Talk:Syldavia

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[edit] Map

Map at http://g.courtial.free.fr/country8.htm tells me that Syldavia would be in northern Slovenia, not in western Slovenia, so I'll update the map accordingly. --romanm (talk) 20:35, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The English translation of the brochure Tintin reads in King Ottokar's Sceptre says that Syldavia was "isolated until modern times because of its inaccessible position". I think the word "inaccessible" disallows a location on the Adriatic Sea - positioning Syldavia on the Black Sea would still allow for the town of Dbrnouk to be on the "south coast of Syldavia". Donald, 12:07, 20 November 2005.

This is all pretty good, but as the geography goes, the one thing that bothers me is the 547,030 km² size. I always got the impression that Syldavia (particularly because it is supposed to be just one of many countries on the Balkan peninsula) was a much smaller country... 547,000-plus makes it approaching the size of Ukraine and almost twice as big as Germany--surely larger than the whole of the peninsula (counting out Greece and Bulgaria). Maybe we can take out a zero and make it 54,703? That would be comparable to the size of countries such as Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, et al. Now you're talking...

[edit] Religion

What would be the religion of the Syldavians? In the pictures of the country sides, minarets of mosques are depicted, yet the day of Saint Vladimir (Wladimir) is celebrated as the king shows his sceptre. Furthermore the guards often exclaim the name of this saint. Is it a country led by a Christian (i.e Orthodox) elite with Moslem subjects? Cheers! Meursault2004 15:58, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's the same god, anyway... ^^
Hey that's not the answer to my question ;-) Meursault2004 14:47, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This *is* the Balkans, who says there's only one? Thanx 68.39.174.150 18:51, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
The country could possibly be belonging to the Eastern Orthodox Church, as they use the Cyrillic alphabet instead of the Roman alphabet, which is mainly used in the Roman Catholic or former Catholic countries.

Syldavia is Yugoslavia to a "T" during this period in history. Therefore, an Orthodox king presides over large numbers of Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish and Catholic inhabitants. The landscape, scenery, costumes, symbolism of Turkish rule, etc etc... too coincidental. Herge never did anything by coincidence, either... It was surely based upon pre-Tito YU. -Risto

[edit] "Sprodj"?

Someone just changed the name of the location of the Syldavian space program from Sbrodj to Sprodj. It's definitely Sbrodj in Hergé's original. Can someone check the English translation to see if they changed it? I don't want to revert the change if there's a reason for it. Zompist 06:50, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Checked it myself... indeed, the English version has Sprodj.Zompist 01:35, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blushtika?

In Tintin & the Lake of sharks, the Syldavians perform a traditional dance at the end - the Blushtika. I wonder what this is based on.

The movie is generally not considered canon, but it's interesting trivia. 惑乱 分からん 21:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Don't speculate

I've removed some speculative comments that tread too closely to original research. Fun though it is to fill in the gaps, in a general encyclopedia we're restricted to what actually appears in the books. This includes speculation on Syldavia's religion and location, as well as on what Syldavian names look like in Cyrillic. (Only a couple of names, such as that of Klow, actually appear in Cyrillic in the books.)

While we're at it, there is probably way too much restatement of the tourist brochure from King Ottokar's Sceptre. It should be summarized, not paraphrased. Zompist 06:39, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

Isn't it hypocritical that there can not be a infobox of Syldavia and Borduria in the English wikipedia page while it can stay on the Swedish wikipedia site?

No. I don't edit the Swedish Wikipedia. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 16:18, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

why is the infobox an image? If we're going to display an infobox (to which I am not opposed), make it a real one, not a screenshot of a real one. dab (𒁳) 13:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Location

Why is Syldavia meant to be located around Celje? I can't find any reason for it.

I think a lot of the information stems from edits made by Realismadder, who unfortunately has written a lot of Tintin-related information apparently containing a lot of fanon and original research. 惑乱 分からん 17:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism of Motto?

On the article for 'Tintin and the Ottokar's Sceptre', the Syladavian motto is given as "Eih bennek, eih blavek", meaning "Here I am and here I stay". However, in the infobox on the right of this page, the translation is given as "Rub yourself here, get stung." Surely that's vandalism?Starom 12:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

See the discussion of the motto in the article itself. It's not vandalism, though it is misleading. Ultimately the blame is Hergé's, since he chose an expression with a clear Dutch meaning and gave a rather different French translation. Zompist 18:22, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I really should have READ the article before jumping in! The computer shut down too, just after I left the comment, leaving me without a chance to chance it so my most sincere of apologies!!Starom 14:25, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bank note

What is the source for the bank note picture? It's certainly not from the album. It looks like someone Photoshopped it. If it's from some other source please identify it. Zompist (talk) 17:47, 18 November 2007 (UTC)