Bryansk

Bryansk (Russian: Брянск) officially known as both Bryansk and the Bryansk Republic is a state in northern Eurasia comprised of (currently) one state located 379 kilometers (235 mi) southwest of Moscow. Currently Bryansk is a politically fractured country under a provisional military government after the Third Republic collapsed and a Coup d'état was staged by the Bryansk Military.

History
The first written mention of Bryansk was in 1146, in the Hypatian Codex, as Debryansk (appears variously as Дъбряньск, Дьбряньск, and in other spellings). Its name is derived from "дъбръ", a Slavic word for "ditch", "lowland" or "dense woodland;" the area was known for its dense woods, брянские леса, of which very little remains today.

Bryansk remained poorly attested until the Mongol invasion of Russia. It was the northernmost of the Severian cities in the possession of the Chernigov Rurikids. After Mikhail of Chernigov was murdered by the Mongols and his capital was destroyed, his son moved his seat to Bryansk. In 1310, when the Mongols sacked the town again, it belonged to the principality of Smolensk. Olgierd of Lithuania acquired Bryansk through inheritance in 1356 and gave it to his son, Dmitry the Elder. Until the end of the century, the town was contested between Jogaila, Vytautas, Švitrigaila, and George of Smolensk. Great Duchy of Moscow conquered Bryansk following the Battle of Vedrosha in 1503. The town was turned into a fortress which played a major role during the Time of Troubles. Peter the Great incorporated Bryansk into the Kiev governorate, but Catherine the Great deemed it wise to transfer the town to the Oryol guberniya in 1779.

Napoleonic Wars and its Aftermath
After Napoleon’s invasion of 1812  many Russian citizens saw it as a opportunity for independence however none of the states made their move when Russia was brought into the War of the Seventh Coalition in 1815. Many Russian citizens decided that it was best not to risk another invasion by Napoleon by weakening the Russian Empire. It wasn’t until 1891 when the Industrial Revolution began to put forth a significant influence in Russia. The liberal elements among the industrial capitalists and nobility believed in peaceful social reform and a constitutional monarchy, forming the Constitutional Democrats, or Kadets. The Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs) combined the Narodnik tradition and advocated the distribution of land among those who actually worked it—the peasants. Another radical group was the Social Democrats, exponents of Marxism in Russia. The Social Democrats differed from the SRs in that they believed a revolution must rely on urban workers, not the peasantry.

Imperial Russia’s Decline
In 1903 the gradualist Mensheviks, and the more radical Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks believed that the Russian working class was insufficiently developed and that socialism could be achieved only after a period of bourgeois democratic rule while the Bolsheviks, under Vladimir Lenin, advocated the formation of a small elite of professional revolutionists, subject to strong party discipline, to act as the vanguard of the proletariat in order to seize power by force.

Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) was a major blow to the Tsarist regime and increased the potential for unrest. In January 1905, an incident known as "Bloody Sunday" occurred when Father Gapon led an enormous crowd to the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg to present a petition to the tsar. When the procession reached the palace, Cossacks opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. The Russian masses were so furious over the massacre that a general strike was declared demanding a democratic republic. This marked the beginning of the Russian Revolution of 1905. Soviets (councils of workers) appeared in most cities to direct revolutionary activity. Russia was paralyzed, and the government was desperate.

Although the country was split in terms of politics many member states wished to stay out of what was believed to be terrible conflict. Bryansk as well as many other states of the Imperial Russian nation were putting plans into play to attempt to break away from Imperial Russia if the situation did not improve. In October 1905, Nicholas reluctantly issued the famous October Manifesto, which conceded the creation of a national legislature. The right to vote was extended and no law was to go into force without confirmation by the legislature. The most moderate groups were satisfied; but the socialists rejected the concessions as insufficient and tried to organize new strikes. By the end of 1905, there was disunity among the reformers, and the Tsar's position was strengthened for the time being. Then Russia was once again thrust into another war with enthusiasm and patriotism, with the defense of Russia's fellow Orthodox Slavs, the Serbs, as the main battle cry. In August 1914, the Russian army entered Germany to support the French armies. Military reversals and shortages among the civilian population, soon soured much of the population.

On March 3, 1917, a strike was organized on a factory in the capital Saint Petersburg; within a week nearly all the workers in the city were idle, and street fighting broke out.

The strikers held mass meetings in defiance of the regime, and the army openly sided with the workers. A few days later a provisional government headed by Georgy Lvov was named by the Duma. Meanwhile, the socialists in Saint Petersburg had formed a Soviet of workers and soldiers deputies, forming an uneasy alliance with the Provisional Government. With his authority destroyed, Nicholas abdicated on 2 March 1917

Great Russian Schism
On 7 November 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led his leftist revolutionaries in a revolt against the ineffective Provisional Government. The October revolution ended the phase of the revolution instigated in February, replacing Russia's short-lived provisional parliamentary government with government by soviets, Liberal and monarchist forces, loosely organized into the White Army, immediately went to war against the Bolsheviks' Red Army. During this time Bryansk had gathered resources and arms and began building a small defense force in preparation of their independence. In 1918 Bryansk had officially declared its independence and frequently battled both sides for control over the area however after taking losses they simply left Bryansk alone.

The First Bryansk Republic and the USSR
On 28 December 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR approved the “Treaty of Creation of the USSR.” It created a state which surrounded Bryansk completely  forcing Bryansk to become land locked and just a short distance from its capital in Moscow. Tensions between Bryansk and the USSR were tense to say the least. The USSR forced a trade embargo on Bryansk and threatened to invade on several occasions. With no real way of combating the USSR the Republic surrendered On May 2nd 1924.

World War Two
With the German’s push into the USSR many of Bryansk remembered their short lived Independence and embraced the Germans as liberators when they reached the city in 1942. They appealed to the Germans for help in creating a new state however the terms the German government sent back to Bryansk officials were undesirable. Despite lacking any foreign support Bryansk declared its independence and was quickly stomped out by Germans

Dissolution of the Soviet Union
In 1989, the Russian SFSR, which was then the largest constituent republic (with about half of the population) convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies. Boris Yeltsin was elected its chairman. On 12 June 1990, the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the USSR's laws. The period of legal uncertainty continued throughout 1991 as constituent republics slowly became de facto independent.

A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on 17 March 1991, with the majority of the population voting for preservation of the Union in nine out of the 15 republics. The referendum gave Gorbachev a minor boost. In the summer of 1991, the New Union Treaty, which would have turned the Soviet Union into a much looser federation, was agreed upon by eight republics.

The signing of the treaty, however, was interrupted by the August Coup—an attempted coup d'état by hardline members of the government and the KGB who sought to reverse Gorbachev's reforms and reassert the central government's control over the republics. After the coup collapsed, Yeltsin was seen as a hero for his decisive actions, while Gorbachev's power was effectively ended. The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics. In August 1991, Latvia and Estonia immediately declared the restoration of their full independence, while the other twelve republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser, models of the Union. On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accords, which declared the Soviet Union dissolved.

Creation of the Third Bryansk Republic
With the USSR now dissolved and many of its member states being recognized by the international community, Bryansk decided to attempt independence for a third time in October 1992. The Newly formed Russian Federation furiously denied the move and threatened to send in its army to put down any attempt at independence. Bryansk officials appealed to the United Nations for recognition and within two weeks seventeen nations recognized Bryansk. However this was not enough for Bryansk to become independent and in December the Russian Federation invaded. The Bryansk Leadership quickly began creating an army and a partisan force to combat the Russians however both were defeated within months. A guerrilla force remained active for months being supplied by foreign powers. Eventually in 1998, after years of fighting and massive losses on both side Bryansk was given independence and recognition as a full independent state.

From Republic To Coup d'état
With their independence secured Bryansk began the monumental task of rebuilding a nation broken from years of fighting and of a collapsing eastern European economy. Emerging from the Soviet system brought with them the inability to jump start the economy to acceptable levels for growth and soon the nation fell into turmoil. Within a year strikes began to break out between political groups which had turned the nations parliament in to a war-zone itself. In June of 2000 the economy broke and the government collapsed. To prevent Russia from taking any opportunity at reassimilation, the armed forces of Bryansk staged a coup d'état and step up a provisionary military government.

Geography
Bryansk lies just west of Russia in the western part of the East European Plain, occupying the middle part of the Desna River basin. The area, covering 34,900 km² and shares borders with Russia to the North and East, Ukraine to the southwest, and  Belarus to the northwest.

The climate is temperate continental. The average temperature in January is -7 - 9 °C. The average July temperature is between 18 and 20 °C. About a quarter of the total area is covered by forests, mainly coniferous, mixed and deciduous, as well as forest-steppe.

Natural resources include deposits of sand, clay, chalk, marl, and other building materials, as well as phosphorite.

As a result of the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, part of the territory of Bryansk region has been contaminated with radionuclides (mainly the Klimovsky, Klintsy, Krasnogorsk, Surazh and Novozybkov areas). In 1999, some 226,000 people lived in areas with the contamination level above 5 Curie/km2, representing approximately 16% of the country’s population.