Kaunians
Kaunians are both equivalents of the Roman Empire and Jews. Kaunians are characterised as on the slender and tall side, with fair skin and blonde hair. Kaunians face suspicion and prejudice, a separate and vaguely detested minority in many nations.
Originally most of the continent was covered by the Kaunian Empire. When the Kaunian Empire fell thanks to the "Algarvian Irruption" - analogous to the Germanic invasions of the late Roman Empire - the Kaunians remained the dominant cultural and ethnic group in Eastern Derlavai. First they lived in independent city states and small principalities which later coalesced into the successor-states Jelgava and Valmiera. Jelgavan and Valmieran have developed to the point that the their speakers don't understand the classical language unless they study it especially. Ancient Kaunian is a language of many tenses and verb forms, which makes for a language of precision. Kaunians bring this precision into play when they switch to a more modern language, generally to the disdain of others.
In the parts of Lagoas and Kuusamo which were part of the empire, Kaunians disappeared completely. In the more westward parts of the continent, in contrast, Kaunians became an ethnic minority in countries formed by the invading "barbarians": maintaining a distinct and largely separate minority culture, keeping the ancient language in more or less its original form as their daily speech, clinging to the short tunics and trousers common in the days of Empire, and frowning at the idea of mixed marriages. The wearing of trousers by the Kaunian women tends to be a distraction for other peoples, as the tight pants reveal more than the more modern knee-length tunics do. This often results in Kaunian women being regarded as sexually promiscuous - a widespread racial stereotype which is deliberately used by King Mezentio in fomenting hatred of Kaunians.
In Algarve itself, Kaunians seem to have, already for several generations, to be deeply assimilated in the surrounding society. They speak Algarvian, wear kilts, call themselves by Algarvian names, and their males have Algarvian-style moustaches and behave in the blatant macho way encouraged by Algarvian culture. Until their persecutions started, there were prominent Kaunian scholars at the University of Trapani.
What happens to the Kaunians in the Darkness series is the equivalent to the Holocaust, where Kaunians under Algarvian control are systematically stripped of their rights and violence against them is ignored by the authorities. Eventually, Algarve, facing a desperate stalemate against Unkerlant, begins slaughtering Kaunians en masse to fuel vast quantities of death-energy-powered sorcery in an attempt to break the impasse. Mezentio's official aim is not to exterminate Kaunians but to win the war, thus Kaunians are provided with adequate food to keep them alive until they need to be sacrificed for the war effort. Unkerlant responds to these magical attacks by sacrificing their own people to attack Algarve in the same way.
Many Kaunians do not die without any resistance. The remaining Kaunians in Eoforwic join in the uprising in the city which is the equivalent to the Warsaw Uprising. Other Kaunians use magic to make themselves look like everyone else and are able to hide in plain sight.
Late in the war, as they got desperate, and as it became obvious to the Algarvians that non-Kaunians were now far more of a worry than the thoroughly cowed blonds, the Algarvians began to display a somewhat more pragmatic, open attitude toward the Kaunians. They allowed Valmierans and Jelgavans to join their army, and they played an important role on the southern front against the Unkerlanters and in Jelgava. Their mages still defaulted toward wanting to kill Kaunians out of habit, including the soldiers fighting on their side, but Algarvian officers increasingly refused to allow this, leading the mages to turn to killing Yaninan deserters or turning to other magics.
Read more about this topic: The Darkness Series