Who were "Njerpez" ?

[Erkka]

If the game change log said: "Based on historical references it has now been verified that The Novgrod Russians never did thing X, and therefore in this game release The Njerpez also don't do thing X" then all the questions and arguments by user1805 would be highly on-point.

But, at the moment to me it seems that user1805 just slightly misinterpreted what Sami meant to say in the game change log. I believe Sami meant only to say that "It is intended that Njerpez behave in a way X, and it has now been verified that they really do X in the game."

Then, of course we can have another discussion about if Njerpez should behave this or that way based on fully accurate historical facts about Novgorod Russians. But, to me that seems to miss the point. The game doesn't claim to be 100% historically accurate. Many things are simulated based on historical facts, but not all the things need to be so. Especially the tribes, they contain a lot of artistic freedom. Therefore the game creator can say that "in the fantasy world I created the element X behaves in a way Y because I wanted it that way", and I find it hard for anyone else to counter that. Like, can anyone say that "I don't believe you imagined it that way, you need to imagine it some other way!". I always thought that the very essence of imagination is that anyone can imagine the way they do.

[Dark Art]

Normally, I'd just shrug and move on, but this is just a bit too much. Two men have been doing their damn best for good quarter of a century to develop a great product. That product is a work of fiction and loosely based on historical Finland. Moreover, for those who are slow on the get-go, the world its set in, called UnReal for a reason. So if devs want to make a culture with social graces of certain forum users - they absolutely can. If some historical event gave them inspiration to create that culture, but for some reason someone doesnt like it, or disagrees with what dev did in their own game - tough titty. BTW, Novgorod AND Moskovits were always aggravating everyone around them. At least till Moskovits conquered Novgorod and performed local genocide by killing most of the males novgorodians and mostly only raping females, after that it was only Moskovits. So its a small wonder they were so inspirational for creating this fictional culture. Oh and if you want to learn real history about Moskovia, use Byzantian, Ottoman, Greek or Vatican sources, that version of history modern Moskovia teaches would be funny, if it wouldnt be so damn sad.

P.S. Sorry Erkka, I'll go shut up now.

[Ilyich79]

BTW, Novgorod AND Moskovits were always aggravating everyone around them. At least till Moskovits conquered Novgorod and performed local genocide by killing most of the males novgorodians and mostly only raping females, after that it was only Moskovits. So its a small wonder they were so inspirational for creating this fictional culture. Oh and if you want to learn real history about Moskovia, use Byzantian, Ottoman, Greek or Vatican sources, that version of history modern Moskovia teaches would be funny, if it wouldnt be so damn sad.

Oh, of course. Bad Russians again. Boo!!
And yeah, to learn the history of some country you always should use words of historical enemies of that country as a source. Always.
So typical!

[Dark Art]

Ilyich79, purely out of respect to our hosts here, I will not respond to you in the same tone as you phrased your post. Instead, I'll again politely direct you towards historical sources that were not methodically tailored to fit this or that Moskovia's ruler's ambitions. If you do not like to use the "enemies" sources, although Vatican and Byzantine clerks are world famous for their records (even to the point of being overly verbose and waaaay to detailed), please feel free to use the sources from your friends. Oh wait.... Well, use some other sources that can be cross-referenced with at least one other. Once you do, please share it and I'll gladly hear an alternative version of what happened to Novgorod. While you are at it, look up what happened to Tatarian Kazan after moskovit's conquest. Or Ukrainian Baturyn. BTW, the nickname qaṣṣāb, that surviving Kazan's population gave the invaders, still used in countries bordering today's Moskovia. Do spend some time and ponder why is that.

[Ilyich79]

Ilyich79, purely out of respect to our hosts here, I will not respond to you in the same tone as you phrased your post. Instead, I'll again politely direct you towards historical sources that were not methodically tailored to fit this or that Moskovia's ruler's ambitions. If you do not like to use the "enemies" sources, although Vatican and Byzantine clerks are world famous for their records (even to the point of being overly verbose and waaaay to detailed), please feel free to use the sources from your friends. Oh wait.... Well, use some other sources that can be cross-referenced with at least one other. Once you do, please share it and I'll gladly hear an alternative version of what happened to Novgorod. While you are at it, look up what happened to Tatarian Kazan after moskovit's conquest. Or Ukrainian Baturyn. BTW, the nickname qaṣṣāb, that surviving Kazan's population gave the invaders, still used in countries bordering today's Moskovia. Do spend some time and ponder why is that.

You can respond in any tone you find suitable for the Russian barbarian. We long ago got used to all of them.
 
Okay. Now I have a master's degree in Sociology, so I guess I know a bit or two about world history and specifically European history. Oh, but it may be that I read wrong books. All the Russian annals are tailored. All ours archeological finds are forged. It's a given fact, you do not even have to prove that. Of course it would be pointless to try and tell you, for example, what happened to Russian towns and villages after raids of Khazan, Astrakhan, Crimean and other Khans from the shatters of Golden Horde. You already know that it is written in the wrong books.

May be to your surprise, I won't deny what happened to Novgorod (an Tver, and others for that matter). You see, in the Middle Ages countries fought. There was such things as a feudal strife and territorial conflicts. And it was ugly. Look up what Ottomans did with the towns they conquered. Look up what did Transylvanians, Franks, Romans, Poles. But of course for you they all are white and fluffy, only Muscovites (that's how it is spelled, by the way) are bloothirsty tyrants. Because so it is written in the right books.

To me, it all looks like a clear example of double standards - typical for modern Western world, as I said earlier. With this said, I rest my case.

[Erkka]

I do understand that we are dealing with sensitive topics, and this discussion runs the risk of spiralling into fruitless flaming. And personally I don't want to see flamewars on UnReal World forums.

So I'll only ask this one clarification, just to make sure that I have properly understood what is being said by all participants.

But of course for you they all are white and fluffy, only Muskovites (that's how it is spelled, by the way) are bloothirsty tyrants.

I assume that is directed towards Dark Art. I re-read comments by Dark Art, but somehow I failed to find any sentence which claims that only Novgorodians and Muskovites were doing bad stuff. To me it seems that Dark Art just mentions a few unpleasant historical events. So, please Ilyich79, could you enlighten me by quoting a sentence or two from Dark Art, where it is claimed that 1. no other tribes performed nasty raids, or 2. only Novgorod and Muskovites performed nasty raids while others were all white and fluffy.

I mean, I can perfectly well understand that such accusations would be unfair and historically inaccurate, and in need of counterargumentation. The thing just is that in this very thread I can't find such accusations being made, so I'm having hard time understanding exactly what is Ilyich79 argumenting against.

[Dark Art]

Just to clarify - I never, ever claimed that only Muskovites exclusively were commuting atrocities. Thats just nonsense. Wars are never pretty. We were discussing the nature of fictional Njerpez and user1805 got all hot and bothered by the fact that Novgorod was primary inspiration for their creation.

Ilyich79, you can get as defensive and snappy as you'd like, but its a verifiable fact that your country has been tailoring history en mass even before imperial times. I do not mean this as an attack, but it IS a fact. As far as I recall, this became a trend since Ivan III started calling himself tsar.

[Ilyich79]

I'm sorry Erkka, if I was of any inconvenience. I'll try to explain my feelings.

BTW, Novgorod AND Moskovits were always aggravating everyone around them. At least till Moskovits conquered Novgorod and performed local genocide by killing most of the males novgorodians and mostly only raping females, after that it was only Moskovits. So its a small wonder they were so inspirational for creating this fictional culture.

Red color by me. First of the redded lines is wildly historical innacurate, but let's assume that it is. So the game fraction of mindless killers is based on Novgorodians, as you, Erkka said yorself. Okay. (I myself have absolutely no problem with that, by the way) Then where from the Muscovites came to Dark Art's posts? Where the logic in this? If Novgorodians were such a bloodthirsty people, may be it was good thing when Moscow conquered Novgorod? But no, according to Dark Art, he just unites them with Novgorodians and proclaims them also (and more) inspirational for such a fraction. It seems to me that for comrade Dark Art all the Russians are like spiders in the box, eating one another until the strongest will survive and then the strongest will feel free to raid and kill his neighbours. Which all of them are very peaceful - because I think, it is clear without explanation, that you can aggravate only peaceful nations - if it is not peaceful that would be defence, not aggravation.

please feel free to use the sources from your friends. Oh wait....

So from this we see, that Russia (Dark Art means Moscow Russia, I guess) had no friends (it is not a historical truth also, but meh, okay). Like a bully in a class where all the other students are ... white and fluffy?

BTW, the nickname qaṣṣāb, that surviving Kazan's population gave the invaders, still used in countries bordering today's Moskovia. Do spend some time and ponder why is that.

I know that in the Middle Ages many of the European nations were very warlike. Many of them warred between each other, as I said before, during times of feudal strife or in the territorial conflicts. Many of them performed raids for plunder and slaves, like, for example (just an example!) Golden Horde. AFAIK Moscow Russia never performed slavery raids, in fact, there never was slavery in Moscow Russia (there was peasant serfdom, but it is another matter entirely). Novgorod and Tver were razed (not once) during feudal strifes between Russian knyazes. Khazan and Astrakhan were conquered (much later then the Iron Age, BTW) as a part of Moscow expansion to the south and also to protect southern russian borders from ... surprise-surprise, plunder and slavery raids by Khans.

So I pondered and the only explanation that came to mind, is that Dark Art somehow distingiushes Muscovites from all the European nations as the most inspirational for creating Njerpezit fraction - from this thought (okay, I can admit that it is in part a surmise) came all my words.

P.S. Especially for comrade Dark Art I will say also that I base my knowledge not only on schoolbooks, but on vast book and internet reading, not only in Russian language.

Edit:

Just to clarify - I never, ever claimed that only Muskovites exclusively were commuting atrocities. Thats just nonsense. Wars are never pretty. We were discussing the nature of fictional Njerpez and user1805 got all hot and bothered by the fact that Novgorod was primary inspiration for their creation.

Ilyich79, you can get as defensive and snappy as you'd like, but its a verifiable fact that your country has been tailoring history en mass even before imperial times. I do not mean this as an attack, but it IS a fact. As far as I recall, this became a trend since Ivan III started calling himself tsar.

I hear you and if I was somewhat rude, I would like to apologize. And to some extent I agree that some of Russian annals written in tsarist time are not a very reliable sources. Nevertheless, I mean every word written above. And in the modern Russian historiology we do not fully rely on mentioned sources.

[Erkka]

and user1805 got all hot and bothered by the fact that Novgorod was primary inspiration for their creation.

It is my understanding that this thread leans a bit more to the funnier side. For user1805 didn't get upset about Novgorod being used as the source of inspiration - user1805 got upset about half-educated indie game creators carelessly throwing around claims like "it is now verified that thing X is a historical fact", and was like "how the hell do THEY think they know that?"

Which, naturally, appeared funny for the rest of us, for we didn't understand the misunderstandings of user1805. Apparently, user1805 thought Sami was stating claims about a real historical tribe, when Sami meant to speak about fictional Njerpez and him making verifications about the code simulating Njerpez behavior.

Since user1805 has not been commenting after this clarification was made, I'm not sure if the original topic is settled, but I hope so =)

Also, the original source of the confusion was that in the game the Njerpez are not attempting to conquer the entire UnReal World, but mostly just raiding around the eastern corner of the world. User1805 wanted to cite historical sources against that, presumably thinking that in the game the tribe should be reaching further to the north and to the west, since that is what Novgorod historically did. So, yes, earlier I was also thinking if I should ask Dark Art for more clarification on mentioning the Moscow Russia - I was waiting for user1805 to comment, but that didn't happen. I repeat; user1805 wrote more in the line that "THE NJERPEZ SHOULD BE AIMING TO EXPAND ALL THE WAY TO THE WEST AND TO THE NORTH, so how de hell do you claim that you know that they are raiding on the eastern part of the finnic territory?" I mean, to me it seemed that Dark Art also slightly misunderstood what user1805 tried to say, and then launched counter-arguments against a claim which maybe wasn't even made earlier in this thread. But this is all just human, it happens to all of us so often. And that is why I have this silly habit of stopping to ask for clarifications =)

So what do we have here, then?

If I understand correctly, everyone in this thread agrees that historically speaking Novgorod expanded their territory and raided neighbouring tribes. (Just like many other tribes did as well, and how numerous computer games are today about "be the hero, lead your tribe conquering more territory").

Also, I hope that everyone also agrees that in the game The Njerpez are not, and they do not need to be, 100% historically representation of Novgorod or any other bunch of people. It is fiction, and serves the purposes of the game world. But it has it sources and inspiration in history and Finnish folk stories.(And at this point I'd like to emphasize the "folk stories"-aspect. So, the most exact answer to the question "who were Njerpez" is: "they are inspired by the 'Raiders From the East' theme in the Finnish folk stories', and those folk stories in turn have their source in hundreds of years of hostilities with Finnish and Russian tribes.

So, everyone agrees the central topics of this thread, yes? Anyone, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (for personally I dislike "top-down" mentality as much as user1805 does.)

And then in addition to the original question this thread has had side paths, which is just natural for any human discussion. People feel a need to say aloud a few related thoughts which pop to their mind while reading the main discussion. So here we are; a few misunderstandings, a few semi-related side-remarks, a lot of good historical sources given.

[Dark Art]

Absolutely. The only reason I brought Muskovites into the mix is the fact that Novgorod was conquered by them. So even after Novgorod Republic stopped existing as a thing, raids would've continued regardless.

[user1805]

Since user1805 has not been commenting after this clarification was made, I'm not sure if the original topic is settled, but I hope so =) [...] So, yes, earlier I was also thinking if I should ask Dark Art for more clarification on mentioning the Moscow Russia - I was waiting for user1805 to comment, but that didn't happen.

The later discussion is somehow at the border of our off-topic-topic. But I also cant say its out of that topic. So should I come and say 'What are you doing there'. That would be unapproriate. Its also an emotional discussion (not seldom in forum). When I cant see that one of them is clearly wrong, what should be my statement? Thats when I thought - let them clarfy their thing first - as its not (really) mine. My topic was in the headline and it means to find out about how the Njerp can be explained by historical facts.

The other members aspect was to justify real tribes or not.

To calm down quarreling members as a referee is a moderators job. I think it was ok for me not to mix in there.  What I can say is - Yes, I also think that DarkArt didnt get the content of the older posts clearly in more than one way.

Historical things, all what I saw in older threads, was always an important realistic core of the game, even as nature, hunting, fighting, trading. All are heading to reality. And if the game is called 'Unreal World' it does not contradict it, as every scenario is unreal in some way and only tells what could have happened but didnt. That differs from something fictional in the strict sense, as we also would not call a business-scenario or a science scenario as fiction. To tell sometning personal is, when the game is close to a scenario - this makes the game interesting to me and shows me aspects of nature (i.e.) what fiction or fantasy can not. It expands to the off-topic, when also other members show interesting videos of survival in the wildernes (i.e.) inspired by the game.

I didnt claim the Njerp have to try to reach out for more than a south-eastern region.

Thats when I didnt start the topic in the proposal but in the off-topic.

Even if its easy to be seen in some of my old posts, that I would count a little more mess (i.e. conflicts, other plants and recipes, more nasty citizens or robbers who would capture villages) as more interesting.

Actually my last statement was that there generally could be two other possibilities than Nowgorod to explain Njerps. I thought it was interesting to invetigate here. But obviouisly it was not interesting enough and people got their own aspects of the topic.

[Ilyich79]

Absolutely. The only reason I brought Muskovites into the mix is the fact that Novgorod was conquered by them. So even after Novgorod Republic stopped existing as a thing, raids would've continued regardless.

Around 1000 A.D. Moscow wasn't even founded yet. Moscow state conquered Novgorod only by the end of the XV century. So very far from the Iron Age! So Njerpezit cannot be based on the Muscovites in any way. If they were, they would be better armed, may be even with firearms. Where are my guns?

Or do you really have historical proofs that Moscow in the XV-XVI centuries raided Finnish territories, which were, in fact, under Swedish protection by that time? Do you really think that was even possible?

P.S. Ok, I'll stop now. Vsyo.

[Dark Art]

True, of course Moscow or its Muskovia wasnt around the time of hypothetical Njerpez. I retract mentioned earlier parallels. In regards of Muskovia's raids or any other acts of aggression towards whats now known as Finland I think you'd better ask our hosts here.

[Erkka]

Or do you really have historical proofs that Moscow in the XV-XVI centuries raided Finnish territories, which were, in fact, under Swedish protection by that time? Do you really think that was even possible?

Sweden and Novgorod settled their border at Treaty of Nöteborg] at 1323 AD.

I think that after Novgorod fell, the Nöteborg peace treaty was not honoured by Moscow. So there were hostilities on Finnish territory, and the border was more or less disputed. One notable story in Finnish folk stories is the explosion at Viborg Castle, 1495. Muscovites were attacking Finnish city of Viborg, but there was some sort of extraordinary blast which sent the Muscovites fleeing.

Muscovite army fighting a Finnish city at 1495 - is that XV-XVI centuries, or am I mistaken?


Ps. I've also read the comment by user1805, speculating that there could be two other possibilities to explain Njerpez. Okay. I have a Master's Degree in Philosophy, and now I must admit that I'm just confused and fail to properly understand the line of user1805's thoughts. And I can't comment on something I don't understand, so I will be silent of whereof I cannot speak =)

[Ilyich79]

I think that after Novgorod fell, the Nöteborg peace treaty was not honoured by Moscow. So there were hostilities on Finnish territory, and the border was more or less disputed. One notable story in Finnish folk stories is the explosion at Viborg Castle, 1495. Muscovites were attacking Finnish city of Viborg, but there was some sort of extraordinary blast which sent the Muscovites fleeing.

Muscovite army fighting a Finnish city at 1495 - is that XV-XVI centuries, or am I mistaken?

Not exactly a constant bandit raids I guess)) But in reality while thinking of marauding raiders I somehow let slip from my mind the matter of Russian-Swedish wars, which did happen pretty regularly during XV-XIX centuries. I do not want to elaborate now which of the two nations was an agressor in each instance (and of course, it is said in Russia that the Nöteborg 1323 peace treaty was not honoured by Sweden also, for example ). But what I myself think on the matter is that two big countries vied for power in that region and the Finland was sometimes caught in the middle. In 1495 Vyborg was besieged not because of some explicit hostility against Finns. That siege was a part of the military campaign and city was defended by regular Swedish army garrison with Swede commandant Knut Posse in chief. But then, of course, there naturally were Finns in that garrison. That great blast is known to us as well, it is said in folklore that the blast was in the form of the St. Andrew's Cross, which meant that St. Andrew himself came to help the besieged, so Moscovian army withdrew.

But we digress. So I too think that we can say now it is established that Njerpez culture is inspired by Novgorodians in the Finnish east circa 1000 A.D., that Muscovites and centralized Russian state as a whole should be left beside the discussion as it came to life much later, and that everybody present is more or less content with the things said.