Krakozhia (Birth of Krakozhia)

The Republic of Krakozhia (Russian: Республика Кракожия, Respublika Krakozhiya; Krav: Ripablik Karosha) is a country in southeast Europe. It borders Romania to the north, Bulgaria to the south, Ixania to the west, and the Black Sea to the east.

With an area of 18,014.62 square kilometers, it is the 40th largest country in Europe. The Krav Mountains are the highest points in the nation, and divides it into two distinct areas.

The first Krav state dates back to the 9th century, when between 500 to 2,000 Kravs followed the rebel Igor Tiabam to the confluence of the Preto and Toska Rivers and established the Empire of Karosha with Igor as emperor. It fell to the Ottoman Empire at the same time as the Second Bulgarian Empire. The Russo-Turkish Wars led to the Second Empire of Karosha in 1878, a principality and later sovereign entity. In 1943, it was invaded by the Nazi-backed Bulgaria, and in 1946, a referendum voted for a return to the People's Republic of Bulgaria. Krakozhia only existed again in 1985 after secessionist riots led to the revolt of Galdar Umayev, considered the Father of the Republic. After a seven-year foray in communism, Krakozhia made the transition to democracy, although the Communist Party still retains massive power within the government and is still the largest party in the Congress of People's Deputies.

The country is a unitary presidential multiparty republic under Communist Party dominance, which casts a shadow on the otherwise democratic country.

Prehistory and Antiquity
The Kravs, a formerly nomadic people, began settling the northeastern portions of modern-day Bulgaria in 500 BC before being assimiliated by the Thracians. Under them, the Kravs became serfs, with them paying tribute for the protection provided by the Thracians. Eventually, both peoples were assimiliated by the Bulgars and Slavs in the 9th century.

First Empire of Karosha
Igor Tiabam, the manservant of a powerful Bulgar warlord, begins to steal arms from his master's armories and hand them to fellow Kravs who had had enough of being subjugated. Although their uprising was brutally quelled, Igor and between 500 and 2,000 loyal followers escaped and settled in the confluence of the Preto and Toska Rivers. They established the first Empire of Karosha with Igor as emperor and Pretoska, their settlement, as the capital. Within the span of its existence, Karosha managed to conquer the territories that the Kravs had once settled in. Karosha and the Bulgars always fought each other up until the 10th century, when the Byzantine Empire took over Bulgaria. The Byzantines then advanced towards Karosha, but an unarmed envoy struck a peace treaty with the invaders. The Empire of Karosha remained in existence until 1393, when it came under attack from the Ottoman Empire.

Exile to Rivymiyitevko
With the fall of Pretoska to the Ottomans imminent, Emperor Yaroslav, along with 5,000 of his best citizens, set off for new lands to rule. Passing through hostile territory, the Krav remnant struck a deal with local Nenets tribesmen to row them out to the uninhabited islands of Rivymiyitevko and Karavatsenin. Yaroslav lost half of his people to the journey north, and 2,000 more died in their first year in the Arctic. Yaroslav named their new settlement Sonolovichyrevko, meaning, "I sought refuge from the cold and found it." He and his dynasty ruled the two islands for five hundred years before the return of the monarchy to Karosha.

Second Empire of Karosha
The April Uprising in Bulgaria caused the world to call for an independent Bulgarian state. In occupied Pretoska, thousands of Kravs urged their rightful emperor to return to his homeland. After striking a deal with the Russians, Emperor Turmaryan II left Sonolovichyrevko for Pretoska and declared the return of the Empire of Karosha. With the help of both Krav and Russian volunteer militias, the empire succeeded in regaining its original territory.

The Treaty of San Stefano, signed on 1878, guaranteed the recognition of the Empire of Karosha, whose troops had assisted the Russians and Bulgarians in defeating the Ottomans.

World War Two
Karosha had remained neutral in the Second World War up to 1943, until the Nazi-backed regime of Dobri Bozhilov ordered the invasion of Karosha and established a puppet government. Emperor Leonidas V escaped to London and formed a government-in-exile, while his prime minister Gancho Bilev decided to remain behind and organize a guerrilla force. They were given weapons and explosives by the Allies through spies and agents, and they succeeded in giving both the Bulgarians and the Nazis headaches as the guerrillas continually disrupted enemy activity. With help from the Army of Karosha (a Communist band of rebels), they succeeded in toppling the Nazi puppet government of Alexander Savetov, and Karosha sided with the Allies until the end of the Second World War in Europe. Communist dominationEdit

Although Prime Minister Bilev had begun rebuilding the country for the return of the Emperor, a Red Army referendum revealed that the Karoshan people wanted to be rid of the monarchy and reunite with Bulgaria. Bilev protested the results and called the referendum "unfairly administered." Days later, his car was hit by a speeding truck, killing him instantly. Although it was just a traffic accident, it was coincidentially close to his condemnations of the Red Army that conspiracy theories rose up that high-ranking Soviets from Marshal Georgiy Zhukov to Joseph Stalin himself had called for his blood.

Karosha experienced forty years of stifling single-party rule under Communist Bulgaria. After the Bulgarians brutally put down the Pretoska Revolution in 1956, modeled after the Hungarian revolt of the same year, the Karoshans made no more demands for independence. That was, until the last days of communism were around the corner.

A new struggle for independence
Beginning in 1983, a new series of riots broke out in Karoshan Territory, all calling for increased autonomy for their country. The 1st Karoshan Defense Force Corps, famed for its participation in aiding Katanga and Biafra's bids for independence, was brought in to suppress the rioters, whose aims were the same ones that the Corps had once fought for. Its commander, Major General Turmaryan Muktarbariyev, objected to his orders to disperse the protesters by any means. Finally, he caved in, only to use nonlethal means for crowd dispersal.

Not satisfied with the way he was dealing with the protests, Todor Zhivkov sent in the 13th Mobile Division, a purely Bulgarian unit, to relieve the Corps. The 13th's infinitely more brutal methods of dispersal alarmed the rest of the world, but the Zhivkov administration merely turned a blind eye to the so-called "rumors".

Things took a turn for the worse when the 13th Division reportedly massacred 298 Kravs in Evka, supposedly in response to the lynching of three ethnic Bulgars in the city a few days before. The representative for the Karoshan Territory, Galdar Umayev, son of renowned politician Rodion Umayev and the one who persuaded the Bulgarians to deploy troops and advisers to Katanga and Biafra, resigned in disgust and retired to his home in Pretoska, where he secretly set up the Communist Party of Krakozhia with fellow like-minded government officials. Knowing the risks of setting up an organization almost like a secessionist group, Umayev and his cohorts kept membership limited and made their existence known only to a select few.

On January 2, 1985, Varna police arrested Umayev and associate Dmitri Prikopy for "plotting an armed revolt in Bulgarian soil," and they were both sentenced to life imprisonment in the notorious and heavily guarded Matkabelovsky High Security Prison. News of their arrests reached the Krakozhian Communists quickly, and Yelena Nekazanka reluctantly takes over in an interim position. One of her first acts was to establish an armed militia to defend the CPK, with its first members being drafted from the more militant protesters in Karoshan Territory.

Word of the CPK reached General Muktarbariyev on January 15. He paid the CPK a visit, and after assuring the reasonably scared people there that he wasn't there to capture them, swore his and the 1st Karoshan Defense Force Corps' allegiance to the secessionists. The CPK's armed militia was integrated into the Corps, and it was subsequently renamed the Krakozhian Armed Forces. Hours after the ceremony, the Corps stormed Matkabelovsky, liberated Umayev, Prikopy, and other prominent Krav politicians and dissidents, and withdrew back to Pretoska.

Krakozhian Revolution
(to be continued)