I'm writing a HP story, and I really liked this essay, and the comments; very plausible, nice extra backstory.
I just had one thought about the modern Durmstrang, and why Karkaroff would be so paranoid: is it possible that the Soviet Union had some influence? The USSR only stopped existing in 1991, after all.
It's very possible there was something like a Soviet Academy for Gifted Children which would have pretty much kidnapped muggleborns throughout the then-USSR away from their parents and taught them to be good little Communist witches and wizards. This would likely have resulted in a very divided magical community, since I can't imagine communist ideology meshing well with the traditional beliefs of the magical world, and possibly a long undeclared civil war.
It's also possible there was a vicious crackdown on all things magical as part of the Communists' crackdown on all forms of religion, including paganism, animism, and shamanism. The 1917 Revolution might have led to the complete destruction of whatever the Russians had as Ministry of Magic under the Tsars, shortly followed by Stalin sending everyone to Gulags, thus effectively wiping out a lot of magical communities or forcing them into complete secrecy throughout Russia and Eastern Europe.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-05 05:09 pm (UTC)I just had one thought about the modern Durmstrang, and why Karkaroff would be so paranoid: is it possible that the Soviet Union had some influence? The USSR only stopped existing in 1991, after all.
It's very possible there was something like a Soviet Academy for Gifted Children which would have pretty much kidnapped muggleborns throughout the then-USSR away from their parents and taught them to be good little Communist witches and wizards. This would likely have resulted in a very divided magical community, since I can't imagine communist ideology meshing well with the traditional beliefs of the magical world, and possibly a long undeclared civil war.
It's also possible there was a vicious crackdown on all things magical as part of the Communists' crackdown on all forms of religion, including paganism, animism, and shamanism. The 1917 Revolution might have led to the complete destruction of whatever the Russians had as Ministry of Magic under the Tsars, shortly followed by Stalin sending everyone to Gulags, thus effectively wiping out a lot of magical communities or forcing them into complete secrecy throughout Russia and Eastern Europe.