Species and race in the Kryfona Kingdom

The concepts of species and race (Kryf: seza e raza) in the Kryfona Kingdom are complicated, multifaceted, and difficult to fully interpret, owing to the often contradictory definitions assigned to them historically and in present day. While there is no doubt that the Kryfona Kingdom is diverse in regards to both categories–it is without question the most species diverse and racially diverse nation of the Old World–the extent to which this is the case is debated among historians, anthropologists, and in certain cases even other nations. Officially, the Kryfona Kingdom has a majority Kryfona population in terms of both species (95% of the population) and race (77% of the population). At the species level, there is only a significant Arieles minority population; however, at the racial level there are a number of recognized minorities: Tuszkeans, Yaraans, Arieles, Stjetim, Idyka, and smaller populations of Drakona and Elusi.

Species and race have generally been considered distinct identities in the Old World since the 1100s, although among Kryfona the distinction was made as early as the 1000s. Subsequently, species and race have been a staple of Kryfona society since the establishment of the Kingdom in 1248. Practically, however, there was no distinction in record keeping between the two ideals until the creation of the Kryfona Census in 1842. Since 1845, when the first official national census was taken, both species and race have been recognized in record keeping, with each species getting a designated box and being subdivided into smaller racial boxes underneath. Legally, species and race have been distinct since the Kingdom's early days, and both species and race are today protected classes by Kryfona law. It is illegal to discriminate on the basis of either, although in practice this was not true until the passage of the Species and Race Act in mid-1955. Prior to that point, it was unlawful (but seldom enforced) under a collection of Rights Acts and race-specific laws such as the Tuszkean Acts; often, the punishments doled out by these acts were not standardized, and thus certain minorities were less protected than others.

Historical ideas of species and race

Species and race have generally been thought of as separate within the Kryfona population (and thus the Kryfona Kingdom) since about the 1000s, during a time of unity between the tribal Kryfona states in response to the aggression and expansionism of the neighboring Dal-Tetas state and its dragons. Prior to the unification of Kryfona for this purpose, race was by and large ignored as a concept, and what today would be considered racial characteristics in Kryfona were seen as species characteristics–that is to say that Tuszkeans, Yaraans, and other varieties of Kryfona were seen as other species of Kryfona altogether. This noted difference in viewpoint is attested to in Old Kryfona literature, particularly the original national epic, the Naseiwe, in which the Tuszkean and Yaraan characters are not described as other Kryfona.

While the reason for the sudden shift in viewpoint is well attested, the extent of it and speed of its occurrence remains a matter of significant debate among Kryfona scholars. The conventional view, established by the works of Jazse Viewa and his contemporaries in the early 1900s, is that the shift was very gradual and occurred on a largely regional basis before it was institutionalized in the 1100s by the establishment of multiple unified Kryfona states. This view has been generally supported by anthropologists and historians in recent history, particularly by the work of Kazsazne Tels and Viekke Pirezsy; however, there are numerous contentions by critics of the theory, as well as a number of competing theories on the matter. In particular, the works of Tazsla Vienek and Serý Talen in the 1970s and 1980s began to cast doubt on the conventional views and, although still regarded as an unlikely theory, suggest that the switch may have been effectively instantaneous and widespread among the Kryfona population of the time. Even more recently, it has been posited that the "actual" switch may have been a mixture of the two, although this theory has virtually no historical backing and little evidence to support it beyond the idea that it is a comfortable middle ground between the two major theories on the subject.

That all being said, the official viewpoint of the early governments that governed the Istjeniy and its successor state in the Trztye an e Kryfona was effectively unchanged from the pre-Dal-Tetas norm of species and race. The governments of both held that there was no distinction between the two concepts, and considered Tuszkeans, Yaraans, and Standard Kryfona to be wholly separate species. Although this was, for the most part, a matter of simple outdated thinking, it has been suggested in more recent times that this distinction remained in place as a measure to discriminate against Yaraans, Tuszkeans, and other "species" who were considered to be inferior. There is a small body of evidence which lends credibility to the idea that this was why a number of the people within the governments of the two supported the continuation of these ideas. However, owing to small populations of the species which would presumably fall under this distinction, it is unlikely that this was a primary or even secondary motivator for the continued lack of distinction between species and race in the Istjeniy and first Trztye.

The line of thinking that species and race were one–at least in regards to Kryfona–had functionally died out among the Kryfona population by the time of the Kryfona Trztye (or Second Trztye), although as a matter of practice this would not be the official end of the lack of distinction between the two. Tuszkeans and Yaraans, despite being extremely small minorities in both the Second Trztye and the Kryfona Kingdom, established not long after the Second Trztye's demise, were considered to be Kryfona firstly, and their "racial" characteristic secondly. This would in practice manifest itself in the early idea of seza e raza, and under the early application of these ideas a Tuszkean would be said to be of the Kryfona seza and Tuszkean raza. The ideals of seza e raza applied only to Kryfona, however, and distinctions between Arieles, Stjetim, and Idyka, and conversely differences between types of dragons were not considered to be "racial" differences in the ways that differences between Tuszkeans, Yaraans, and Standard Kryfona were. The historical record in regards to why there was a difference of standard between differences in Kryfona and differences in other species remains sparse, and it is thus mostly a mystery as to why this standard was maintained for so long.

Regardless, the ideals of seza e raza became commonplace among Kryfona and throughout the Kryfona Kingdom, and went largely unchanged between its "establishment" as a social construct in the Kingdom in 1248 and the mid-1500s, when Tuszkeans and Yaraans were incorporated en masse into the Kingdom by forcible assimilation of their respective nations. This was a byproduct of the general racial and special homogeneity of the Kingdom in its early and medial history. Prior to the introduction of Tuszkeans and Yaraans on a widespread level into the Kingdom, virtually the entirety of the Kingdom's population was descended from the same Standard Kryfona stock that had come to dominate the great plains on which the Kingdom had been established. A second byproduct of this was that, on the whole, many Kryfona were vehemently "purist" in their racial ideals, and subsequently these borderline-religious racial fanatics crafted an ideology around their beliefs that became known as Impurism. Impurism would go on to be a significant influence in the politics of the early modern Kingdom, as well as a significant threat in the 20th century Kingdom.

The ideas of seza e raza began a sudden and unforeseen change in the mid-1500s, with the incorporation of the Tuszke State in 1536 and the first of a series of Yaraan assimilations. The change was not intended, certainly, but rather came about naturally through the cultural exchanges and influences that Tuszkeans and Yaraans brought with them during their assimilation. Aided by a much more liberal King in Rodskowsje Svariyantina, seza e raza became a much more "open" theory in that, instead of being effectively religious and advocating for the continued purity of the Standard Kryfona, it now accepted a broad range of Kryfona from all racial characteristics. There remained violent militants and racial fanatics, of course, and these sects went on to establish the first wave of Impurism; however, on the whole the transition of seza e raza from extremism to a more-muted racial ideal was surprisingly painless for the Kingdom.

It was from this point that the modern idea of seza e raza began to come about, starting at an uncertain point in the early 1600s and cementing itself by the year 1700. At the time of the transition from extremism to a more moderate position, seza e raza still applied exclusively to Kryfona, and not the plethora of other species and the races within them. The shift in seza e raza began when people started to broaden its ideas by including Arieles, and later Drakona and the other species of the Old World. The beginning of the shift allowed the "racial sciences" (as they were called) to gain a foothold, and subsequently it was 'established' from a Kryfona perspective that there were differences in the racial characteristics of certain types of Drakona and Arieles. This begat further change in the ideals of seza e raza, and by 1700 the modern definitions of seza e raza were more or less in place. Since then, relatively little has changed from the Kryfona perspective–except, of course, for the fact that things have gotten significantly more complicated.

Historical definitions

Although the general ideas of seza e raza have long been established, in practice what has been considered seza and what has been considered raza has changed significantly, particularly with the rise and fall of Impurism between the late-1800s and mid-1900s. Even today, there remains a significant gulf between the official definitions, the "public" definitions, and the alternate interpretations of seza and raza. Much of this is owed to the fact that even among Kryfona, what constitutes a racial and what constitutes a species characteristic is blurred, and only relatively recently has begun to be unraveled by advances in science. Likewise, the lines have been blurred by a gradual shift in values; what once might have been traditionally considered one in some cases has become the other, and vice versa, while other still have altogether disappeared as a characteristic.