Avant-Garde State of Halar

The Avant-Garde State of Halar is an echelarist state in the Almupım region of southern Teshoya. Rising out of the chaos of the Rönesans, Halar was formed from the nucleus of the Tetrukakloça League, a trade alliance between several of the city-states and Lastia of the region. The state is directed by the program of the Halaran National Avant-Garde, with Ashka Seydin at the helm. Despite its strong position in the region, the Avant-Garde State remains politically unstable, sitting at the knife's edge of a balance between the radical momentum of the echelarists and the conservative Lasti and bourgeoisie, who are more interested in maintaining their wealth and power than in Seydin's revolutionary experiment.

As the prevailing narrative of the state goes, Halar is a myth made real in the modern era by the will of the people under the guidance of the Akanşiri, Ashka Seydin. The echelarist movement that birthed the state see themselves as the successors to legendary Halar, a kingdom said to have ruled over Teshoya during the Halcyon Age and to have been the origin point of humanity in Duurn. The resurgence of the "Halaran Spirit" was a popular story among Tetrukakloçan nationalists beginning in the late 13th century, and when Halar was unified, it was chosen as the name of the nascent state.

The bold vision of the future offered by the echelarists has struck a chord within the new society, invigorating a nationalist fervor that strives towards a shared future. However, not everyone is as enthusiastic about the breathtaking speed of the radical movement, and not everyone is included in the Halaran vision. As Halar presses its claims in western and central Teshoya, the people living in those regions, once independently, are subjected to forced assimilation and cultural erasure, at best becoming second-class citizens in the new state. In the Khalgeshi territory occupied by Halar, the indigenous Khalgeshi face forced relocation, the separation of families, and even mass killings.

History

The Tetrukakloça League

The modern origins of the Avant-Garde State begin in the Tetrukakloça League, a trade alliance formed between a number of the city-states and Lastia of Tetrukakloç. Its politics were dominated first by the Lasti, then the ascendant bourgeoisie, with very little power going to the common people. Ras Tamura was at the center of this alliance, as the wealthiest and strongest of the city-states. The rest of the Almupım was ruled over by disjointed micro-states, kingdoms, and Lastia.

The League grew in size and strength throughout the 1200s, and it became the center of the Almupıma nationalist movement during the Rönesans.

The Rönesans

The Rönesans is often viewed as a manifestation of the Wellspring of Nations in southern Teshoya, though it came after the revolutionary period was considered to be at a close across much of Duurn. Nationalist sentiment grew among the populace, along with a desire for self-determination and and end to the total dominion of the Lasti aristocrats. Uprisings came and went across the region, and the Tetrukakloça League swallowed up many of its surrounding neighbors undergoing political upheaval. The League itself also underwent significant political change, introducing political and economic liberalization, as well as beginning the process of centralization amongst its member states.

In the 1310s, a wave of revolts spread across southern Teshoya, a reverberation of the Revolts of 1306 in Umbrak. Communist and libertarian movements began to grow, mingling with the swelling nationalist movement. These uprisings had mixed results, creating several republican governments in the Almupım but failing to unite the region or spread beyond a few isolated locales.

The Tetrukakloça League continued its centralization, unifying the disparate militaries of its members into one force. In the 1320s, the League continues its expansion, both drawing in new members in Teshoya but also expanding its economic colonization of neighboring Tteokseo-Akmyeon through the League Economic Territories.

Collapse and Rebirth

When the Red Week struck in 1332, it proved to be the spark that would ignite the powder-keg of the Rönesans. Inspired by the Cérco Nationale Rivoluzionár in Coterait, a number of nationalist thinkers and ideologues joined together to form the Halaran National Avant-Garde. Ashka Seydin, a renowned poet and artist, emerged as the leader of the organization. At first, the group was intended as a vessel for artistic imaginings and theorizing for the future of the nationalist project, but under the guidance of the charismatic Seydin, it soon became a mass movement that terrified the political leadership of the League.

Seydin himself eventually was elected as magistrate of Ras Tamura, a position equivalent to mayor of the city-state. Though the role was largely ceremonial, with most actual power held by a Lasti of the Ȿötlipezı family, Seydin didn't let that stop him. He held rallies and made commands, many of which were ultimately followed, despite having little authority to do such things. Backed by a paramilitary called the Sword of the Future, many feared the results of directly opposing him. Even the political leadership of the League was hesitant to remove him, as popular with the citizenry as he was.

The League's caution had its limits, though, and they were reached in 1335, when Seydin held a rally where he ripped up the charter of the League in front of tens of thousands of people, proclaiming it to be a degenerating state that needed to be entirely rebuilt. An attempt to arrest Seydin failed, when the soldiers sent to do the deed were stopped by a crowd of his supporters. Seydin's followers stormed the palace of the Lasti, burning the furniture and decorations in a great bonfire in the central plaza.

Rioting was spreading across the League, and it was clear that the League could not survive without significant change. Fearing an upheaval that could cost them all their power and wealth, many of the Lasti and bourgeoisie of the League chose to align themselves with Seydin, making an arrangement to maintain a seat of power. A coup, militarily led by Galip Duman of the Swords of the Future and backed by the aligned political elites, unseated the leadership of the League and instated Seydin as the figurehead of a new state in 1336. The Avant-Garde State of Halar was declared to a cheering crowd of hundreds of thousands.

Though riots spread across the nation and many, particularly in the communist and libertarian movements, decried the new autocrat, the Sword of the Future was quick to brutally suppress the revolts, and much of the leadership of opposing movements and organizations was jailed or forced to flee the country.

Expansion and War

In the years following the founding of Halar, the new state aggressively expanded across the Almupım, gobbling up the surrounding city-states through war and diplomacy. Their actions were decried by the Humanist League, which refused to recognize the new state. To protect themselves against the Humanist League, Halar joined with the Imperial Jiderani Union (IJU) in 1341 to form the Rising Powers Pact. The Hallowed Lands joined soon after, in 1342. In the same year, the Republic of Kaisa declared war on the IJU in response to their invasion of Umbrova, sparking the Last War.

Using the war as an opportunity to cement their control over southern Teshoya, Halar annexed the remaining Almupıma city-states and marched west into Yıskan. There, Halaran forces were met by the Khahlanong Imperial Army, marking the beginning of trench warfare in the Teshoyan front of the war. Eventually Halar emerged victorious, a result of Khahlanong's inability to maintain the campaign while undergoing significant internal instability. However, the Avant-Garde State took significant casualties, and the need to focus most of their army on the front with Khahlanong sapped their strength in other fronts.

While Halar had significant economic strength, its military was not capable of maintaining full capacity on multiple fronts. In Tteokseo-Akmyon and Hellissandur, one component of Halar's solution to this problem was the use of mercenary forces, mainly from Khalgesh. This backfired when many of these mercenary forces abandoned the war, due in no small part to the efforts of Newen Blaine and other prominent Khalgeshi liberation movement figures that feared the outcome of a Halaran victory in the war.

Because of the increased coordination of the Byeo-Jeon partisans and Hellissandric defense forces, as well as Halar's growing manpower problem, the Avant-Garde State was forced to strategically withdraw from Tteokseo-Akmyon. The loss of the strategic resources of the southern archipelago and the massive casualties of the fighting with Yıskan and Khahlanong have dampened the velocity of the futurist state, despite the economic boom caused by the war economy. Regardless of this setback, the promise of a unified Almupım being realized by the echelarist project legitimized it in the eyes of many.

Cultural Rejuvenation

The massive territorial gains that Halar achieved in a remarkably short period of time brought with them major internal problems. While some of the new population was tentatively supportive of the Avante-Garde State, seeing it as a welcome change from the oppression and stagnation of the old monarchies and merchant states, many more see Halar as little more than an occupying army. There was also the question of the Khalgeshi in the Āqi’ā Ahī to the north, which the echelarists include in their plans for greater Halar. Many felt that the Khalgeshi had betrayed Halar, assigning significant blame to them for the loss of Tteokseo-Akmyon.

It was at this time, mere weeks after the end of the war, that Seydin announced a new stage in the national revolution. He declared his fear that the revolution was in danger of co-option by elements in the state that were satisfied to sit on the laurels of victory, letting the dream of a new dawn die. "Cultural rejuvenation," he said, "is not to be managed by the hands of reactionary bureaucrats and politicians, who would stifle it. It is the project of the people, and the people will lead the way!"

He called for cadres of all the fierce zealots of the new world to form under the banner of the Sword of the Future and march inexorably towards the dawn, burning and tearing down all the idols of the status quo.

Politics

Political Structures

As the Akanşiri, Ashka Seydin has autocratic power over the state, with his decisions considered to be a manifestation of the popular will. However, even the prophet of the future cannot singlehandedly administrate the state. Seydin sits as the head of the Sadüt Önci, a council of National Avant-Garde party officials and ministers, each of which fulfills and administrative function within the state. In many cases, the National Avant-Garde has simply implanted itself within the pre-existing administrative bureaucracies of the states that were unified into Halar, rather than creating a new structure whole-cloth. Many of the bureaucrats are far from ideologically committed to the party - a problem that the leadership of the party is eager to correct.

Though echelarism is anti-democratic by principle, a popularly elected body called the Pökşler Çözu was created both to appease the populace and to provide a channel for the citizenry to express themselves to Seydin. The Pökşler Çözu has no actual authority, though, instead serving an advisory role to the Akanşiri. Committees focused on particular subjects are formed that present their findings and suggestions to the Sadüt Önci.

The Balance of Power

Though Seydin and the National Avant-Garde present an image of unity to the public, the truth is that the direction the political machine rockets towards is hotly contested. Outside of the echelarist ranks, there are even more that plot, awaiting their chance to seize power, either to enact their own vision of the future or to press the brakes and halt the careening journey towards an unknown destination.

Utmamci is the term used by Seydin to refer to those that charge into the dawn with stars in their eyes. It has come to refer to those that share Seydin's radical vision of a spiritually revitalized future and are willing to shake apart the pillars of reality to see it come to fruition. Though this faction is in power, with Seydin at the helm of the state, it is difficult to be a revolutionary once given the task of administrating a government, and many of their allies look at them with a mix of nervousness and distaste.

Within the National Avant-Garde, the Cesisti position themselves as a collectivist and staunchly anti-capitalist force in the party. They are more interested in the construction of a radical state than in the more metaphysical aspects of the Avant-Garde. Drawing into their ranks former communists and technocrats alike, the Cesisti push towards the creation of a centrally planned corporatist economy. Some in the party feel their bureaucratic imaginings threaten to sap momentum from the spiritual bloom of the revolution.

A small but influential faction of the National Avant-Garde, the Areti, led by their namesake Zührti Aret, position themselves outside of the radical-reactionary spectrum. They support a devolution of the state into a form of neofeudalism, marked by aristocratic idealism.

The Kurufali represent a wide coalition of interests, mainly those of the aristocrats and reactionary bourgeoisie that turned to Seydin to ensure the maintenance of their power during the upheaval of the late Rönesans. They care little for the ideological posturing of the National Avant-Garde and often find their rhetoric and tactics concerning. Their hopes that Seydin and his party would be moderated by the needs of governance have proven empty, and they now find themselves the target of revolutionary terror in the shape of the Cultural Rejuvenation. They still wield enormous economic power and significant political influence within the administrative bureaucracies that have so far remained in place across much of Halar.

Many other factions exist outside of the National Avant-Garde, but for now, they are too disorganized for any one to offer much of a threat to the state.

A Revolution with a State

The movement that created Halar is not satisfied with the mere power of governance. They wish to create an entirely new society, driving away the malaise that they believe has gripped the world for centuries. The state itself is viewed as an experiment in form, and Seydin has called for a period of revolutionary upheaval to shake free from the remnants of the old world that clung to it. In practice, echelarist paramilitary cadres, particularly within the Sword of the Future, have sprung to action across Halar. They destroy the monuments of the old order, tear down government buildings, and ruthlessly attack the perceived enemies of the national revolution.

These enemies of the revolution include members of the Ridbhan diaspora, communists, libertarians, republicans, trade unionists, Khalgeshi, and other cultural or ethnic minorities that are resistant to assimilation. In the occupied Khalgesh administration, the Khalgeshi have been particularly targeted for assimilation and destruction. Propagandized as a response to the Khalgeshi betrayal during the war, Halar is working to force children into reeducation camps, relocate families out of their homes, and destroy all traces of Khalgeshi culture. Other minorities, particularly Ridbhans, face much the same treatment.