Dennitza appears only in Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows (see here) so, if we are to learn any more about this planet, which may not be possible, we must scrutinize that text.Dominic Hazeltine tells his father, Dominic Flandry, that the frontier is close to exploding. When Flandry asks why he has not heard about this yet, Hazeltine replies:
"'If the whole word about Dennitza hasn't reached the Emperor - and apparently it's barely starting to - why should it have come to a pampered pet of his?'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT p. 343.
This answer and question tells us that Flandry has risen in the Empire and also introduces Dennitza for the very first time. So far, we know nothing about it. It is always instructive to check back and reread the very first mention of anything important.
On pp. 347-348, we learn that:
Hazeltine claims that "the Gospodar of Dennitza" has become a problem, although we do not yet know what a "Gospodar" is;
Dennitza is in the Taurian Sector of the Terran Empire;
that Sector fronts the Wilderness between the Empire and the Merseian Roidhunate.
Thus, it is important. Thus also, information is introduced in manageable chunks and that is all my rereading for tonight!
5 comments:
I just assumed "Gospodar" was some development of the same root as "Gospodin", the old pre-Soviet term for "Mr.", which like the English word derives from "master, lord".
Mr Stirling,
Thank you. I didn't know "Gospodin" either!
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Hence, "Gospodar" of Dennitza means "Lord" of Dennitza. Which was what I understood the title to mean. Also, I recall Yasmin, in your THE PESHAWAR LANCERS, using similar, "archaic" terms in that book, words which had been used by the Russians before they fell into such horrors as cannibalism and the worship of Satan.
Sean
Kaor, S.M., Paul, and Sean!
I don’t remember what I thought about “Gospodar” when I first read A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS as a teenager, but since I went on to take a Russian history course in college, I can say a bit more: The Grand Princes of Moskva were addressed as Gospodin by the free people of their domain, and as Gosudar by the slaves; but then they came to demand to be addressed as Gosudar by everyone. When Ivan the Third was leaning on the free city of Novgorod, which had the custom of choosing one of Russia’s many princes to be Prince of Novgorod in accordance with the terms of a contract, he first pressured them into making him their prince (there weren’t many princes left who were not his vassals).
When someone in a delegation from Novgorod addressed him as Gospodar, a variant of Gosudar, he took this as an acknowledgment of his absolute sovereignty over the city. When the Novgorodskis protested that they had not authorized anyone to call him Gospodar, he engaged in some gunboat diplomacy (well, cavalry and perhaps hauled cannon diplomacy) to insist that he was now sovereign Gosudar of Novgorod, and not an uriadnik (person acting according to an urok, contract).
It is sad that the elements of potential democracy and self-government in Medieval Russia were snuffed out by the Mongols and then by the Tsars.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Kaor, Nicholas!
Thanks for your very interesting comments. My question: what is the literal meaning of "Gospodin" and "Gosudar"? And how did that differ from "Gospodar"?
Another complication is that I got the impression from A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS that the Slavs who originally settled Dennitza came not from Russia but from Croatia/Serbia. And since I think I recall their language being called Serbic or Serbo/Croat, that would seem to settle the matter. And Serbo/Croat might have different shades of meaning for titles like "Gospodar" than it might have in Russian.
And I agree Russia took a very bad road indeed when the Mongol invasions and domination by the Islamized Golden Horde did its bit to make the principality of Muscovy become capriciously autocratic. An autocracy soon to be seized on by the Tsars of Muscovy.
To be strictly fair, not every Grand Prince or Tsar of Muscovy ruthlessly pressed his formal powers to their limits. Some, like Basil III, the father of Ivan the Terrible, were kindly and easy going. But restraints on the powers of the Tsars were never INSTITUTIONALIZED.
Sean
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