La Roumelie: a Belle Epoque Balkan Federation by Yanranay on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

What if a Yugoslavia came into being 50 years earlier and had a mostly Muslim political elite?

The nation of Rumelia was carved out of the Ottoman Empires Balkan possession by eastern Europes great powers after its collapse in the late 19th century. Although Rumelia was theoretically united by a central government in Prizren, the real political power was firmly in the hands of the many Beys, chieftains and potentates of its mountainous hinterlands, as it had been during the centuries of Ottoman rule. While this left the central government mostly ineffective outside of major cities and the economy heavily dependent on Austria (as intended by the congress that established this great nation, a cynic may say), it guaranteed the many ethnic and religious minorities of the country large degrees of self-rule. This autonomy helped mitigate some of the nationalist influence excreted by the neighboring nations of Serbia and Greece, who's territorial ambitions had been abandoned by their overlords Russia and Britain respectively in favor of greater influence in Thrace and the Straights.

Realistic? Possible? Stable? Not immediately destroyed by nationalists and revolutionaries? No. Cool? Yes.

Note: this map is not meant to reflect my or any political beliefs or historical positions. Its merely an alternate history map of what i thought was an interesting concept with cool borders.

Note on the spelling of certain labels: This map is meant to use period names transcribed into French with priority given to Albanian and Ottoman place names, given that those languages would be spoken by most political elites. The transcriptions are taken either from wikipedia and maps between 1817 and 1922.