World of Lesnaya

“World of Lesnaya” is an ironic naming choice. I chose to name my alternate history after the event that didn’t happen, namely, the Battle of Lesnaya (1708). This battle was part of the Great Northern War, in which our history saw a coalition of nations in the Baltic region (Russia, Poland-Lithuania and Denmark-Norway) successfully challenged Swedish dominance of the Baltic Sea. Being an admitted Swedophile, I believe that, in retrospect, there were numerous opportunities for Sweden to have won the war. Being a realist, however, I find myself being somewhat disappointed with the handful of other alternate histories dealing with the Great Northern War, which have Sweden plow through Russia and Europe without a hitch. So I constructed my own scenario whereby Sweden can retain its power in the Baltic region, and gradually rise to become a world power, without stretching credibility.

But Sweden was not my only project for this timeline. For another one, I wanted to noticeably alter the course of history in Europe. Thus, I invented the Eastern Coalition, an group of nations that frequently allied with one another during several wars throughout the remainder of the 1700’s. The original Eastern Coalition members were Sweden, Poland and Ukraine, who would later take part in a war that would see the creation of its next two members: Greece and Dalmatia. The 1700’s in Europe are dominated by a series of wars involving several coalitions, of which the Eastern Coalition emerges as the most successful, even as its members gradually go their separate ways in the late 1700’s.

Another peripheral goal was to experiment with the history of science, philosophy and religion. I introduce a series of naturalists in the 1700’s who set the stage for an early development of the Theory of Evolution, alongside a series of progressively more secular kings in Sweden and Poland that greatly challenge the philosophical and intellectual viewpoints of Europe. I also include a new set of devastating Holy Wars between the Orthodox Church and the Muslim world, which dominate the Middle East, Africa and the Indian Ocean from the late 1700’s to the mid-1900’s. The course of technological and societal development is not greatly altered from our timeline, however.

In the World of Lesnaya, the 1800’s are not dominated by one nation (Britain), and thus, several global empires (primarily based in Europe) are competing for trade and territory. Thus, the 1800’s see political and military power distributed among several nations, contributing to a balance of global power, while North American history gradually diverges from our history throughout the 1800’s as Sweden and other nations greatly obstruct the efforts of America’s forefathers to create and unify the Unites States of America. I retain some familiar events in American history, such as the American Revolution and the American Civil War (though in heavily modified form), but do not include others (such as the Mexican-American War or the War of the 1812).

Sven Bluejay 04:06, October 20, 2010 (UTC)Sven Bluejay