Tannaea (province)

See also Tannaea (region) for more information

Tannaea is a province of Arithia on the southeast coast of Marcasia. It was established with the formation of the republic of Arithia in 1886 CIE, and roughly corresponds to the historical region of Tannaea, the homeland of the Eleena (or Tann) people. Of the 12 million inhabitants of the province, however, nearly 5 million are of an ethnicity other than Eleena, a consequence of the historical marginalisation of the Eleena in the region for centuries under the rule of the Lazeian Empire and the general impoverishment that ensued after its collapse. The demographic trend in favour of the dusleida population is accentuating as the region starts to become recognised for its proximity to the Issol A'i as well as the major markets of the eastern hemisphere, an advantage boosted by the relatively low price of labour in the province.

Land & climate

The terrain of Tannaea consists of two distinct regions: a relatively flat interior, and a considerably mountainous coastline, each of which occupies approximately half of the province's territory. The province is drained by two major rivers, the Sugai and the Etui, which originate further west in the Iryagi, providing irrigation to the province's farms, and which are subsequently fed by heavy rainfall brought by clouds blown inland from the Denurean Sea by the kapri winds that originate in Istheusia.

History

See also Tannaea (region)#History for more information

The Tannaean province was not established until after the Republican Revolution, in 1886 CIE, despite nearly two thousand years of almost-uninterrupted Areth rule over the region since its formal subsumption by the Lazeian Empire in 138 BCIE. The marginalisation of the province and unchecked inflow of foreigners meant that upon its incorporation as a province, nearly a quarter of Tannaea's population was made up of foreign-born groups. Since then, the ratio has increased to almost one third on the back of hastened economic development (which brought in foreigners to work, who eventually settled), fallen back a little in the decade up to 1986 CIE as regionalist and revivalist movements tensed the political situation, and risen again as successive governments have liberalised the economy, raised competitiveness, improved living standards and exhibited tolerance and welcome to foreigners.

Despite being the homeland of the Eleena, that ethnic group has always been marginalised in Tannaea, systematically as a "backward" people under the empire, and later because the privation thus caused robbed the Eleena of many opportunities for improvement, such as through education, which remained expensive and only in Arithide, a language unfamiliar to them. It was not until 1901 CIE that the first Tannaean language-medium school was opened, and another three decades before such schools became common.

Politics

After devolution

Contrary to the fears of many dusleida in the province, the Devolution Act of 1979 CIE, when passed, did not add fuel to the brewing regionalism in Tannaea (see Regionalism in Arithia). Whereas predictions had been rife in the media that the province would be set on a slippery slope towards increasing and increasingly forceful demands for independence, and that attitudes towards the non-Eleena in the province would harden—fears that were fanned by the alarmist Tannaean Unionist Party (TII)—the actual passage of bills in the new Tannaean parliament, like the Tannaean Language Act of 1984 CIE, which instituted the Tannaean language as official, actually moderated the nationalist fervour in the province. Since the Devolution Act and its consequent bills, the TII has more or less faded to a shadow of its former rallying might, and is no longer a significant force in either Tannaean or national politics.

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