Molvanîa
Encyclopedia
Molvanîa: a Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry is a book parodying
travel
guidebooks. The guide describes the fictional country
Molvanîa, in Eastern Europe
, a nation described as "the birthplace of the whooping cough" and "owner of Europe's oldest nuclear reactor
". It was created by Australians Tom Gleisner
, Santo Cilauro
and Rob Sitch
(of The D-Generation
and The Panel fame).
, sparking a bidding war for the international publication rights. Qantas
has even run the half-hour video segment produced in association with the book on its international flights.
s and cliché
s about Eastern Europe
. The exact location of Molvanîa is never specified. It is said to border Germany
, Slovakia
, Slovenia
, Hungary
and Romania
, which in reality is impossible given the presented shape of the country.
The book describes the nation as having been a desolate wasteland for much of its history, torn by civil war and ethnic unrest. Eventually Molvanîa's various warring factions were united as a single kingdom, ruled by a series of cruel despotic kings. In the late 19th century the monarchy
was overthrown, but the royal family remained popular in exile. During World War II
the country was allied with Nazi Germany
, and then afterwards was occupied by the Soviet Union
who set up a Communist puppet government. After the fall of European Communism
in the 1990s
, the country became a dictatorship
run by a corrupt government with heavy ties to the Mafia
.
Molvanîa is described as a very poor and rural
country, heavily polluted and geographically barren. The infrastructure
is terrible, with necessities such as electricity
, clean water, and indoor plumbing being rare finds, largely due to bureaucratic incompetence
. Though the travel guide tries to suggest otherwise, there is little to do in the country, the hotel
s are tiny, filthy and dilapidated, the ethnic cuisine disgusting, and the "tourist attractions" boring and overpriced.
The Molvanîan people are portrayed as being generally rude, dirty, and at times slightly psychotic
, with numerous bizarre and illogical belief
s and tradition
s. The country's patron saint is Fyodor.
. It is a gendered
language, with different article
s being used depending on whether a noun is masculine, feminine, neutral, or a type of cheese. There are language schools for tourists to attend, which are described by the book as a "waste of time."
equipment has included Molvanîa as a choice that permits operation over a wider frequency range than is normally possible.
's former Minister for Europe
Keith Vaz
, who accused it of exploiting prejudices about Eastern Europe.
He said the book was a little "cheeky" because "it does reflect some of the prejudices which are taking root [in Europe]. He [Mr Gleisner] does try and show exactly where we are lacking in our knowledge, the sad thing is, some people might actually believe that this country exists."
(published 2004) and San Sombrèro
in Latin America (published in 2006).
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
travel
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
guidebooks. The guide describes the fictional country
Fictional country
A fictional country is a country that is made up for fictional stories, and does not exist in real life, or one that people believe in without proof....
Molvanîa, in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, a nation described as "the birthplace of the whooping cough" and "owner of Europe's oldest nuclear reactor
Nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...
". It was created by Australians Tom Gleisner
Tom Gleisner
Tom Gleisner is an Australian director, producer, writer, comedian, occasional actor and author. He was educated at Xavier College in Melbourne, Australia.-Television, radio and film:...
, Santo Cilauro
Santo Cilauro
Santo Cilauro is an Australian television and feature film producer, screenwriter, actor, author, comedian and cameraman, a co-founder of The D-Generation...
and Rob Sitch
Rob Sitch
Robert Ian Sitch , is an Australian director, producer, screenwriter, actor and comedian.-Early life:Sitch attended St Kevin's College and graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the University of Melbourne, where he resided at Trinity College. He worked at the Royal Womans Hospital...
(of The D-Generation
The D-Generation
The D-Generation was a popular and influential Australian TV sketch comedy show, produced and broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for two series, between 1986 and 1987...
and The Panel fame).
History
The book became a surprise success after its initial publication in AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, sparking a bidding war for the international publication rights. Qantas
Qantas
Qantas Airways Limited is the flag carrier of Australia. The name was originally "QANTAS", an initialism for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services". Nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo", the airline is based in Sydney, with its main hub at Sydney Airport...
has even run the half-hour video segment produced in association with the book on its international flights.
About Molvanîa
The Republic of Molvanîa is a composite of many stereotypeStereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
s and cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
s about Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. The exact location of Molvanîa is never specified. It is said to border Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, which in reality is impossible given the presented shape of the country.
The book describes the nation as having been a desolate wasteland for much of its history, torn by civil war and ethnic unrest. Eventually Molvanîa's various warring factions were united as a single kingdom, ruled by a series of cruel despotic kings. In the late 19th century the monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
was overthrown, but the royal family remained popular in exile. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the country was allied with Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, and then afterwards was occupied by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
who set up a Communist puppet government. After the fall of European Communism
Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
in the 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
, the country became a dictatorship
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...
run by a corrupt government with heavy ties to the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
.
Molvanîa is described as a very poor and rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
country, heavily polluted and geographically barren. The infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
is terrible, with necessities such as electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
, clean water, and indoor plumbing being rare finds, largely due to bureaucratic incompetence
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
. Though the travel guide tries to suggest otherwise, there is little to do in the country, the hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
s are tiny, filthy and dilapidated, the ethnic cuisine disgusting, and the "tourist attractions" boring and overpriced.
The Molvanîan people are portrayed as being generally rude, dirty, and at times slightly psychotic
Psychosis
Psychosis means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...
, with numerous bizarre and illogical belief
Belief
Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.-Belief, knowledge and epistemology:The terms belief and knowledge are used differently in philosophy....
s and tradition
Tradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
s. The country's patron saint is Fyodor.
Language
The fictional Molvanîan language is said to be so complicated that it takes an average of 16 years to learn. Not only is the tone in which one speaks important to the meaning, but also the pitchPitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
. It is a gendered
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
language, with different article
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
s being used depending on whether a noun is masculine, feminine, neutral, or a type of cheese. There are language schools for tourists to attend, which are described by the book as a "waste of time."
Communications
Molvanîa does not have a regulatory authority for wireless communications, therefore the use of any frequency is permitted. At least one maker of Wi-FiWi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
equipment has included Molvanîa as a choice that permits operation over a wider frequency range than is normally possible.
Criticism
The book was criticized by the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's former Minister for Europe
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
Keith Vaz
Keith Vaz
Nigel Keith Anthony Standish Vaz, known as Keith Vaz, was born 26 November 1956 in Aden, Yemen.Keith Vaz is a British Labour Party politician and a Member of Parliament for Leicester East, He is the longest serving Asian MP and has been the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee since July...
, who accused it of exploiting prejudices about Eastern Europe.
He said the book was a little "cheeky" because "it does reflect some of the prejudices which are taking root [in Europe]. He [Mr Gleisner] does try and show exactly where we are lacking in our knowledge, the sad thing is, some people might actually believe that this country exists."
Sequels
Subsequent travel guide parodies published examine Southeast Asian nation Phaic TănPhaic Tan
Phaic Tăn is a parody travel guidebook examining imaginary country Phaic Tăn. The book's full title is Phaic Tăn: Sunstroke on a Shoestring and was written by Australians Tom Gleisner, Santo Cilauro, and Rob Sitch...
(published 2004) and San Sombrèro
San Sombrèro
San Sombrèro is a parody travel guide book examining the eponymous fictional country, described as the birthplace of tinted sunglasses and sequins...
in Latin America (published in 2006).