Current mood:	confused
Current music:	Laibach, "Sympathy for the Devil" (Who Killed the Kennedys)
Entry tags:	european union, latveria

[BRIEF NOTE] Latveria's future
After I made yesterday's post on the future of Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia, I remembered that amidst all of the peoples I mentioned--the Finns, the Estonians, the Udmurts, the Hungarians, the Komi, and others--I'd forgotten one very important Finno-Ugric people. The Finns might have Nokia; the Hungarians might have brought down the wall; the Estonians may have given us KaZaA and Skype; but the Latverians, of all of the Finno-Ugric peoples, have come closest to world domination.

The country of Latveria has defied so many odds, starting with its foundation nearly fifteen centuries ago on the largely exposed Danubian plain, in the west of the Banat region of central Europe adjacent to Symkaria. Latveria has a population of a mere half-million people, The Latverians are the titular nation of the country, a people of Hungarian stock who--like the Székely of Romanian Transylvania--have retained their own distinctive dialect fo Magyar (in the Latverians' case a heavily Germanized one) and their own autonomous identity, rooted in the proud warrior identity that has allowed them to retain control over their principality even though they form a minority. Other ethnic populations in Latveria include the Germans associated with the Banat and Danube Swabians, the last substantial pocket of Germans left in that part of Europe, Hungarian settlers, and Romani attracted from neighbouring countries by Latveria's decidedly pragmatic tolerance.

Even though Latveria is a very small country, its geographical position and the fierceness of its warriors allowed the country to remain independent for the whole of its history. Frim time immemorial, the Kingdom of Hungary actively supported Latverian independence, especially after the Latverians began to loan their warriors to their larger neighbour in recognition of this support. The Latverian warrior--fierce, innovative, deadly--became a figure of general fear among Latverian neighbours. As a result, the Ottomans' armies took care to avoid any contact with Latveria's frontiers; Austria-Hungary did likewise; during the Second World War, the Hungarian Iron Cross explicitly renounced the territory while Nazi Germany dispatched only study missions, to research the principality's history; Tito was indebted to Latveria for deterring any invasion attempt Stalin might make from occupied Hungary; Ceaucescu seems to have been afraid of the Latverians.

It goes without saying that modern Latveria is an anomaly in Europe. Ethnicity has nothing to do with it: There are plenty of Finno-Ugrian peoples, after all, and the proliferation of nation-states in southeastern Europe is less a trend than an established fact. What is unique in the European context, especially after the fall of such nominally charismatic leaders as Hoxha and Ceaucescu, is Latveria's leadership by Dr. Doom. Drawing from the traditions of a highly autocratic elective monarchy that, while lacking any sort of parliamentary apparatus at all, derived support from the warrior caste and the general population through the charisma of the monarch, Dr. Doom has managed despite various vicissitudes to retain total control of Latveria for a generation. Certainly Latveria has been kept from reaching its full potential by its surprisingly enduring totalitarian rule, but especially in the context of a southeastern Europe that--until recently--was run erratically by ideologically-flawed leaders lacking both the willingness and the ability to employ high technology to the full it has been competitive enough. The Latverian franc has long been a hard currency, Latveria's economy is probably capitalistic, Latverian factories have since 1989 produce a surprisingly large share of European electronic consumer goods, Eurostat's figures suggest that GDP per capita is in the range of Hungary or Estonia--not that good, but still at the lower end of the typical range of First World countries.

Latveria's problem, most recently, has been the repercussions of the end of the Cold War. At one point in the 1980s, Latveria was surrounded by unthreatening countries. Ceaucescu's Romania, still licking its wounds after the Timisoara Incident of 1981, lacked any friends or even great-power patrons interested in challenging Dr. Doom; post-Tito Yugoslavia was too concerned with its economic chaos and rising nationalisms to bother with foreign policy; the Hungarians were too concerned with trying to make their country's newly mixed economy work; Symkaria, the other Magyar marcher state, was structurally incapable of posing a threat. In the regional milieu, a relatively wealthy high-technology Latveria with little inhibition against using force against anyone perceived to be a threat could punch above its own weight. (The same goes for Latveria on a global scale, of course.) After all, no one bothered about the annexation of Slokovia.

Since 1989, if irregularly, Latveria's advantage has faded. While Latveria's neighbours still lack the military heft necessary to threaten the country, steady economic growth and membership in transatlantic and European alliance structures has made Latveria's advantage over Hungary and Romania gradually disappear. Only the dissolution of the SFRY gave Latveria breathing space, but the highly pragmatic alliances made by Dr. Doom first with then against Serbia in the Yugoslav wars--alliances made, it should be noted, with the intent of wearing down each of the contenders for control of Yugoslav geopolitical space--have ended by ruining Latveria's reputation internationally and making the former Yugoslavia enduringly hostile, especially after the recent unfortunate events in Vojvodina. Unsurprisingly in these circumstances, Latveria's traditional reluctance to strike alliances with great powers has started to fade. The country was even visited by President Bush in May 2005, if by accident.

HAASENSTADT, LATVERIA (IFOC) - Due to a mixup with planning and navigation charts, Air Force One arrived at the capital airport in Latveria today in an unscheduled trip to the isolationist kingdom.

"I thank the people of Riga for their warm hospitality," said President Bush from a prepared speech as Dr. Doom's robots surrounded the plane. "We stand by you in your efforts to build your post-Soviet democracy and information-based economy here in Latvia."

Despite the outwardly menacing appearance of the robot-troops, Latveria's self-proclaimed monarch and despot Dr. Doom was actually pleased at Bush's arrival, offering his castle's hospitality and giving him a chance to throw a banquet to show his admiration for the American president.

"That whole 'War On Terror' thing is pretty impressive," said Doom in his finest cloak and powered-armor suit. "And not lumping Latveria in with those other 'Axis Of Evil' nations off-hand without coming here and talking to me was a nice gesture on his part. Despite the sabre-ratting by some pundits blaming me for 9/11, I try to keep the civilian casualties in my malicious schemes to an absolute minimum when possible."

It is expected that Bush will invite Latveria into NATO sometime in mid-2008, and despite a horrific human rights record it may join the European Union in 2010 before Turkey.

Bush is scheduled to head to Moscow, Russia next.

But still, Latveria remains a fundamentally isolationist country. Elsewhere, as an example, Dr. Doom has contradicted suggestions that Latveria might seek European Union membership.

The European Union is essentially superfluous to the national goals of Latveria. Our country prides itself on being economically, politically and socially self-contained, and would under no circumstances welcome the degree of outside meddling mandated by ratification of the numerous treaties which compose the legal backbone of the Union. The national prerogatives of Latveria differ from the supposed "mainstream" of European thought on matters of political expression and individual liberty to such a degree that no level of cooperation in matters of pan-European destiny could be considered desirable if it came at the cost of Latverian self-determination.

Later in the interview, Dr. Doom condemns globalization as inherently exploitative and predict the imminent conquest of the planet by Latverians equipped a mastery of with supertechnology after having read The Aeneid from early childhood. Dr. Doom's idiosyncratic style of government worked well in southeastern Europe during the Cold War, when Latveria was surrounded by autonomous-minded and relatively incompetent countries, but it won't work well in a Europe unified behind a highly pragmatic and democratic capitalism. The United States remains fundamentally hostile towards Dr. Doom, especially after the failure of Latveria's brief democratic government earlier in the decade, Russia under Putin remembers the Soviet Union's occasional unfortunate experiences, and a brief flirtation with China in the late 1990s ended abruptly after the unfortunate recent events in Vojvodina damaged Chinese investments in that formerly Serbian province. Rumours of alliances struck with offworld powers are likely just that, given Dr. Doom's decided bias towards homo sapiens sapiens in most of its various forms. Already, some of the news services suggest, poorer Latverian citizens have been quietly leaving the country for Germany and Hungary, attracted by the promise of near-automatic citizenship in those wealthier and infinitely freer countries. Can Dr. Doom really count on Romani immigration to sustain Latveria's population and avoid depopulation? I have my doubts.

At this point in the essay, I have to admit defeat. I just don't know what to make of Latveria. Does Dr. Doom really think he has a chance of outlasting the slowly expanding European Union and Latveria's increasingly dynamic neighbours, or might he be trying to arrange for some kind of organized succession, a managed regime change as it were? Events in the former Republic of Serbia and in Symkaria will probably be key, as those regions move slowly towards some kind of accomodation with the European Union, but I lack the in-depth knowledge to know what to make of this. nwhyte, talktooloose, thebitterguy?

UPDATE (10:00 AM) : Crossposted over at soc.history.what-if, because the historical possibilities of Latverian deserve their own discussion.