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Graustark

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Principality of Graustark
Flag of Graustark
Flag
Coat of Arms of Graustark
Coat of Arms
Motto: Better lost than forgotten
Anthem: "Sweet homeland of mine"
Location of Graustark
Map versions 16.4.6 - Present
Capital Edelweiss
Largest city Ganlook
Official language(s) English (official)
Phoklandian (regional)
Official religion(s) Roman Catholicism
Demonym Graustarkian
 - Adjective Graustarkian
Government Absolute Monarchy
 - Prime Minister position vacant
 - Prince Charles of Graustark
 - Legislature Royal Diet
Establishment 25 August 2019 (land changed hands)
Area 810,000 km²
Population 6,200,000
Active population 4
Currency Imperial Dollars (ʑ), Genoves (ɛ̃)
Calendar
Time zone(s)
Mains electricity
Driving side
Track gauge
National website Official Website
National forum National Forums
National animal Mallard Duck
National food Meat Loaf
National drink Balmora Sunrise
National tree Palm Tree
Abbreviation GRA

Graustark, officially known as the Principality of Graustark, is a wiki/reality based simulationist micronation located in northwestern Eura. The nation was created as a geofictional project based upon the idea of operating a fictional nation within the "real world". Though the nations's territorial claims are by their vary nature fictional, the royal government is strongly based in the realm of reality.

Etymology

The nation's name of "Graustark" comes from the novel "Graustark: The Story of a Love Behind a Throne" by George Barr McCutcheon in which the fictional country serves as the main setting.

Geography

Due to her fairly large size (both within and witout Micras), Graustark contains a vast variety of geographical oddities.

Micras

Within Eura, the principality is located in the northeastern most parts of the continent. The claimed area is roughly 800,000 square kilometers Inside these territories, the state consists of a mostly tropical environment with vast coast lines and small forests farther inland.

The seasonal climate of Graustark is fairly mild with summer time temperatures reaching averages of around 70-80 degrees (Fahrenheit) and winter temperatures of 60-65 degrees. Temperature aside, Graustark is often prone to severe tropical thunder storms and rain is commonplace near the nations southern coasts.

Earth

Graustark is described in novels as a mountainous nation with a total land size of roughly 800 square miles (2,100 km2). However, there is at least one source that places the state somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains near Romania.

This all is debatable though as according to another source, Graustark is only 25 miles wide by 150 miles long and the nation's capital city, Edelweiss, is apparently accessible by train from Vienna.

History

The nation of Graustark has a long, rich and often frightening (supposed) history dating back to the late 19th centaury.

Mythology

This article contains information from Wikipedia. For editing credit and citation, view said Wikipedia article.

According to legend, 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.

Princess Beverly of Graustark who ruled the nation during its most tumultuous times in the early 20th century.

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, 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. In exchange for entering World War I 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 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 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.

How all of this was possible (as Graustark is on Micras) is still unknown, though several investigations into the matter point out the use of trans-universal "worm holes" as the most likely possibility.

Original Mythology

Following the fall of communist Axphain, Graustark entered a period of prosperity with the nation remaining relatively neutral for the next twenty years (barring a small military build up in early 1938). This neutrality was shattered in early 1940 when (after successfully annexing neighboring Poland to the north), Germany (under the control of the Third Reich) attacked and subsequently invaded Graustark. During the ensuing conflict Prince Robin and the rest of the direct royal family fled the nation, gaining sanctuary in neutral Switzerland.

Graustark remained firmly under German occupation until mid-1945 when it was liberated by the Allied Powers. Following liberation, Prince Robin and the rest of the royal family returned to the nation in 1947 and following massive foreign aid, the state entered into a period of massive economic growth and prosperity. This economic "boom" would begin to fade off as the 1950's began and by 1952, Graustak's growth seemed to level out.

The 1950's would also see the beginning of the Cold War and despite being neighbored to the north by the Warsaw Pact and to the south by capitalist Austria, Graustark would remain as a neutral un-aligned state (though it would mostly conduct itself with western nations). This status quo would continue until the early 1990's and the subsequent breakup of communism within Europe.

Documented history

The confirmed (real life) history of Graustark begins in mid-late 2019 when long time micronationalist (and "claimed" decedent of the crown) Charles Ross re-started the nation of Graustark as a simulationist micronation.

His reasons for creating the nation were that he wished to make a new micronation, not tethered down by international treaties and conflicts. He also waned to build a nation that while heavily based in mythos would function in the "real world" with a fully functional government and citizenry. In the end, it was decided the fantastical nation of Graustark from George Barr McCutcheon's series of novels would be chosen as the starting point for the new nation.

In building the state, Ross took major influence from the geofictional/simulationist state of Ruritania. This micronation (that was founded in the 1960's) served a similar purpose to Graustark and shared a similar base material (that being a fictional country from a novel series).

After agreeing to step down from his previous micronational position (as Tsar of the Tsardom of Phokland), Charles set to work on Graustark and on 25 August 2019, he crowned himself Prince Charles of Graustark, thus beginning the new nation's story.

Government

Graustark has been historically (as well as functionally) an absolute monarchy under the theory of divine right. Despite this, an advisory government made up of both common citizens and the nobility exist. This "government" is headed by a Prime Minister who's position is to both head this advisory government and to serve as the monarch's lead adviser in matters of legislative and internal affairs.

Controversy

Controversy has stemmed from the fact the while functioning as a legitimate micronation, the nation holds on to it's fictional history and holds it in the same regards as it's "real" history. This has caused some people to claim that the state is to vague on what is truthful and what isn't.