Arzanshahr

Arzanshahr, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Arzanshahr is a multinational confederation located in Audonia. It is located on the X isthmus, bordering Y and Z.

There are several scholarly debates about the founding of the Arzani state, and which particular historical entitty is the direct predecessor, but the present Arzani state cites its founding and begins its revolutionary calendar in 2027, with the overthrow of the First Arzani Republic in a military coup by revolutionary officers under the command of Captain Nasir Karimi.

While officially, all political parties and organizations in Arzanshahr have been abolished in favor of a system that is claimed to be "directly democratic", the majority of Arzani institutions are presently held by individuals once belonging to Karimi's Arzani Renaissance Front.

Extremely ethnically diverse and prone to centuries of civil strife prior to the revolution, the current government instituted extreme territorial devolution, modeled after the proposal of Levantine socialist [NAME HERE] in the leadup to the great war.

MUSLIM CONQUEST AND ISLAMICIZATION
~500 AD Muslim domination of Arzanshahr, beginning of the country’s partial conversion to Islam

Emirate of Jazirat 850-1250

30 Years’ Anarchy 1250-1280

FOUNDATIONS OF ARZANI STATEHOOD
1265- Local Zoroastrian resurgence, rise of Hormozd The Conqueror, first Zoroastrian Spāhbed (Commander) of The Arzani

1275: Hormozd The Conqueror is captured and beheaded by the Oduniyyad Caliph; Caliph recognizes the title as Spāhbed as an appointed ethnarch of the Zoroastrian community subject to the Caliphate.

1280: rise of Local Persianate (Muslim) rule as Emirs under the Caliphs.

1350: Civil War during Caliphal succession crisis leads to Zoroastrian uprising, crushed by the return of Central Caliphal Authority. Caliph appoints the Arab Abbas Al-Khashraq. His descendants continue to rule and are later Persianized, adapting their dynastic name to Qashraq.

ZOROASTRIAN ERA
1525: Emir Ali Khan Qashraq declares himself Soltan, first ruler of an independent Arzanshahr

1500s-1600s: Second Zoroastrian resurgence with rediscovery of ancient texts during the Arzani renaissance under the Qashraq dynasty. Beginning of major Zoroastrian conversions among the nobility, and then later because of their influence, the peasantry of most of the country. Sectarian violence often breaks out, leading to the later instability of the Burgundie-dominated Wilayah period.

BURGUNDIAN COLONIALISM 1670-1825
1670: Qashraqid Dynasty become client state of Burgundie following a failed attempt to seize Burgundian trading vessels traveling to Audonia

1675: last Qashraq Soltan dies after epileptic stroke; Burgundian consul-general arranges for his quartermaster Yusuf Al-Rostami to become the Wāli of Arzanshahr

1700: Beginning of foreign Wilayah: several different individuals and families of disparate origin hold the title of Wāli, continued weakening of central control over the countryside.

BABAK I AND THE RISE OF THE BABAKID DYNASTY
1825-1830: Ethnically Sarpedonian mercenary captain Abd al-Aziz Karimi (born Agapius Caudinus) storms the citadel of Šāyendag, declares himself the independent Malik of Jaziristan. Burgundian interference attempts to topple Abd al-Aziz’s rule over the surrounding countryside, but fails. A large Burgundian force in 1826 attempts to storm the Citadel, which the Malik has reinforced with his own Western mercenaries. During this battle, The Malik has a religious vision following being struck with shrapnel from Burgundian cannon, prompting his battlefield conversion to Zoroastrianism. Redubbing himself the Persian Šah of Arzanshahr and renaming himself Bābak. Using the Zoroastrian nobility as his base, he is able to use Local troops to come from the rear and expel the Burgundians from Arzanshahr temporarily.

1847-1945 KIRAVIAN PROTECTORATE OVER ARZANSHAHR
1847: Bābak’s grandson Ardashir I is forced to give mining concessions to the Kiravians and accept the title of Sirdar of the Arzani under Kiravian protection following a second attempt by the Burgundians to reclaim their protectorate over Arzanshahr.

1945-1976 EARLY INDEPENDENCE
1945: During the midst of the Great War, the general-secretary of the underground pro-independence Arzani Renaissance Party, Dariush Yazdi, launches a coup d’etat against the Bābakid-Kiravian government, and deposes the Sirdar. Unsure whether the Muslim and Zoroastrian clergy could agree on a candidate for the throne, or would at all support the proclamation of a Republic, Yazdi forms a regency council. Leaving the position of Padishah nominally vacant, Yazdi wields monarchical power as the head of the regency council.

1949: Collapse of Kiravian oversight over religious harmony in Arzanshahr leads to the first outbreak of sectarian violence in Arzanshahr. Previously ambivalent towards religious authority in Arzanshahr, the nominally Muslim Yazdi puts high-profile clerics of both Zoroastrianism and Islam on public trial, blaming them for the outbreak of civil war in his country.

1950-1975 - YAZDI DYNASTY
With power now solely consolidated in the hands of the central government, Yazdi now has to deal again with the constitutional question. The throne has remained vacant for four years, and the question of Republicanism can now be pursued in proper. However, Yazdi, still acting as regent, dissolves both the constituent assembly and the regency council. Assembling a new Crown Council of Zoroastrian and Muslim notables in Šāyendag, Yazdi puts forward his own candidacy (through a proxy Muslim Imam) for the throne of Arzanshahr. The puppet assembly unanimously votes for his enthronement as monarch of Arzanshahr, except for Prince Arsaces Bābakid, 2nd cousin of the exiled last Bābak Sirdar, who hoped to reclaim the throne for himself.

Crowning himself and being anointed by both the seniormost Sunni and Zoroastrian clergy in the Citadel of Šāyendag, “Dariush I Yazdi” takes the ancient title of Padishah, as well as reviving the medieval ethnonym “Spāhbed Al-Arzani”.

1975 Childless death of Dariush I, sectarian civil war, first republican period. Many people believe that Dariush I was poisoned by the President of the Crown Council on Islamic affairs and first president of the Arzani Islamic Republic, Fereydoon Ahmed. Quickly after the announcement of the death of the Padishah, another Crown Council is assembled to elect another shah, perhaps giving the crown to either a relative of Dariush I, or to the deposed Babakids. However, popular protests in the capital outside of the meeting place of the crown council eventually lead to most of the assembly’s members fleeing the country in fear of violent reprisals. In their absence, now-legalized political parties form a second Arzani Constituent Assembly south of Sayendag proper, and declare the First Arzani Republic. The republic’s base of power is reformist Zoroastrian intellectuals as well as cosmopolitan secular Muslim bourgeois in the country’s major cities. Upset by this, the sectarian Muslims remaining in the former crown council declare their own sectarian Islamic Republic. Civil war lasts in phases between 1976 and 1982, and ends after general amnesty is declared for Islamic guerrillas deep in the mountains of the country. In 1988 war breaks out again for a short period of days as the military seizes the apparatus of the state in an attempt to stop the Zoroastrian clerical parties from taking power.

REPUBLICAN ERA, CIVIL WAR
1988: National unity, military government, first republican period.

1990: Military rule nominally ends after Lt. General Aghil Shirazi becomes civilian president of Arzanshahr. Rigged elections continue every four years, with Shirazi winning more and more improbable majorities in both the Constituent Assembly and presidential elections. Exile dissident communities form at the edges of Audonia, made up of Arzani emigres opposed to Shirazi’s rule. Many religious democrats and centrist liberals rally around Babakid pretender (now rallied to republicanism) Bahram Abbas Bābakí, whereas leftists and progressive intellectuals rally around the remnants of the Renovation Front led by the communist and social-democratic parties of the country during the democratic era.

ARZANI RENAISSANCE FRONT AND REVOLUTION
2021: Following a collapse in the [commodity] industry, upon which Arzanshahr was heavily reliant, popular protests break out all over the country. Young people disillusioned with both the continued reign of clerical landlordism in the countryside and inept conservative civil government in the cities turn to the Renovation Front of and its increasingly extremist program to reform Arzanshahr. In May of 2021, Students and military officers led by Captain Nasir Karimi, storm the Presidential Palace as well as provincial capitals across the country. Following the death of Shirazi in 2022, a Second Arzani Republic was declared, and a series of radical reforms were instituted against the entrenched positions of both the Zoroastrian and Sunni Muslim nobility, including near-socialist land reform, and the abolition of all privileges for clergy across the country. To resolve the “ethnic and religious question” a system of asymmetrical confederalism was put in place to ensure self-government for every national group inside of Arzanshahr. Karimi, president of the Revolutionary Council that drafted the country’s new constitution, led the nation until 2029 when he was assassinated by a zealous Zoroastrian cleric who claimed the country was ruled by the “spirit of Angra Mainyu”.

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