Graustark
Encyclopedia
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....
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"...
used as a setting for several novels by George Barr McCutcheon
George Barr McCutcheon
George Barr McCutcheon was an American popular novelist and playwright. His best known works include the series of novels set in Graustark, a fictional East European country, Brewster's Millions, a play and several films....
. Graustark's neighbors, which also figure into the stories, are Axphain to the north and Dawsbergen to the south.
Graustark is described as a mountainous country with an area of approximately 800 square miles (2,072 km²); there is at least one reference in the books that fixes its location as somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
near 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...
. On the other hand, in Graustark it is said to be threatened with reduction to being only 25 miles wide by 150 miles long (3750 square miles) and in Truxton King is said to provide a shorter rail route to Russian territories in or near Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
. Graustark's capital city, Edelweiss, is accessible by train from Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. The mountain town of Ganlook is near the border with Axphain, Graustark's traditional enemy. Graustark is ruled as a principality
Principality
A principality is a monarchical feudatory or sovereign state, ruled or reigned over by a monarch with the title of prince or princess, or by a monarch with another title within the generic use of the term prince....
and its unit of currency is called the gavvo, worth $1.40 at the time of the novel Truxton King. Graustarkian is the native language of the people, although Americanized English is universally spoken among the educated classes and is the everyday language of the royal family and court.
The Graustark novels are stories of court intrigue, royal disguise, and romance similar to Anthony Hope
Anthony Hope
Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope , was an English novelist and playwright. Although he was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels, he is remembered best for only two books: The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau...
's 1894 novel, The Prisoner of Zenda
The Prisoner of Zenda
The Prisoner of Zenda is an adventure novel by Anthony Hope, published in 1894. The king of the fictional country of Ruritania is drugged on the eve of his coronation and thus unable to attend his own coronation. Political forces are such that in order for the king to retain his crown his...
, and its sequels. They were popular best-sellers at the time they were published and the original editions are still readily available in used book shops. The novels gave their name to a fictional genre
Genre fiction
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre....
called Ruritanian romance
Ruritanian Romance
A Ruritanian Romance is a story set in a fictional country, usually in Central or Eastern Europe, such as the Ruritania that gave the genre its name...
from Hope's work or Graustarkian romance from McCutcheon's. This genre contains tales of romance and intrigue usually featuring titled characters in small, fictional, Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
an or East European countries.
The novels in the series are:
- Graustark: The Story of a Love Behind a Throne (1901) Gutenberg text
- Beverly of Graustark (1904) Gutenberg text (filmed in 1926 with Marion DaviesMarion DaviesMarion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....
)
- Truxton King: A Story of Graustark (1909) Gutenberg etext in HTML
- The Prince of Graustark (1914) Gutenberg text
- East of the Setting Sun (1924)
- The Inn of the Hawk and Raven (1927)
In 2009, issue 31 of McSweeneys featured a Graustarkian short story, as part of a series on lost literary forms. The story, Feasts and Villains, was written by John Brandon.
History of Graustark
During the 1870s, Graustark's ruler, Prince Ganlook of Graustark, was killed in a war with neighboring Axphain. As part of the ensuing peace treaty, Graustark agreed to pay a large indemnity to Axphain, to be due, with interest, in fifteen years.Graustark found itself without the resources to pay the indemnity when it was due, and in desperation, Princess Yetive—Ganlook's daughter and now occupying Graustark's throne—was on the verge of contracting a state marriage to Prince Lorenz of Axphain in exchange for more favorable payment terms. But before the marriage could take place, Lorenz was murdered. The princess's true love, the American Grenfall Lorry, whom she had met while travelling in the United States appeared to be the murderer. Lorenz's father insisted on the murderer's punishment, but the execution was prevented by the revelation of the true murderer: the villainous Prince Gabriel, ruler of Dawsbergen, who was another of Yetive's suitors. With Lorenz dead and Gabriel imprisoned, Yetive instead married her true love.
During Gabriel's imprisonment, Dawsbergen was ruled by his younger half-brother, Prince Dantan, a popular figure among his own people and a staunch friend of Graustark as well. But after two years, Gabriel escaped from prison and, supported by the Dawsbergen army, returned to the throne. Dantan was forced to go into hiding in disguise in Graustark. For a time it appeared that Graustark might be forced into war with both Dawsbergen and Axphain, but this was averted when Gabriel was recaptured. Meanwhile, the disguised Prince Dantan had fallen in love with Beverly Calhoun, an American guest of the Lorrys; they were married upon his restoration to the throne of Dawsbergen.
Yetive and her husband were tragically killed in a railway accident near Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, leaving their young son Prince Robin as ruler of Graustark. While still a child, Robin was the target of an assassination plot by anarchists acting under the direction of the exiled Count Marlanx, whose ultimate goal was to establish himself as sole dictator of Graustark. But the assassination attempt was foiled by the intervention of the American Truxton King, and Marlanx was killed in the ensuing attack on the royal palace.
Graustark was still in financial difficulties by the time Prince Robin reached adulthood. William W. Blithers, a very rich and very vulgar American, offered to finance the country in the hopes of arranging a marriage between Robin and his own daughter. The two principals, however, had very different ideas of their own about marriage. Robin eventually married Bevra, the Crown Princess of Dawsbergen, daughter of Dantan and Beverly.
Graustark's debts eventually ended up being held by Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. In exchange for entering World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
as Russia's ally, Graustark negotiated cancellation of this debt. Later, with Russia out of the war, Graustark also negotiated a separate peace. There followed a period of prosperity in the country.
Axphain, however, was taken over by communists
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
after the war, and was in a state of much distress and unrest. Its ruler, Prince Hedrik (brother of Lorenz), and his elder son were murdered in the communist revolution, leaving the younger son Prince Hubert in exile in Graustark and an illegitimate son Gregory who lived with his mother in Italy. Hubert was hoping to marry Princess Virginia of Dawsbergen—Bevra's younger sister—but she had previously contracted a marriage of convenience
Marriage of convenience
A marriage of convenience is a marriage contracted for reasons other than the reasons of relationship, family, or love. Instead, such a marriage is orchestrated for personal gain or some other sort of strategic purpose, such as political marriage. The phrase is a calque of - a marriage of...
to Pendennis Yorke, an American journalist, and much to the surprise of everyone it became a genuine love match. The communist regime in Axphain was defeated after an unsuccessful attempt to invade Graustark, and the monarchy in that country was restored with Gregory on the throne rather than the unpopular Hubert, who was himself assassinated in the aftermath.
In the classic novel Three Hearts and Three Lions
Three Hearts and Three Lions
Three Hearts and Three Lions is a 1961 fantasy novel by Poul Anderson. It is also a 1953 novella by Poul Anderson which appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction.-Plot:...
by Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories...
, the hero Holger Carlsen gives his hastily-constructed alias as 'Sir Rupert of Graustark.'
Graustark in Film Adaptations
- The Prince of Graustark was made as a film in 1916 at the Chicago Essanay StudiosEssanay StudiosThe Essanay Film Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture studio. It is best known today for its series of Charlie Chaplin comedies of 1915.-Founding:...
, and is of note because it is claimed that Colleen MooreColleen MooreColleen Moore was an American film actress, and one of the most fashionable stars of the silent film era.-Early life:...
has a quick, uncredited role as a maid in the background of one scene. Some historians, viewing the scene, are convinced the girl is. Others have seen stills of the scene and don't see the resemblance at all. As such, this is not considered to be one of her film roles, though she did spend some summers in Chicago growing up, and could easily have been an extra in this film.
- Graustark (film) (1925)
- Beverly of GraustarkBeverly of Graustark__notoc__Beverly of Graustark is a silent film directed by Sidney Franklin, starring Marion Davies, Antonio Moreno and Creighton Hale. The film's screenplay was written by Agnes Christine Johnston based on the novel by George Barr McCutcheon, and set on the fictional land of Graustark. The movie...
(1926)