Analysis Of Agatha Christie's 'King Ottokar Sceptre'

Tintin, the boy detective from Belgian comics, participates in many exciting international adventures. Smashes network of opium traders in Egypt, frees a gorilla from a Scottish trap, finds Yeti in Tibet, flyes to the Moon. But in spite of that fantastic list of ventures, he only once travels through a made up area. In King Ottokar Sceptre, Tintin finds himself in Southeast Europe, in the fictional land Syldavia, a country that is bordering with as fictional Borduria, and engaged in conflict with the anarchists, corrupt military police, mustachioed bandits with a fez on head and all kind of Balkan buffoons who smoked hookah. Seemingly meaningless confusion of Balkan history is shown satirically in Herges fictional chronicle of Syldavia that
Politics is equally inscrutable. In today's political turmoil, Syldavia irresistibly reminds of another fictional land, "Herzoslovakia" Balkan homeland of hero, wicked Boris Anchukov from "Secret of Chimneys" written by Agatha Christie, the land which the author describes as a land of violence, banditry and mystery, a country where the national hobby is "killing kings and having revolutions ". Syldavia and Herzoslovakia are, therefore, some universal Balkan countries, complex (by name, and character) based on several assumptions: that the Balkan countries are more or less mutually interchangeable and cannot be distinguished from one another, and that there is an easy noticed typology of politics and history that stands for whole Balkan and that there is some kind of Balkan ethnic or racial "type". However, although Herge and Agatha Christie considered to know some basic things about the Balkans - in fact,that they has sufficient knowledge of the Balkans in order to construct fictional Balkan worlds with an ease - both Herzoslovakia and Syldavia point to an even more pervasive and apparently contradictory assumption of Southeast
Former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, whose party started the project, conceived transformation of Skopje from a drab but bleak although funky Yugoslav city to a city of glory monuments to Macedonian past fame. He made nation-building a priority in Macedonia when he came to power in 2006. He was the one that renamed the airport and stadium to “Phillip Macedon”, and started Alexander- the National Hero fashion in Macedonia. Why the ruling party decided to change the look of the capital, to alter its identity is best answered if we analyze the symbolic loading of these material objects. The key in understanding this initiative is in the narrative construction. As said, all these architectural objects are constructed in some eclectic style. Many architraves, domes, and reliefs follow many neo-classical pillars and baroque ornaments on facades. As already mentioned, idea is to re-connect the Macedonian capital with the European architectural legacy. The purpose of this infusion of historicism is to negate the oriental and modernist layers that dominated the Skopje urban landscape. This project is the opportunity to stand out as a unique nation among neighbors who, historically, were always present on that geographical area. Modern-day Macedonia, which only became a country