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| | | Orientalism, the Balkans, and Balkan Historiography | The American Historical Review, 105.4 | The History Cooperative |
 | | In King Ottokar's Sceptre, Tintin finds himself in southeastern Europe in the fictive "Syldavia," next to the similarly invented "Borduria," at war with anarchists, corrupt military police, mustachioed fez-wearing bandits, and all manner of narghile-smoking Balkan buffoons. |
 | | The apparent absurd confusion of Balkan history is lampooned in Hergé's faux chronicle of Syldavia, which Tintin eagerly reads as he flies in over the mountains: "In 1275 the people of Syldavia rose against the Bordurians, and in 1277 the revolutionary leader, Baron Almaszout, was proclaimed King. |
 | | He adopted the title of Ottokar the First, but should not be confused with Premysl Ottokar the First, the duke who became King of Bohemia in the XII century." |
| www.historycooperative.org /journals/ahr/105.4/ah001218.html (6653 words) |
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