Ok, I guess we now agree that it is subjective and that was my point.
@srbnems, Yeah I dont think we disagree. If you are talking about the so called protobulgarian, protoserbian and protocroatian slavic tribes the once that would later form the different slavic peoples on the balkans I have read it somewhere also. For sure there have always been some differences and to be fair every language even within its borders has different dialects. If that is what you want to say I understand your point.
@Redstar819 @anon45959656 I have never though on the question do I as Bulgarian consider the turkish minority in Bulgaria as Europeans or not. To me they are Europeans for one simple reason the Turkish population left on the Balkans are people whose families lived with the local peoples for centuries. This is their home as well as it is for the rest of us. Also during the Ottoman times to not face repression some people would convert to Islam and/or recognise themselves as Turkish as there had been much better prospects if you do this. Later many of these families remained within this tradition. Im not sure what portion nowadays descends from these people but I guess is some sort of mixture. When it comes to modern times I consider countries as Russia and Turkey as both European and Asian for obvious geographical reasons.
However in turms of the middle ages in my mind the Ottomans were a noneuropean faction. They had vastly different culture compared to the the peoples they conquered. The whole fall of Constantinople in 1453 was a big deal exactly for this reason as one of the pillars of Christianity fell to a foreign invasion. Having said that I have seen Turkish people consisder the Ottoman empire as some sort of continuation/an heir to Bysantium so there is that prospective, too. If you agree with it you may consider the Bysantines and the Turks as equally European/Asian.
3 Likes
Which 21st century way of thinking am I applying here? You are the one who keeps looking back at the 800s and 1200s deciding who is European and who isnât when, to my knowledge, this wasnât a thing people were doing back then. You still havenât answered my question as to who, exactly, was calling the shots in that time period on who is and who isnât European. Who do you recognize as the authority in defining European identify (and on what basis)?
If we leave the realm of geography and start including things such as religion, language, etc. in the definition of European, then this discussion will have no end. As Iâve pointed out earlier, Indo-European languages likely didnât even originate in Europe. The Christian religion also spread into Europe from Asia. Where do you draw a line on when a religion and language suddenly become european, while a language group which has been present in Europe for over a millenium (Turkic) somehow is still non-European?
As youâve alluded to, the whole debate about who is European or not in the 21th century is essentially political. Itâs about determining who can access a specific political grouping with economic favours.
No such thing, to my knowledge, existed in the Middle Ages. There was no benefit in defending a âEuropeanâ community from people trying to access it for political and economic favours. What did exist however was christendom, and the various churches trying to bring feudal lords and territories under their dominion. But as Iâve also said earlier, European and Christian arenât interchangeable words.
Common sense. A basic application of common sense and simple fact checking will quickly determine that Cumans were not European. Sorry, but others have already also pointed out all the required facts that can help determine whether they were or not European, and reiterating them once again will do no good. (but letâs do it anyway)
Moving the goalpost⊠to another timeline in History, which is not relevant to AoE2 timeframe even in the slightest. What similarities do you find between Cumans and the European Kingdoms like Hungary, HRE, Poland at the time when Cumans just arrived? Please give me an extensive list.
Once again, basic fact checking and common sense. Just take a look at a map of Turkic language distribution and tell me how exactly is that European.
This was waaay more prevalent back then 
I am aware that people are using a definition of European that goes beyond the geographical reality, that it why there is such a large debate (along with ignorance about the Cumans). My point is that having a definition beyond geographical makes it too subjective and non historically accurate. No one has been able to point out yet to any source from 800-1200s about there being a debate at the time about a supposed European identity.
Again, this debate all started because some people were complaining that one sub-region of Europe is under-represented. I merely pointed out that this sub-region actually has one more civ than was commonly thought, which is objectively accurate.
For one last time also, the comparison with AOE3 is non-sensical because the Cumans werenât a colonial power.
If you are familiar with AOE3, then you will remember that each civ has a metropole from which they can send supplies. This reflects the historical reality that European colonies in the Americans were administered from afar by states located in Europe, which considered treated those American colonies as appendages.
There was no such relation between the Asian and European territories inhabited by the Cumans. They didnât have a capital located in Asia that was treating its European territories as distant outposts from which they simply extracted resources. The Cumans treated their European territories as part of their homeland. Just like the Magyars settled Hungary and made it their homeland.
This is true⊠once these colonial expansions were advanced. But youâre missing the point entirely. Were the Spanish that initially arrived to the Americas American? Yes or no? Now you can apply the same principle to the Cumans arrival in Europe. Youâre trying to mash together completely different timelines in history. Looking at the American colonies as they were in the 1600s or 1700s is a completely different ballpark than what is being discussed here.
And this âcommon senseâ comes from where? Why should this be accepted as such?
The Cumans donât need to have any similarity with Poland, France or the HRE to be European. They are European because they inhabited Europe. Thatâs it.
The distribution of Turkic languages is simply not a factor in who gets to be called European, though I think the fact that they have been continuously spoken in Europe for over a millenium speaks for itself. There was no conception of Europe as a cohesive entity at the time Turkic languages spread out, so using that as factor against being European makes no sense.
Plus, you could say the exact same thing about the distribution of Finno-Ugric languages, yet no one will dispute that Hungarians, Finns and Estonians are European.
1 Like
I am obvisouly not arguing about the first generation of Cumans who arrived in Europe though, I am talking about their descendants who have inhabited Europe for centuries.
BTW I am not the one who introduced 1600-1700 Americas in this discussion. I said it was a frivolous comparison from the start.
Can you point me to historical debates from that period on the notion of European identity?
And again, I mean European specifically, not christendom.
Well, in terms of covering a region - you are right, because if someone wanted civs from the region where Cumans resided, then yes, Cumans are one of the civs that cover the region.
And what do you think about the comparison with the USA and Brazil (no metropolis, just states in America). My whole point is that the USA and Brazil can be distinguished from Native American civs such as the Sioux, as Cumans can be distinguished from Europeans. You can use terms such as Native American civs, European American civs (due to European origin or any other reason). In the same way, people can call Europeans Europeans, and Cumans - Central Asians, and not Europeans. This is subjective, and no one decides who is European and who is not, as you said. So, if you consider Cumans Europeans for some reasons, others may not - for their own reasons. This was my point.
As for covering a region in the game - no argue, Cumans cover a part of Europe.
Why should such a source be pointed out? People who use concepts and ideas in this forum live today, we can imply anything, no matter what views people had in the Middle Ages.
1 Like
Nationalism was prevalent in medieval Europe, you can logically assume that non-Europeans received even harsher treatment especially if they were invadersâŠ
That doesnât mean that there was nationalism about Europe itself though. Did people in France or Poland care that much if an invader came from beyond the Urals, or from somewhere more nearby?
Certainly, types of chauvinism and prejudice existed and were probably no less prevalent than today, but I believe they were mostly based on regionalism and religion (and even intra-religion, like the catholic/orthodox fracture). What I am putting in doubt however was that this existed at the level of Europe vs other regions.
The thing with the Americas is that the native civilizations were entirely subjugated, and now exist only within the domain of European-founded states. Thereâs not really any debate about whether those states âbelongâ to the continent, because there is no counter-weight to them.
There is also neither an ocean, nor millenia of physical isolation separating Europe and Asia. It is entirely possible for a state to stretch across both, as we can still see today with both Russia and Turkey. There has been a continuous process of migration and conquest between Europe and Asia for millenia, so any comparison with the Americas is dubious.
1 Like
I mean, e.g. I consider Russians who migrated and now live in Siberia - Europeans (even if the Russian capital was moved to the Far East or they got a separate state there - theyâd still be Europeans for me). And I consider Cumans who moved to and lived in Europe - Central Asians, simply because of their origin and culture. Itâs all semantics.
1 Like
This thread blew up.
not aoe2 timeframe (20 chars)
Huh? 1000-1300 isnât in AOE2 timeframe now?
I mean, it was 1300 comments before
2 Likes
it is, but Cumans clearly distinct and not assimilated iinto any European culture