Tintinophile

Historical events were always very important in Tintin’s stories. During his first adventure, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929), Tintin travels to Russia. After the October Revolution in 1917 and a five-year civil war, Stalin had succeeded Lenin in 1924. He accelerated industrialization and his political police terrified the population. Moreover, the country was ravaged by famine. At that time, Westerners were frightened of “Bolsheviks” and Hergé worked for a right-wing Catholic anticommunist newspaper, Le XX^è Siècle. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets only reflected people’s mentality of that time. Hergé denounced fake factories that misled western journalists, arbitrary arrests, false elections,¹ torture in prison, abandoned children, and so on.

Five years later, in 1934, Tintin went to China which was the victim of Japanese imperialism. Since 1931, Japanese troops had occupied parts of the Chinese mainland. Hergé based his story upon the events of the time. For example, in The Blue Lotus, he found his inspiration in the blowing-up of the South Manchurian railway, which brought about the Japanese invasion of China and ultimately Japan’s resignation from the League of Nations in 1933. Hergé reproduced all these events in The Blue Lotus. He had been made aware of China’s situation by Chang and he opposed Japan, which was in opposition to the pro-Japanese western position. It was the first time he has taken so much interest in international events. Less partisan, the presentation of Palestine is different in the three versions of Tintin in the Land of Black Gold. Hergé never finished the first which takes place entirely in Palestine, because the Second World War broke out. In the second version, published in 1949, he referred to the struggle of Jewish organizations against the British occupier. But in 1969, British editors put pressure on Hergé and he removed these allusions. This last version thereby lost its historical aspect.

Thanks to his narrative techniques, Hergé referred to events that are normally not treated in comic strips. His method was complex, nevertheless one of his favorite tools was the imaginary country. Tintin travels twice to the first imaginary country created by Hergé, San Theodoros. Here, in The Broken Ear, the political context was inspired by the Gran Chaco War, a bloody conflict - resulting in 100,000 deaths - between Bolivia and Paraguay, which began in 1932,² then in Tintin and the Picaros, Hergé illustrated the economic and political situation in South America.

Syldavia and Borduria are the most successful of Hergé’s imaginary countries. These “East European metaphors” recall two critical periods of the twentieth century.³ The two countries first appeared in King Ottokar’s Sceptre, in 1938. Since 1933, Germany had threatened Austria, and on March 11, 1938, German troops had invaded the little country. These events were recent when the serialization of King Ottokar’s Sceptre began. In fact, Syldavia is the synthesis of three real countries. First, the conspiracy and the “fifth column” infiltrated into Syldavia represent the conspiracy against Austria. Second, its old conflict with Borduria, its architecture and its language have Polish characteristics. And third, geography and history resemble these of Romania. Likewise, Borduria is similar to Germany. For example, they both invaded their neighbour, Syldavia and Poland on several occasions. Moreover, the name of the pro-Bordurian party’s leader, “Müsstler”, seems to be a synthesis of Mussolini and Hitler.⁴ Uniforms that look like SS uniforms, and planes that are very similar to Messerschmit 109E fighters,⁵ are other signs of Hergé’s aim: to describe and denounce an Anschluss. Sixteen years later, Syldavia and Borduria were back in The Calculus Affair (1954-1956) during the Cold War. In Europe, the situation had been very tense since 1946, a situation worsened by the Berlin blockade, the Korean war and the Warsaw Pact. The arms race speeded up and the first H-bomb was exploded in 1953. Spying was intense. In The Calculus Affair, many elements refer to the events of the period. Tensions between the two countries appear to have been inspired by the situation between the two Germanys. Moreover, the personality cult of Plekszy-Gladz, the Bordurian president, resembled Stalin’s personality cult.⁶ Finally, with its architecture and the methods of its police, Borduria is similar to a country of the eastern bloc. Syldavia and Borduria could easily represent the confrontation between the two blocs, as they represented in the past the conflict between western democracies and Germany.⁷

Through imaginary countries, like Syldavia and San Theodoros, and direct allusion to real events, Hergé showed a concern for accurate explanations that had consequences in the perception of Tintin stories. Many adults read Tintin a long time after they discover his adventures, maybe because they did not completely understand the historical context during their childhood. But some questions about the perception of Tintin stories still exist. How would a child who does not know anything about history interpret the context of King Ottokar’s Sceptre, for example? How would a young Japanese interpret the political situation in The Blue Lotus? Nevertheless, enormous sales of Tintin’s stories - more than 120 million copies in 40 languages⁸ - show that allusions to historical events do not affect the success. Events were seen through Belgian eyes, but the hero travels the whole world and he is extremely open-minded. Nationality, language and religion have little significance, because a reader of Tintin’s adventures can always identify with the reporter. Hergé said “There are clearly reasons for this success since it has lasted so long and continues to grow. Well then?… It’s like a flowing stream, but what is its nature?… I receive, for example, a lot of mail from India. Here in the office are two letters from Calcutta. Now, what can there be in common between a boy in Calcutta and myself?… That’s something I am still asking myself without finding an answer.”⁹ His allusions to historical events may be one of the explanations.