The famous and indefatigable comic book critic and historian Dodo Nice published a work this year, Tintin in Romania (Revers Publishing House, Craiova, 2023), which demonstrates the fact that Sildavia, the land visited by Tintin, was Romania during the interwar period (1918-1939). The arguments of Dodo Nice converge on the idea that the towns, villages, flora, fauna, culture and people Tintin interacts with are located in Romania on the brink of two world wars.

Boarding a cruise ship, the Belgian journalist Tintin, accompanied by his brave dog Milo, gazed at the horizon, reflecting on his latest adventures. The fair-haired young man is not looking for sensational news to be reproduced in writing in a major newspaper. On the contrary, Tintin’s type of journalistic investigations is extreme and risky: banal circumstances turn into intense moments, armed conflicts with gangs of villains, antagonists with complex and diabolical goals; all these elements were part of the adventure world of Tintin and his faithful dog.

“The Adventures of Tintin” created by the French cartoonist Hergé and published in the magazine Le Petit Vingtième from 1929 until his death they mostly followed a well-known pattern:

1. a mysterious event occurs at the beginning of a narrative thread (a robbery in a museum, the abduction of a character from Tintin’s entourage, a letter for help or an important scientific discovery).
2. the hero alone or together with friends investigates the event itself (exploring an Egyptian tomb found underground, traveling to South America in the context of a revolution or following a mysterious person who complicates Tintin’s investigation).
3. the hero realizes that his investigation led to the discovery of a network of criminals with different goals (stabbing the maharaja with the poison of madness, illegal drug trade in Asia, robberies and murders created by American gangsters, money laundering on a mysterious island, sabotage of crude oil pipelines in order to cause a global crisis, overthrowing the king with foreign aid or kidnapping).
4. the hero during fights with villains is defeated and captured, and then, having escaped from the clutches of the enemies, emerges victorious.

But there are also original adventures full of mysticism and stories: alien beings capable of telepathy (Flight 714 to Sydney), a curse imposed on a group of archaeologists who discovered a mummy with a crystal ball in a sarcophagus (Seven crystal balls, Temple of the Sun), a supposed comet about to hit Earth (Mysterious star), a centuries-old sheet of paper that indicates the location of a secret treasure hidden by a famous pirate (The Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham’s Treasure) or an old friend who disappears under mysterious circumstances (Tintin in Tibet). All these attractive premises encourage the reader to solve the riddles of adventure together with the young journalist.

But, of course, we cannot forget the main antagonists, memorable characters who continue the adventures of Tintin: the famous Roberto Rastapopulos, who is behind many finely organized plans to eliminate Tintin (Pharaoh’s cigarettes, Blue lotus, Coke stock and Flight 714 to Sydney), Dr. JW Muller, who, in addition to his money laundering business (Black Island), creates the so-called “Formula 14” – a chemical substance that enhances the explosive properties of oil, endangering the relations of the Arab states with the West (Tintin in the lands of black gold, Golden claw crab(Pharaoh’s cigarettes, Golden claw crab, Coke stock and Flight 714 to Sydney).

So the world in which Tintin lives is a world of contrasts, where good is in eternal struggle with evil. Being also a comic for readers of any age, the adventures of our hero begin, for the most part, from some ordinary places – a walk in the park, a walk through the flea market, a meeting with a friend or a trip to an exotic country. – which, as the narrative thread develops, turns into a dead end situation, full of emotions at every step. The appearance of the antagonist puts Tintin in trouble; the first reveals his purpose in a speech full of pathos, and a young journalist, forced to witness the performance of the villain, is handcuffed; the hero will go to any lengths to fight the villain. Tintin manages to escape from the clutches of criminals, takes out a gun and starts searching for the antagonist. Most often, the villain is caught by the hero and appears before the authorities.

TINTIN AND SILDAVIA

Probably Tintin’s most impressive adventure can be found in Scepter of Ottokar, comic book published in Le Petite Vingtième between 1938-1939 and which combines the political context with the historical one.

The bag, left on a park bench, is accidentally found by Tintin, who with a friendly gesture learns the owner’s address and returns it to him. Professor Nestor Alembic, happy to have found his bag, explains to the young journalist that he collects and researches seals from all over the world. Amazed by the professor’s vast collection, Tintin noticed that among the seals placed in the display cases was a more special seal of the King of Syldavia, Ottokar IV. After saying goodbye, our hero goes home. But after a few minutes, he realizes that he left the book he was holding in the park at the teacher’s house. Going up to Alembic’s apartment, Tintin hears his name being called by several people from next door. The young man understands that these mysterious people are spying on the teacher. Aware of the danger to which he and Nestor Alembic are exposed, the young journalist accepts the latter’s offer to accompany him to Sildavia. As the story progresses, Tintin realizes that there is a large group of conspirators in Syldavia who wanted to jeopardize the state’s independence by planning to steal Ottokar’s scepter and deliver it to the neighboring militarized state of Borduria. Tintin reaches a position where he manages to expose the leaders of the conspiracy, managing to bring the royal insignia to the capital of Syldavia.

Ottokar’s Scepter it remains a controversial comic to this day due to the simple fact that Sildavia, according to Hergé, was supposed to be located, succinctly, in the Balkan Peninsula. Many assumptions have weighed on the definition of a possible real country that inspired the Belgian cartoonist. Some comic book critics (metaphorically called “Tintinologists”) revolved around the idea that Sildavia had no correspondence with any country in South-Eastern Europe, but was simply a Hergé invention; Of course, this theory did not have many supporters. However, the suspicion remained that the creator of Tintin must have been inspired by the Balkan country when he created Sildavia alongside neighboring Borduria.

WAS TINTIN IN ROMANIA?

The famous and indefatigable comic book critic and historian Dodo Nice published a work this year, Tintin in Romania (Revers Publishing House, Craiova, 2023), which proves that Sildavia would have been Romania in the interwar period (1918-1939). The arguments of Dodo Nice converge on the idea that the towns, villages, flora, fauna, culture and people Tintin interacts with are located in Romania on the brink of two world wars.

The study of Dodo Nice is divided into two main sections: the actual thesis and the process of translating The Adventures of Tintin into Romanian. In the first part of the article, the author presents six different categories of arguments:

i. Toponym argument with which Dodo Nice illustrates the fact that the name Syldavia (Syldavia in the original French) is a composite of two other names: Moldova (fr.) and Transylvania (fr.). This type of argument still holds because Hergé also used this combination between two other names, also in Ottokar’s Scepter: a word audit who is a combination of Hitler and Mussolini.

II. Ornithological argument it begins with the subtitle of the Sildavian state: “the kingdom of the Black Pelican”. Given that pelicans live in the wild only on our territory, Sildavia is Romania.

III. Linguistic argument refers to abusive language used by Captain Haddock in Litmus business when, addressing the spies of Borduria, he names them “Bugr de Papu de Carpathians”; “Balkan moron”; “Espèce de Bachi-bouzouk des Carpathes”. The supplies are apparently going to an area in the Balkans crossed by the Carpathian Mountains, where two states, Syldavia and Borduria, border each other.

IV. Aeronautical argument Dodo Nice is based on a well-known fact: since 1920, the Franco-Romanian Air Navigation Company, the world’s first transcontinental air transport line, began to operate. The institution had regular flights between Paris and Bucharest with stops in Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Prague, Vienna and Budapest. IN Scepter of Ottokar, Tintin, along with Professor Alembic, before reaching the territory of Syldavia, they both stop in Frankfurt and then in Prague.

IN. Historical arguments they are divided into three: the first illustrates the similarity of the uniform of Muscarus XII from the caricature with the uniform of the ruler Alexander Ioan Cusa; the second suggests that Borduria, with all its fascist trappings, is actually the Soviet Union of the interwar period. This is confirmed by the similarity of the leader of Borduria, Marshal Kurvi-Tash, with Joseph Stalin and the fact that most names in Borduria are of Slavic origin: Kavych, Karuk, Sohod or Bahina. The third argument concerns a hybrid element: the underground “Borduri” organization of the SAM (Le Zyldav Zentral Revolutionary Komitzat) is an ultra-right party that aimed to eliminate the monarchy in Sildavia and join it to Borduria. Dodo Nice explains that this organization created the illusion of a far-right party while hiding, in fact, that it was a communist group. The author further claims that the purpose of the SAM was fulfilled in Romania after the Second World War, when the communist regime eliminated the monarchy, established itself in power and “glued” our state to Moscow’s policy. Thus, Sildavia represents to Borduria what Romania was to the USSR: a powerful and militarized neighbor that sought to extend its power beyond its borders.

VI. Geographical argument proposed by Dodo Nice in his research, begins with a pamphlet that Tintin, in Ottokar’s scepter, he finds her on the plane that takes him to his destination. A small printed work describes the geographical aspects of Syldavia: mountains, plains, cities, ores, fauna and flora. Dodo Niță elaborates on these elements, mentioning for example this Clow in fact, it is the city of Galats, the river Valdir it is the Danube and its tributary Moltus there is Prut.