Hey Veeky Forums, brainstorming ideas for a book. I want to do a western that's not set on the American frontier/American West. I was thinking there would be some time periods in Europe that showed the same traits as the american frontier or the traits of a good western.
Any period of time like this in europe?
WW1
One of my thoughts is pic related, the more sparsely populated parts of russia during the russian revolution. that was pretty lawless and I think the idea of Slavic "cowboys" with Mosin rifles and Nagant revolvers could be pretty cool.
Perhaps in Eastern Europe and Ukraine in the 17th-19th century, or the Russian colonization of Asia.
Not in Europe proper, but the settlement of Siberia throughout the centuries was a very unorganized and "wild" affair until the last century or so of the Russian empire.
Europe proper has always been fairly densely populated.
Soviet movies set during the revolution and the Russian civil war were pretty much their equivalent of Westerns
Meant to say some Soviet movies
Cossacks in the Crimean war?
Siberia around the same time as the American wild west.
Makhnovishchina
The Wehrmacht's occupation of the Soviet Union.
Russian Civil War, Basmachi
Ireland circa 1919-1923 was wild west
So what are these traits? Would it be fair to say:
*very low population density
*general lawlessness
*steady influx of foreign peoples seeking economic opportunity
Those seem like the basic ingredients to me, but I don't know whether you also want similar geography, tech levels, etc
dont think i would want it during WW1. too "military" i'd say
Based, will have to check some of those movies out
thanks guys
yea those basic traits
geography doesnt matter, not many desert's in europe.
Tech level does thou. keeping it 19thcentury-early 20th would be best. perferably where cartridge firearms are around, but older blackpowder is fine too and would work
What European country did you have in mind? Would narrow it down quite a lot.
I was hoping for countries in western europe, but im guess that area was too civilized at that time
This. Russian Civil War Siberia-Mongolia border is what you're looking for.
Read Ferdynand Ossendowski's Beasts, Men and Gods to get an idea.
Barbarian invasions of Europe (Huns, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Ottomans, etc.)
At what time specifically? If you want to go back far enough you could do something in Scotland or Ireland.
see
Scottish borders
The borders between the Ottoman empire and Austria Hungarian empire.
Northern Albania