Cultural Overview

Azeryani view themselves as an urban culture, despite 85% of the population being rural. Their cultural identity is linked to cities and even the rural population thinks of itself as 'belonging' to the nearby city. Viewing themselves as civilized and urban strongly shapes their perceptions of other, more agrarian cultures.

The first and strongest impression that any outsider has of the Azeryani is arrogance. Azeryani know that their culture, their way of life, the Azeryani way, is superior to any other. This is not something explicit that is forced on the non-Azeryani, but is integral to the way any Azeryani thinks. This superiority is a given in the same way that you or I accept that the sky is blue. This basic assumption has several consequences which do not tend to endear the Azeryani to the rest of the world.

For one, most Azeryani learn little if any of other languages. Most Azeryani cities, especially the coastal cities, are very cosmopolitan and a myriad of languages can be heard spoken in the markets. But not by the Azeryani. Anyone who wants to communicate in Azeryan learns Azeryani. Azeryani traders who travel outside the empire often pick up some of the local languages but are rarely fluent. Again, the assumption is that if their trading partners really want to deal, they will learn Azeryani. And again, this is not really a conscious process but stems from the Azeryani 'self-assuredness'.

The Azeryani also have a somewhat unique idea of political boundaries. From their point of view the emperor actually owns all of the known world. Where other peoples may see a distinct political boundary the Azeryani see a decrease in the amount of control which the emperor exerts. The world is organized into a set of concentric rings, with the center being under the emperor's direct control, next is the lesser control of client states, then even less control of allies, then independent states and societies. From this point of view there is no such thing as a war of conquest but rather it is a war to increase the degree of control. There is never a question of whether it is morally right to annex territory as the territory already belongs to the emperor. One can find Azeryani diplomats, spies, merchants and just general travellers nearly anywhere in the known world in a large part due to this worldview.

Interestingly, this attitude does not lead to the Azeryani being universally unpopular. It certainly causes friction with many countries or societies, but many others believe in the Azeryani superiority. The Azeryani Empire is the oldest and has always been one of the strongest states in Western Lythia; many other cultures are heavily patterned after it. Many of the 'barbarian' cultures see Azeryani culture as the ultimate in civilized living and aspire to that state. Several of the annexations to the empire have been at the instigation of the local peoples specifically for this reason.

This all leads to somewhat ambiguous attitudes about and within the former provinces which are now independent. From the empire's point of view they are just areas of Azeryani culture which are currently less under the emperor's control than they ought to be. From the former province's point of view things are more complex and more variable. The Trierzi have been independent long enough, and were Azeryanized minimally enough that they see themselves as quite distinct. Lankorium sees itself as truly a bastion of Azeryani culture which is currently not controlled by the empire, mirroring the empire's feelings. Most of the former provinces fall somewhere between these two extremes.

The second characteristic of Azeryani culture which stands out to the non-Azeryani is their preoccupation with classification and organization. The Azeryani are among the premier catalogers, classifiers and organizers in the known world. Azeryan scholars routinely turn out encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. as masterworks and just about anything known about just about anywhere is available in Azeryani libraries. But classifying and organizing are not just pastimes of scholars. The government maintains a vast bureaucracy to keep tabs on its citizens, economy, military, natural resources, pretty much anything you can think of. Tons of written records are generated each year, coupled with further tons of indexing of these records to make them accessible. If you want to know the average tax yield of pig farms in the 34th precinct in the county around Meokolis that information is available. Virtually nothing goes unrecorded in Azeryani society.

This obsession with record-keeping leads to a remarkably high literacy rate, at least within the cities. In fact, most of the cities maintain public schools which are open to any and all, and the wealthy normally have a slave-tutor as part of their households. As a result, fully 40% of the urban population is literate and up to 10% could be considered well-educated. The rural population is much less literate; overseers and estate-managers are literate and do the record-keeping.

However, this obsession with organization and classification coupled with Azeryani belief in their own superiority also leads to cultural stagnation. The Azeryani have a firm belief that things are correct as they are, and once they have been analyzed, categorized, and described then all that needs to be known is known. Consequently they tend to be short on imagination and inventiveness. New inventions are sometimes ignored because of their firm belief in the status quo. In the 6th Century an Azeryani engineer drew up plans and actually created a small working model of a steam-driven ship. The idea never caught on.

The Azeryani sense of self is markedly different than among the northern peoples. An Azeryani will identify himself first as an individual, second by his home city, third by profession and patron, and fourth by clan or family. Ivinians and Quarphs, in contrast, will identify themselves firstly by clan, secondly by family within the clan, and finally as individuals. July 16, 2001

This page was last updated on January 23, 2002
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