, had no immunity to Gerghaas, which killed millions across the Empire over the course 300 years.  The poet Braula Vordada wrote Ma Krava Ret Gerghaasra (The Toll of the Great Disease), a collection of poems about the suffering of Knabian peasants at the hands of the disease.

In 921, frustrated with the seemingly unstoppable Gerghaas, Knéissé Horigee, a Keekmikéan vassal and member of the Council of Three, appealed to King Mortsik IX for help improving sanitary conditions in Fratock.  The causes of Gerghaas were not understood at the time and Mortsik refused Horigee help, claiming that it would be have been a waste of time.  Tired of being turned away by the king, Horigee and several vassals from all three kingdoms gathered together and sent Mortsik an ultimatum stating that if he did not expand the Council of Three and give it recognized legal power, they would lead their armies against him.

Initially, Mortsik refused, but when several other vassals joined those already with Horigee, he agreed to establish the Sesskintash or Vassal House to replace the Council of Three.  The Sesskintash would be comprised of all land-holding vassals and would have the power to vote on decrees that would be law-binding, though they could not veto royal decrees made by the king.  The Sesskintash made several important tax law and other changes in its early history.  Most importantly it helped establish waste management systems in Knabia’s larger cities that ultimately helped to eradicate Gerghaas.  It was an important step along the road to democracy.

Throughout the next 200 years, the Sesskintash functioned as a semi-successful check to the power of the king.   However, more often than not, dissenting royal and house decrees would cancel each other out, leading to confusion and in many cases, different laws were followed in different parts of the empire depending on how closely tied each part was to the Sesskintash or the crown.  But after two centuries of this inaction, the people had grown restless.

In 1104, inspired by the Kassatic Revolution, Jéki Uurumesh, a Knabian philosopher and historian, wrote Ma Biziteh Ret Korposra (The Power of the People) in response to the increasing inefficiency of the government and the growing gap between the poor peasantry and the nobility. Meanwhile, a widespread famine (starting around 1098) across most of the Knabian peninsula had resulted in great food shortages, increased prices, and malnutrition throughout the Empire.  To make financial matters worse, the Knabian government (King Mortsik XI and most of the Sesskintash) had squandered large amounts of money to fund ongoing skirmishes against Vamar for control of the Posdosan Ocean.  The national debt had reached almost 2 million deks by 1106.

In order to combat the growing debt, Mortsik XI In late November of 1106 proclaimed a new land tax that, apart from significantly increasing the tax on farmers, levied the first ever tax on vassals.  The Sesskintash refused approval of the new law, but Mortsik overrode it.  The Sesskintash then issued a statement calling for the king’s resignation and the establishment of a republic.  Mortsik responded by dissolving the Sesskintash and proclaiming himself emperor.

In the following months, several of the major vassals sponsored rallies calling for revolution, most of which were shut down, often forcibly, by Emperor Mortsik I’s soldiers.  In Vergamon, Jéki Uurumesh and several other professors from Vergamon University, assembled the National Congress to draft a constitution for a new Republic of Knabia.  In late February of 1107, Mortsik’s soldiers raided the university hall where the Congress was meeting and arrested Uurumesh and his compatriots.  There was a subsequent riot in which several university buildings and almost half of the Imperial Palace were burned to the ground.  This came to be known as the Burning of Vergamon.

Rioting continued in most of Knabia’s major cities over the course of the next few months.  Many demonstrators in port cities burned Imperial ships.  The death toll was great on both the part of the people and the Imperial soldiers.  Finally, in early September, General Fuxjis Daedros, tired of seeing his soldiers killed and growing increasingly sympathetic to the rebel cause, turned his force in Vergamon against the Emperor.  They raided the Imperial Palace and Mortsik was dragged into the street where he was subsequently beaten to death by soldiers and civilians alike.

Daedros declared martial law and, with the mob virtually on the steps of the Imperial Palace, promised open elections within a month.  By mid-October there had been no elections and riots again broke out.  On 1 November, Daedros announced that citizens were to travel to the nearest major city to vote for a representative to the New National Congress, which would draft a constitution for the nation.  Daedros kept his word and the Congress convened in Vergamon on 22 November.  The Congress worked at a constitution for almost three months, and on 16 January 1108, had drafted the Constitution of the Republic of Knabia, which was sent to the people for ratification.  On 2 February, the constitution was ratified and thus established the first Republic of Knabia as a federal republic.  Subsequent elections were held for the Doruktash (State House) and Korpostash (People’s House) that would make up parliament, along with presidential elections.  On 8 August, Jéki Uurumesh was elected the first ever President of the Republic of Knabia.

The 1400s began with the rise of the Women’s Movement, which, in 1427, was successful in establishing universal suffrage across the republic.  This was followed by an era of great economic success throughout the 1440s known as the “Roaring Forties,” a term borrowed from one of Knabia’s strongest trading partners, Kassatan.  Knabian art, music, and literature, influenced by the Kassatan cultural renaissance, flourished, centering in Aberra, which superceded Vergamon as the cultural and economic capital of Knabia.  Liberalism flourished throughout the decade.

In 1452, following the economic meltdown in Kassatan, Knabia’s own stock market crashed on August 28th.  The following months are known as the Black Autumn and Knabia plunges into the Great Depression, the worst in its economic history.  Over the course of the next 6 years Knabia struggled against catastrophic unemployment, food shortages, and a startling halt in industry.

In 1458 with seemingly no end in sight, Vergéger Knoltis was elected President on a campaign of promises to repair the economy through direct governmental action.  Knoltis blames the people of southern Ilelae, mainly the Krashkaenites, for Knabia’s misfortunes, calling them a backward people.  Once elected, Knoltis begins to make speeches about how the barbaric “tribespeople” of the south had always sought to undermine the Cruisian way if life in Knabia.  He accuses Krashkaenites all over Knabia for taking part in a conspiracy to bring down the republic. 

Knoltis’ party, the Korgis or purity party, gained more and more power over the next two years as Knoltis proclaimed a state of emergency and took total control of the government.  Soon Knoltis began an active campaign of rounding up Krashkaenites and sending them to “work” camps, in reality cruel concentration and death camps.  The Korgis government also blacklisted homosexuals, disabled people, and foreigners and began rounding them up into camps as well.  Many secretly fled Knabia to nearby Saraphia and other neighboring states.

By 1461, Knoltis had proclaimed himself President-For-Life and abolished the parliament.  He gave endless speeches about the purity of the Knabian race and began building up military power and industry with the implied goal of spreading Knabian purity across the world.  In the same year, the Korgis government annexed Uprush, an on-again-off-again part of Knabia over the course of its history.  Knoltis himself was born in Uprush.

Around the same time an underground resistance movement had begun to develop under the age-old name of Knabian Brotherhood.  The resistance was strongest in Keekmiké and to a lesser degree in Ilelae and southern Drexik.  However, Knoltis’ secret police kept a tight reign on the movement and all uprisings were brutally put down.  The leaders of the resistance, their hands tied, appealed to other nations for help, sending secret ambassadors to seek help.  In late 1462, the Republic of Vamar, a long time trade partner and ally that had cut ties with Knabia after the rise of the Korgis party, agreed to aid the Knabian Brotherhood in attacking the Korgis and restoring the republic.  Over the course of the end of that year, Vamar began an aggressive blockade of Knabia throughout the Posdosan Ocean.

On a cold morning on February 2nd, 1463, a coordinated attack by the Knabian Brotherhood and Vamarian Navy began in the port capital of Keekmiké, the city Regiss.  Though an attack was widely known to be brewing, the Korgis military had been concentrating its build-up on the southern coast of Ilelae and Keekmiké, leaving Regiss relatively undefended.  This is wildly considered to be the start of the Knabian Civil War. And though the city was taken in 3 days, the battle of Regiss would rage on for almost two months, with both sides taking and retaking the city several times.

With the Korgis military concentrating in Regiss, a coordinated uprising was planned for March 15th and executed all across Knabia while the Vamarian Navy began to bombard the entire southern coast of Knabia.  Slowly, the allied forces struggled to gain a footing on western Knabia, and by January of 1464, they had taken a significant portion of western Keekmiké and Ilelae.  The next year and a half saw battle after battle as the allied forces struggled city-by-city to beat the Korgis military back. 

By 1466, the allies had full control of both Keekmiké and Ilelae and the Knabian Brotherhood established an interim government and began preparing for a grand assault on Drexik, aiming for Vergamon and Knoltis’ stronghold.  There was a brief disagreement amongst the members of the interim government as to whether or not to attack Drexik.  There was a minority that wanted to establish “West Knabia” as a separate country and leave Korgis Knabia to fall apart on its own.  However, the majority believed that the entirety of Knabia must be liberated, that it was their duty as fellow Knabians to do so.  There was also significant evidence to suggest that if the Brotherhood and its allies were to relent on Knoltis, he would turn his forces on the rest of Scandia before returning to re-conquer western Knabia.  The Brotherhood went ahead with plans to assault Drexik.

The first days of the assault on Drexik in early February 1466 seemed easy as the Knabian Brotherhood, using captured military assets, coordinated with the Vamarian military to bombard the eastern border.  In fact, many Korgis troops surrendered in the early stages and agreed to turn on Knoltis’ forces.  However, Knoltis had barricaded himself in Vergamon and surrounded himself with his most loyal and dedicated troops.  It took the allied forces until December of that year to retake the remaining northern portion of Drexik and another two months to take the cities of Jédam, Vesti, and Kunané and the Island of Ferro.

On 3 March 1467 the Siege of Vergamon began with full naval bombardment from both Vamarian and Brotherhood forces along with a full land-based and aerial attack.  The capital city was especially difficult to penetrate as many of the forces from the surrounding cities had retreated there for one last stand.  After the first week, it was clear that the Korgis forces would not surrender until Knoltis was dead.  The allies continued to advance, taking the city street by street and on 28 March Brotherhood forces (reclaimed Korgis forces were not allowed to participate in this battle) reached Capital Square.  The remaining Korigs forces had retreated to the Imperial Palace, which was already partially destroyed. 

By the next morning, 29 March, Brotherhood forces had dispatched the remaining Korgis soldiers and retaken the palace, which was 70% destroyed by this point.  The body of Knoltis was found inside the bunker he had built for himself beneath the palace, a bullet wound through his cheek and another through the cranium.  It has been estimated that Knoltis had been dead for at least four days, though no clear time of death can be determined because his body was carried by the Brotherhood soldiers and burned at the center of Capitol Square.  Such was the desire to destroy the dictator that one of the commanders ordered rocket fuel brought in to dump on the flames.  No known remains of Knoltis exist.  The Korgis flag above the capital was also burned and replaced with a flag of the Empire of Knabia, thus ending the Knabian Civil War, the bloodiest in her history.

The decade following the Knabian Civil War was one of intense reconstruction.  In 1467 the Second Republic was established through a modified constitution, the most notable changes therein being the bifurcation of executive powers into President and Prime Minister and the 21st Amendment, which made it illegal to express Korgis or fascist sympathies or to wear or display any related symbols.

The decade also saw the creation of two new states, Yipilelae (South Ililae) in 1468 and Uprush 1469.  Yipilelae was established as a Krashkaenic homeland, as that area had long since been the heartland of that religion.  Many Krashkaenites flocked to the new state and set up residence in traditional small villages, though some vehemently refused to live anywhere other than in their original homes.  The issue of reparations for Krashkaenites continues to be a heated topic to this day.  Uprush, a protectorate prior to the war, was admitted as a state largely because it’s economic situation was too poor to be able to resurrect itself.

While both the war industry and the need to rebuild had resurrected the Knabian economy and created new jobs, the injuries of the Great Depression were still fresh.  By 1469, Parliament had passed new anti-trust laws and by 1473 founded the new Federal Deposit Insurance Agency FDIA (commonly called “Fedia”).  Agencies were also instituted to facilitate the physical reconstruction of war-torn Knabia and create jobs.  By 1485 most of the most heavily damaged cities and towns had been reconstructed.  In Vergamon, the Imperial Palace was rebuilt for a second time and re-christened the Republican Palace.

The years following the war have seen great economic growth in Knabia both as a result of the advancements made during wartime and through the new economic regulations put in place by the federal government.  Population also began to skyrocket in the following decades and cities began to expand into suburbs as soldiers returned home. The explosive growth lead to increased violence in several of the more populous cities, especially in Aberra, which reached 7 million people in 1519. Only in the last few years have crime rates in these cities begun to go down. Still, as the country struggled to come to terms with the horrors of war, it turned its hopes toward a brighter future of democracy, peace, and prosperity.