Bergonian History

Atlantis -- Called "Catlantia" in Bergonia -- the mythic origins of Bergonia.

2000 BC to 200 BC:  The Ancient Era-- Neolithic revolution-- beginning of agriculture.  Cities sprang up in both the west and the Amota region in the east.  Domination by banda warrior elites.  The Empire of Ceiolai arose and conquered half of Bergonia from 600 to 200 BC.  A heroic age.  A time of epics, passionate pantheism, divination and sorcery.  The beginnings of high art and the stratification of society into social classes.

200 BC to 200 AD:  The Rise of Shufrantei -- The great Prophet Ierecina handed down the Shufrantei religion, and within 200 years of his death his followers had united most of Bergonia into a single civilization.   The warrior class evolved into a ruling class, consisting of army officers commanding legions and a fat landed gentry living off the peasantry.  A few large metropolises and many smaller cities grew. 

200 AD to 550 AD:  The Age of the Two Empires:  The Shufrantei era peaked with the creation of two highly organized Empires, the Necruruean Empire in the west and the 2nd Ceiolaian Empire in the east.  Both followed and sponsored orthodox Shufrantei.  Literature, philosophy, mathematics and scientific inquiry all flourished.  In later times people regarded this the classic era of Bergonian civilization.  

550 AD to 1000 AD:  The Medieval Era -- The Necruruean collapsed in a violent civil war that resulted in the ascendancy of the horrid dictator Prakai Eleusi, who butchered people like sheep.  He attacked and severely wounded the 2nd Ceiolaian Empire, and thereafter it rapidly disintegrated.  Both empires fractured into many small states, each ruled by either a tieri (king/dictator) or a council of aristocrats.  Severe famine from 615 to 649 killed many.  The "Endless War" from 771 to 886 took a huge toll on economic and social health.  All this travail depressed the population and prompted a crisis of faith in Shufrantei, with many new reformist sects now challenging orthodoxy.  But this era ends as do most shakedowns-- all that does not die is strengthened-- with new political and economic stability.

1000 to 1500 AD:  The Tanic Era -- A time of expansion.  Rise of trader ethics and an urban-based middle class.  In this cosmopolitan and more skeptical era, a new "minimalist" religion called Miradi swept Shufrantei aside like a house of cards.  Egalitarian ideologies, urbanism & professionalism sparked a "bourgeoisie revolution" of sorts.  A series of revolutionary wars finally ended the power of the old military-gentry class, so in most places the rule of law and republican government replaced the old tieris.  After 1300 peace was achieved, the various peoples prospered, art flourished, and life became very, very good... 

Then on 22 March 1496 came Christopher Columbus...

1500-1780:  The Colonial Era -- European explorers and conquistadors come. Plagues of smallpox and other European diseases decimated the native population, allowing a wave of French, English and Portuguese colonists.  Native Bergonian culture shattered.  Catholic missions converted many of the surviving natives. After winning the Seven Years War in 1763, Britain briefly controlled all Bergonia.

1780-1920: The Bergonian Republic -- In 1780 a coalition of French traders and native strongmen declared an independent republic.   The 1800s saw this state grow and mature, though not without civil war and ethnic strife.  A resurgence in native population brought revivals and resurgence of Native Bergonian culture.  The Miradi religion adapts, perseveres and grows.  Tension & struggle between Atrei (native) & European cultures, but mutual borrowing & synthesis occurs too.

1920-1934: The Revolution  --  After ten tense years a fiery civil war broke out, and a socialist-syndicalist revolution transformed Bergonia in the early 1930s.  

1934-1980:  The Socialist Era  -- The pluralistic revolutionaries compromised and wrote a constitution enshrining individual rights and freedoms.  Strict monetary policy was enforced by the new government, while the economy of worker collective consolidated.  Political debate about how to structure the new economy was lively. 

1980-Present:  The "Greening"  -- A great revolution in public opinion occurred during the 1970s and 1980s with the sudden triumph of environmentalism, allowing for a radical turn in public policy and daily life.  

Top of the Page

"Is there a logic of history?  Is there, beyond all the casual and incalculable elements of the separate elements of the separate events, something that we may call a metaphysical structure of historic humanity, something that is essentially independent of the outward forms - social, spiritual and political - which we see so clearly?  Are not these actualities indeed secondary or derived from that something?  Does world-history present to the seeing eye certain grand traits, again and again, with sufficient constancy to justify certain conclusions?  And if so, what are the limits to which reasoning from such premises may be pushed?"   (Oswald Spenger, The Decline of the West)

Do you not think that the logic of the ant colony eludes the individual ant?  Do you not think that the logic of the forest defies the colony?  Aniuei Capro, Epistemological Limits to History

[Rev. 9 June 06]