Where was Ruritania?
Sir: Philip Glazebrook appears to suffer from the misapprehension that Ruritania is a Balkan country (Books, 23 May). Admit- tedly the confines of the Balkans are a little hazy; for the Germans, 'an Wiener West- bahnhof fangt der Balkan an', but a careful reading of Anthony Hope's three books on that interesting country reveals that it is sit- uated far to the north, in Mitteleuropa. To reach Strelsau, one changed trains in Dresden, from where it was a night's jour- ney away, and the language of Ruritania was German. However, toponymic evi- dence shows that this was not always so. Strelsau is not a German name, deriving as it does from the Slavonic Strelsovo, or `place of arrows'. Nor is Zenda German; it doubtless derives from the same root as the popular Czech name Zdenek. It is evident that Ruritania is a once Slav-speaking country where the upper classes and bour- geoisie have long been Germanised.
It is also a country of continuity; the Elphbergs have reigned for centuries. Ruri- tania, unlike the Balkan lands, never under- went the trauma of Turkish conquest. It is evident that by the 1880s Ruritania shared with its neighbour, the German Empire, a cult of militarism. It can only be situated near to Bohemia or Moravia, and not far off in the Balkans.
Guy Evans
137 Blackheath Park, London SE3
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