Kingdom Of Wallachia In Turmoil

Humor departs when money is involved:

The faux Kingdom of Wallachia is nestled in the northeast corner of the Czech Republic, 230 miles from Prague. It was founded in 1997 by the itinerant photographer Tomas Harabis, its current foreign minister, as an elaborate practical joke.

The ruse quickly captured the imagination of Czechs, long drawn to black humor and parody, and Wallachia, which also happens to be a real place, became one of the country’s biggest tourist attractions. Its success has led to a real-life battle over who owns the kingdom, which generates hundreds of thousands of euros in revenue each year.

The kingdom has the requisites of authentic statehood, including a currency called the jurovalsar; consulates in the Arctic Circle and Togo; a Royal Wallachian Navy, consisting of 40 wooden canoes; a bright yellow Communist-era limousine for use by visiting dignitaries; and a burgundy passport, covered with a picture of the pagan god Radegast, that Mr. Harabis says he has used to cross the border from Canada to Alaska.

“The Kingdom of Wallachia is a parody of Czech identity because nothing is holy for Czechs,” Mr. Harabis, 37, the son of a former Communist schoolteacher, explained recently. “Our history and reality is marked by depression, invasion and occupation, while fiction and fantasy let you do and be whatever you want.”

The political dispute stretches back to Mr. Harabis’s decision in 1997 to crown Bolek Polivka, a classically trained clown and famous Czech actor, as king of Wallachia. At the time, Mr. Polivka seemed an ideal choice: he had already crowned himself by a somewhat different title, Wallachian King, Boleslav I the Gracious Forever, on his popular television show.

Mr. Polivka became the face of the kingdom, signing its passports and attracting thousands of visitors. A formal coronation in the Wallachian town of Vsetin in 2000 was televised nationally and attended by 5,000 guests. Soldiers in traditional pointy shepherd hats fired cannons as the king inspected his subjects from atop a horse.

But in 2001, a fight for control of the kingdom erupted. Mr. Harabis charged that Mr. Polivka had begun to open Wallachian consulates without his permission and demanded 1 million Czech crowns — about $27,000 — to remain king.

Mr. Harabis responded by issuing an edict saying Mr. Polivka was no longer king and eventually installing a local construction worker, Vladimir Zhanel, as the new monarch: Vladimir II.

In 2002, Mr. Polivka went to court over who owned the kingdom’s trademark. The case became front-page news across the country. Finally, last fall, a Czech court ruled that Mr. Polivka had no right to profit from any association with the kingdom.

“The whole thing was meant to be a joke, but Polivka began to believe that he really was a king,” Mr. Harabis said.

Mr. Polivka retorted in an interview that it was Mr. Harabis who had allowed business interests to blunt his sense of humor, saying that he himself was motivated only “by fun.” And even if he was officially ousted as monarch, he said, 23 of 28 municipalities across the kingdom still regarded him as the rightful king.

“There is an air force loyal to me, a royal guard; we even have a Trabant tank division,” he said. “We have not only conquered space but planted our sacred blue plum trees on the moon.”

In fact, the Wallachian Royal Air Force consists of five Cessnas emblazoned with a Wallachian crest: an emaciated chicken falling through the sky.