Suderavia

Suderavia, officially the Suderavian People's Republic (Suderaviax Plānokéarita) is an overseas state of the Kiravian Federacy occupying an island in northwestern Levantia.

Georgraphy
Geographically, Suderavia is very mountainous and has a vast system of rivers, valleys, lakes, and mountains that span the region. Though the region is now ideal for many interested in winter sports, buying a cottage/vacation home, the mining business, and ecotourism, it was historically viewed as largely inhospitable land that limited colonial expansion.

History
Suderavia was first settled by palæolithic hunter-gatherers, and subsequently by pre-Aryan Levantine peoples such as the Lzveizish and Skithanawites, and later the Impaxi.

Coscivian settlements on Suderavia were founded early in the history of Coscivians in Ixnay, around the same time as in Meridia.

At some point in time, Suderavia came under Covine rule. Under Covine administration, Suderavia occupied a peripheral position in the Covine state, characterised by economic exploitation and political marginalisation. An underdeveloped and deprived province, it was valued by the government mainly for its strategic location on the [name of body of water], its mineral resources, and as a site for state dachas and weapons testing. Perceived mistreatment by the régime stoked the flames of competing Skithanawite and Sudercoscivian nationalisms on the island, which would boil over into armed insurgencies during the [X decade], when Skithanawite and Coscivian nationalists opened campaigns of bombings, mortar attacks, and small-arms attacks on military targets, Covine civilians, and sometimes one another. The militants received backing from the Kiravian Union and from Nahe, the former looking to support Coscivian national liberation and gain a proxy on the Levantian continent and the latter seeking to maintain its own security against Covina by leveraging minority separatist movements in the country.

The anti-Covine agitations and foreign interference campaigns culminated in the 211XX Suderavia War, in which a united front of the Suderavian Republican Army and Royal Skithanaw Army launched a series of mass-casualty attacks on Suderavian military installations that invited heavy-handed reprisal from the government, precipitating a bloody asymmetric conflict in the island’s interior accompanied by urban guerrilla activity in the cities. The repressive measures taken against the native civilian population by the Covine state was condemned by the Kiravian Federacy, Nahe, and [X other country].

Politics & Government
Suderavia is a. Executive power is exercised by the Governance Commission (Āritakirstuv), or “Cabinet”. Members of the Governance Commission are appointed by the Chief Executive, except for the Prime Commissioner, who is elected by the People’s Soviet. The People’s Soviet may dismiss the Commission or any of its individual members by a vote of no confidence.

The Chief Executive is elected every five years by. The Chief Executive presides over meetings of the Governance Commission and signs its decrees and orders into effect. Independently of the Commission, the Chief Executive is the supreme commander of the Suderavian Defence Force and Suderavian People’s Police, and holds a number of other prerogative powers, such as to make judicial appointments and issue pardons. The legislative organ is the People’s Soviet, which is elected every two years. Suderavia’s countyships and independent city (Dolno-Suderavsk) serve as its electoral constituencies, and seats are allocated among them with reference to population. Elections to the People’s Soviet are by instant-runoff vote in single-member constituencies and by in multiple-member constituencies. X number of special seats are reserved for the Skithanawite people, who elect their representatives by [general-ticket vote probably]. Skithanawite citizens also vote in the geographic constituencies in which they live.

Political Landscape
The political culture and party-political landscape of Suderavia are rooted in its revolutionary history but have evolved since the island's integration with the Kiravian Federacy. Today, the two most consequential political parties in the state are the Unionist Party (affiliated with the Shaftonist-Republican Alliance) and the Suderav Republic Party (affiliated with the Coscivian National Congress). Both draw support mainly from the Coscivian population and descend from the pre-liberation Suderav Republic Party, which was the banned political wing of the Suderav Republican Army. The Unionist Party split from the SRP soon after liberation, over the question of accession to the Kiravian Federacy. The Unionists favoured speedy admission to the Kiravian Federacy as a full state, while the remnant SRP preferred a looser form of association or to remain an allied but independent republic. After accession became a *fait accompli*, this distinction lingered for some time, with the UP being the more resolutely federalist party and the SRP espousing soft antifederalism and localism, but both parties have since dropped strong commitments to either position. Today, the Unionists are mainly understood as the more and  party, inspired by Shaftonist democracy, whereas the SRP are understood as more  and influenced by Capetian-style Restarkism. Nonetheless, both are Coscivian-nationalist, socially conservative, and claim to uphold the Shaftonist-republican tradition. Both parties compete for overlapping voter demographics and frequently form coalitions with (or against) one another. The SRP holds an advantage among ethnic Suderav Coscivians and Unionists hold an advantage among voters from other Coscivian groups, whether more recent immigrants from other parts of Kiravia or longer-established communities that have not adopted a Suderav Coscivian national identity. Gaelic voters are a loyal base of support for the Unionists, as are Finno-Meridians and Burgittans with Kiravian citizenship. Voters with Wintergen refugee ancestry strongly favour the SRP.

The Skithanawite People's Party is consistently the third-largest party in the People's Soviet, enjoying near-total support from ethnic Skithanawite voters. Its strategy is to advance the interests of the Skithanawite people by always being part of the governing coalition, and most governing majorities since the UP-SRP split and the dawn of competitive elections have been either UP-SPP or SRP-SPP coalitions. However, customarily, even when the SPP is not part of the majority caucus in the Soviet (e.g. UP-SRP/SRP-UP or SRP-DA coalitions), the Chief Executive has nonetheless appointed SPP members or nominally-independent ethnic Skithanawites to cabinet posts as a gesture of inclusion. In keeping with the culture and values of its voter base, the SPP is ultraconservative, fiercely traditionalist, and protective of Skithanawite customs and institutions. It opposes Coscivian nationalism in favour of an arrangement with separate cultural and political autonomy for Skithanawites. The SPP rejects formal affiliation with any interstate groupings of political parties and SPP Delegates to the Federal Stanora officially sit as non-inscrit. However, in practice the SPP has a close working relationship with the Caucus of Justice.

The Democratic Alliance is the smallest of the major political forces in Suderavia, being an electoral alliance and legislative caucus composed of several small left-leaning parties with disparate identities and agendas. The Socialist Party of Suderavia is Kirosocialist and pan-ethnic, whereas the Coscivian Socialist Party is Kirosocialist but Coscivian-nationalist. The Communists of Suderavia are Marxist-Leninist and pan-ethnic, and the Democratic Party in Suderavia is a nominally communist party that mainly represents the interests of the ethnic Covine population. The Saresian Workers' Party is notionally [Saresian Juche or whatever] and represents the Saresian minority community. The DA is usually left out of the governing majority but has on one occasion been a junior coalition partner to the SRP. It often joins with SRP legislators to oppose economic liberalisation. Overall the DA draws most of its support from miners, industrial workers, ethnic Covines, and fishermen. The DA is affiliated with the New Deal Alliance federally. The Party of Suderavian Democrats is not associated with the DA, but has exploited voters' confusion of its name with that of the Democratic Party in Suderavia to win seats on a number of municipal councils.

More minor parties include the Christian Democratic Party, the ecologist Mountain Party, the Gaelic People's Party, and the Justicialist Party. The Levantian Union Party is especially active in Suderavia, as it is the Kiravian state with the strongest connexion to the Levantian mainland and the largest ethnic Levantine population by percentage. Though it has yet to gain sufficient electoral traction to win seats, the LUP is gaining interest among voters with proposals to fashion Suderavia into a and  that might serve as an economic and political bridge between the Kiravian Federacy and the Levantine Union and bring economic growth to the island in the process.

Skithanawite Institutions
The Skithanawite community has its own institutions, which are recognised by state law. The King of the Skithanawites (referred to in state laws as Chief of the Skithanawites, a point of contention) is the hereditary head of these institutions. There is an elected advisory Skithanawite Parliament, as well as a Skithanawite Privy Council which acts as the executive branch for most purposes, though the King continues to exercise many powers personally. The Skithanawite community funds Skithanawite-language schools, libraries, and language revitalisation programmes, the Skithanawite Conclavist Catholic Church, development and social assistance programmes, and other services. The Privy Council administers the Skithanawite Trust Lands, which are owned by the King for the exclusive residential, economic, and cultural use of Skithanawites, and the community is in a decades-long negotiation with the state government and federal attorneys over the demarcation of an autonomous Skithanawite Crown Autonomy within Suderavia. There is a continuing legal debate as to whether the status of the Skithanawite Crown under the Suderavian Constitution violates the Kiravian Fundamental Statute's requirement that states have a republican form of government, and this is a sticking point in discussions about greater autonomy in the future.

Society & Culture
The culture of Suderavia is shaped by its Coscivian heritage, its geographic and environmental conditions, the legacy of Covine rule, and foreign influences absorbed from neighbouring countries or received from further abroad through the Kilikas Sea trade.

Coscivian peoples
The founding Coscivian settler population of Suderavia was generally similar in profile to that of the Kiygrava, Fariva, and Ilánova, with most settlers belonging to Akúvaric Coscivian or Northern Coscivian ethnic groups, such as the Sedhem, Taństem, and Kaltem. Multigenerational Suderavian Coscivians retain an awareness of their different Coscivian ancestral origins, but among them ethnic identity has been for the most part subsumed into clan identity, with individual clans claiming a Kaltem heritage or Sedhem heritage, etc. On the 21200 Kiravian Census, 70.5% of Coscivians in Suderavia entered their ethnosocial identity as “Suderavian Coscivian” while 29.4% entered other designations. A great deal of the ancestral admixture of Suderavian Coscivians comes from Skithanawite, Gaelic, and Burgundois sources, and a significant number also have recent Covine ancestry, though this is now seldom discussed.

Other Coscivian ethnic identities reported by significant numbers of islanders were Taństan Coscivian, Sedhan Coscivian, Ĥeldican Coscivian (and subgroups), Arnórian Coscivian, Kiryaniv Coscivian (and subgroups), Kelnordan Coscivian (and subgroups), Skōrdan Coscivian, Sea Coscivian, Féinem, Ilánovan Coscivian, Fulmarine, North Coscivian (and subgroups), and Wintergen Coscivian.

Skithanawites
Skithanawites are the oldest community to continuously inhabit Suderavia. They speak a pre-Aryan Palæo-Levantine language and have their own customary monarch.

Levantine Peoples
Most of the non-Coscivian, non-Skithanawite population are of mainland Levantine origin, whether Covines who settled on the island during the period of Covinan rule, or migrants from neighbouring Levantine countries (Burgundie, Fhainnaeran) and their descendants. In Dolno-Suderavsk and a few larger towns there are neighbourhoods populated by Saresians and other minority peoples of Covina. Some of these people arrived as ordinary internal migrants during Covine rule, and others came to the island as refugees and political asylees after the island's liberation. The government of Covina has accused the Kiravian Federacy of harbouring wanted terrorists on the island and providing them training from former Suderavian Republican Army guerrillas and Kiravian military advisors, which the Kiravian government denies.

The Gaelic population of Suderavia are mainly of Fhainnaeran background, though a growing number are Kiravian Gaels and some have roots in Burgundie or Fiannria. Suderavia hosts many Gaelic migrant workers from Scapa, a nearby Kiravian protectorate.

There is reason to believe that the ethnic Covine population of Suderavia is deliberately undercounted by the authorities and could number as high as one fifth of the total population. The General Council of Covine-Kiravians, an Eriadun-based rights group, alleges that Covines in Suderavia face widespread discrimination, including denial of citizenship, voter suppression, intimidation by the state and by Coscivian nationalists, property rights violations, and inadequate access to public services.

Language
The major languages of Suderavia are Suderavian Coscivian, Covine, Skithanawite, and Kiravic Coscivian. Suderavian Coscivian and Skithanawite are official languages of the state as stipulated in the state’s Fundamental Statute. Separate legislation has provided for the recognition and official use of Kiravic Coscivian and granted legal status to the Covine language.

Suderavian Coscivian is a language that developed in parallel with Kiravic Coscivian and is characterised by base derived from northwest Kórsan dialects, with extensive inheritance from North Coscivian, Taństan Coscivian, Kelnordan Coscivian, and other settler languages, as well as influences from Gaelic, Burgittan (and other Burgy langs) and Covine. The modern written language emulates Literary Kiravic in its style and has directly borrowed many words from it, especially since liberation.

Over a third of the population speak Suderavian Coscivian as their native language, over a third speak Covine as their native language, and 11% speak Skithanawite as their native language. Dramatic language shift has been underway since liberation: The share of native Covine speakers is rapidly diminishing due to emigration, abandonment of the language by Coscivians and Skithanawites, and lack of official support/affirmative suppression by the government. While the percentage of Suderavian-born ethnic Covine children speaking Covine at home holds more or less stable at around 90%, the total Covine population itself has declined steeply. The percentage of Suderavian-born Coscivian children speaking Covine at home has collapsed from ~40-50% before liberation to under 20%, though there is reason to believe that Coscivian households underreport the extent to which they use Covine. Many households that are bilingual or even primarily Covine-speaking may report to be Coscivian-speaking for reasons related to ethnic identity. A series of observational studies conducted by the University of Duniver found that it is still common for urban adult Coscivians in Suderavia to speak Covine with other Coscivians, and even more common to employ various forms of code-switching between Coscivian and Covine. The same studies concluded that use of Covine by Coscivians has almost entirely disappeared from rural and mountain areas, while its use in urban areas has declined much more gradually.

The policy of the Suderavian People’s Republic since liberation has been to promote the Suderavian Coscivian and Skithanawite languages and to curtail the presence of Covine in public life. Suderavian Coscivian has become the language of instruction in all public intermediate and secondary schools not under the authority of the Skithanawite King. Outside of Dolno-Suderavsk the replacement of Covine-era road signage with Coscivian-language signs conforming to Kiravian standards is 95% complete. Kiravic Coscivian is taught in secondary schools and spoken by many transplants from other Kiravian states, as well as in many business settings. It has official recognition from the state, and the state government will accept and process documents filed in Kiravic.

Religion
Suderavians are predominantly Christian, though among the Coscivian population many maintain Læstorian, Rurican, and Sarostivist traditions as a “background religion” of sorts. Most Coscivian-Suderavians are either Catholics worshipping according to the Coscivian Rite or belong to the Insular Apostolic Church. The Coscivian Orthodox Church had a significant presence earlier in the island’s history, but by the mid-20th century the last Coscivian Orthodox parishes had either entered communion with Urceopolis or disbanded. It saw some underground revival with the rise of Coscivian nationalism and has been formally reconstituted since liberation with about 25,000 communicants, many of whom are recent transplants from other Kiravian states.

The Skithanawites are conclavist Catholic with their own Pope. The Latin Rite Catholic population is made up mainly of Covines and other Levantine residents.

Lutherans, Mercantile Protestants, and Kiravian Sectarian denominations such as the Reformed Orthodox Church and Trinitarian Universalists are also represented.

Suderavia is home to a considerable population of Abrigalasts, representing one of the largest and oldest Abrigalast communities in Ixnay. The Abrigalasts of Suderavia arrived fairly early in the history of their faith, having fled persecution in South Levantia and been welcomed by the Covine government of the time to cultivate its more marginal lands. Most Suderavian Abrigalasts do not respond to the Federal Census, but there are estimated to be about 5,000, with around 60% living in Abrigalast settlements, though figures for urban Abrigalasts are likely underreported. Although they are mainly of Levantine ancestry, Suderavian Abrigalasts have spoken Suderavian Coscivian as their native language for centuries.

Due to the impact of communist rule, Suderavia has a larger non-religious population and lower rates of religious participation than most Kiravian states. Rates of religious adherence and participation have risen consistently since liberation, though the KF Conference of Catholic Bishops has noted that intellectual understanding of Church doctrine remains low among Suderavian Catholics due to the long suppression of religious education.

There are two mosques in Suderavia, one Qustanti and one non-denominational but of Sunni provenance, both in Dolno-Suderavsk. The Bahá’í Local Spiritual Assembly is based in Xromîda and claims 500 adherents, 105 of which are active.

Architecture
Levantine influence on Suderavian architecture is strong and pervasive. Coscivian nationalists on the island looked to Kilikas Brutalism for expression, and since liberation there has been a profusion of Kilikas Brutalist architecture all over the island, especially for public buildings.

Economy
Suderavia's is an economy in transition. Extractive industries - mining, forestry, fisheries, and a small agricultural sector - have always been the mainstay of the Suderavian economy. The transition away from communist state-ownership of mines, factories, and timberland under Covine rule and toward a market-based system of private ownership has been a slow and difficult one. Nonetheless, Suderavia has benefitted greatly since its extrication from the sagging Covine planned economy of the 1990s AD. The opening of new markets for its resource exports - primarily the Kiravian market - and greater access to capital from Kiravia and elsewhere has buoyed economic growth.

Tourism has been an important pillar of the Suderavian economy for quite some time. Under Covine rule the island was home to many dacha estates and well-appointed state dachas visited by the country's governing élite. Since liberation, a burgeoning private tourist industry has emerged, catering to enjoyers of winter and outdoor recreation from Levantia and the Kiravian Federacy. An attendant real estate industry specialising in vacation properties, second homes, and service-oriented development has also taken root, and the accompanying boom in construction jobs has helped smooth over unemployment resulting from the restructuring of industrial and mineral enterprises.

Scrap metal - harvested mainly from disused Covine military installations and abandoned infrastructure, is an important export.