Oftentimes, The Old Country and the Quirky Neighbour Country is a Ruritania or an Uberwald. We hope you brought some garlic and don't leave the hotel room at night.
FICTIONAL COUNTRY IN THE PRISONER OF ZENDA FULL
If the place shows some of the characteristics of Ruritania, but is also full of vampires, werewolves, Mad Scientists, and other Fantasy or Horror genre tropes, you've strayed over the border into Überwald. With any luck, contemporary Ruritania might be a part of the EU, causing more trouble for its finances than Greece, Spain and Ireland taken together - and in any case, the only international attention Ruritania seems to get occurs during the Eurovision Song Contest, which it wins frequently and handily thanks to votes from the Ruritanian guest workers omnipresent in rich Western European countries. Nonetheless, nationalists will spring up causing ruckus all over the country. In recent years, they would have to deal with refugees from Syria or a Qurac substitute, and the citizens will either welcome them with open arms, or close their borders. Everyone still seems to hate his neighbours, the anarchists may still be around, or they may have mutated into terrorists or plain old gangsters. The most noticeable changes are that the monarchy is (usually) gone, replaced by a mock democracy run by some unsavoury generals, ex-communist strongmen, or corrupt bajillionaires, while the Great Powers are now acting through NATO or the UN. With the coming of Hole in Flag revolutions, Ruritania has pretty much reverted to what it started with: ludicrous hair, ethnic strife, poverty, and backwardness. Although it is worth noting that where most examples of this trope are set in the Balkans or Eastern Europe, the original was wedged between Germany and Bohemia and had a Germanic-style culture. A classic example is, of course, the original. That last bit was actually true, unfortunately. The kingdom was forever being schemed against by a lot of dastardly usurpers or anarchists and was a source of tension amongst the Great Powers. The King actually did something, the Prince was dashing, the Princess was dazzling, and the headgear was quite frankly ridiculous. At that time and in most early 20th century depictions, Ruritania had a royal house. It spurred an entire genre, known as the Ruritanian Romance (which is derived from Chivalric Romance, not the love story meaning of Romance). The concept originated about the same time the idea itself was at least in part inspired by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was popularly (and inaccurately, for the most part) regarded by Western Europeans as incompetent and backwater. The name comes from Anthony Hope's 1894 novel The Prisoner of Zenda. It is often the home of the Funny Foreigner. This country is characterized by its small size, backward or quirky customs, and forests full of Savage Wolves and bears. Ruritania is a generic name for any archetypal fictional country located in Central Europe or the Balkans, an area of Southern and Eastern Europe encompassing most of the territory east of Germany and west of Russia.
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