Ruritania
| Ruritania | |
|---|---|
| The Prisoner of Zenda location | |
| Other name(s) | Kingdom of Ruritania |
| Created by | Anthony Hope |
| Genre | Ruritanian romance |
| Type | Monarchy |
| Notable locations | Strelsau (capital) |
| Language(s) | German |
Ruritania is a fictional country in central Europe which forms the setting for three books by Anthony Hope: The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), The Heart of Princess Osra (1896), and Rupert of Hentzau (1898). Although the first and third are set in the recent past—between the 1850s and 1880s—the second is set in the 1730s, although it refers to subsequent events that happened between that time and the time of writing.
The kingdom is also the setting for sequels and variations by other writers. It lent its name to a genre of adventure stories known as Ruritanian romances, and is used in academia to refer to a hypothetical country.
Hope depicts Ruritania as a German-speaking, Roman Catholic country under an absolute monarchy, with deep social, but not ethnic, divisions reflected in the conflicts of the first novel. However, the names given to some settlements in Ruritania, such as Strelsau and Hentzau, indicate that sometimes Slavic names underlie the German and like the Sorb population of Saxony, a Slavic-speaking population cannot be discounted.
Geographically, it is usually considered to be located between Saxony and Bohemia; the author indicates that the capital city, Strelsau, is reached by railway from Dresden. The distance and direction are not clearly stated, but to reach Strelsau from Paris the hero must pass through Dresden then cross the border and travel some 60 miles to the capital. It is probable that Hope had Prague in mind for Strelsau, described in the novel as second only to Paris in terms of desirability for an ambassadorship. Hope's novels give the impression that Ruritania would not be a pleasant place for a modern person to inhabit, with its feckless, autocratic king, police surveillance of suspected subversives and a social structure deeply polarised between the rich and poor. In The Heart of Princess Osra, set in the 18th century, Hope refers to a palace "which stood...where the public gardens now are (for the Palace itself was sacked and burnt by the people in the rising of 1848)". In this novel, it emerges in passing that Jews were not then allowed to hold an interest in land in the capital.
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