History Main / Ruritania

* Possibly the UrExample: The Grand Duchy of Gerolstein in Music/JacquesOffenbach 1867 operetta ''Theatre/{{La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein}}''.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' has an episode featuring the country run by the villain Baron Underbheit. It resembled the generic Eastern Europe country in every way... castles, forests, doomy dooms of gloom... but it is learned in the last few seconds of the episode that it somehow borders Michigan. Baron Underbheit is an {{expy}} of Doctor Doom. (As lampshaded by the Monarch.)

* ''Franchise/LupinIII'':
** A few miscellaneous Ruritanias have been featured on the various ''Lupin'' TV series. Notable movie examples below.

[[caption-width-right:350:Syldavia: best known for its fezzes, [[TheBackwardsR Cyrillic writing]], and unpaved roads.]]

* The long-running soap opera ''Series/DaysOfOurLives'' had an often villainous family, the Alamains, who were royalty from a small European country named Alamania. In an aversion, it's actually implied to be somewhere around France, Germany, and/or Switzerland (and Alemania is the RealLife alternate name of Germany in Spanish), but the country is often depicted as so impoverished, autocratic, and corrupt that it might as well be a former Soviet Bloc country.

** Surprisingly, the utility covers for gas pipelines in RealLife Poland ''really are'' labeled "gäz".

[[caption-width-right:350:Syldavia: best known for its fezzes, [[TheBackwardsR Cyrillic writing]] and unpaved roads.]]

Between the wars, the typical Ruritania became slightly less primitive. Wolves, bears, and superstitious peasants still abounded, but automobiles had been introduced and the army now had tanks and planes, with which it prepared bloody revenge on its neighbours. The royals were still around, if a bit less powerful than before, but are now being schemed against by even more dastardly [[ThoseWackyNazis fascists]] and [[DirtyCommies communists]]. When WWII rolled around, Ruritania was likely occupied by the Germans, or was possibly itself an Axis power. In either case, brave partisans equipped with [[BadassBeard formidable beards]] kept up a heroic struggle against tyranny without forgetting their true enemy -- the village on the other side of the valley. After the war, many Ruritanias became CommieLand and continued to be a lurking place for DirtyCommunists, either Soviet-backed or home-grown.

With the coming of UsefulNotes/HoleInFlag revolutions, Ruritania has pretty much reverted to what it started with: ludicrous hair, ethnic strife, poverty, and backwardness. The most noticeable changes are that the monarchy is (usually) gone, replaced by a [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny mock democracy]] run by some [[TheGeneralissimo unsavoury generals]], [[FormerRegimePersonnel ex-communist strongmen]], or [[CorruptCorporateExecutive corrupt bajillionaires]], while the Great Powers are now acting through NATO or the UN. Everyone still seems to hate his neighbours, the anarchists may still be around, or they may have mutated into [[TerroristsWithoutACause terrorists]] or plain old gangsters. 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. Nonetheless, nationalists will spring up causing ruckus all over the country. 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 Series/EurovisionSongContest, which it wins frequently and handily thanks to votes from the Ruritanian guest workers omnipresent in rich Western European countries.

* ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar'': Various maps place Julis's homeland of Lieseltania on the southeastern border of Germany, the real-life location of the Czech Republic. In fact it's implied it used to be the western half of Czechia: it used to be part of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire and was given ''de jure'' independence by the [[OneNationUnderCopyright Integrated Enterprise Foundation]] in exchange for access to its Manadite resources, though it is ''de facto'' an IEF PuppetState.

* ''Meine Liebe'' is set between world wars in a lovely noble monarchy on an non-existing island in the Bay of Biscay which lives as if it was still XIX or even XVIII century.

* ''[[Franchise/{{Tintin}} The Adventures of Tintin]]'' feature Syldavia, a kind of Balkan Belgium menaced by its warlike neighbor Borduria. Borduria stands in for Nazism in ''Recap/TintinKingOttokarsSceptre'' and for Stalinesque Communism in later stories. Syldavia is an atypically detailed version of {{Ruritania}} with its own flag, royal dynasty, historical events and even a language created by Hergé. The made-up language, despite being written in Cyrillic script, was, remarkably, not Slavic but a dialect of Flemish/Dutch with some curious phonetics. In ''Recap/TintinDestinationMoon'', it becomes the setting for a fictional space program. In ''Recap/TintinTheCalculusAffair'', Syldavia and Borduria are struggling in a secret war for [[AppliedPhlebotinum Calculus' device]]. The consul of Poldavia (see under Real Life) makes a brief appearance in ''Recap/TintinTheBlueLotus''.

** The first storyline in ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmericaRebirth'' features several of them, all pre-existing (although mostly not previously established in current continuity): Mostly set in Kravia (from 90s ''Comicbook/{{Nightwing}}'') and its neighbour Gardevia (from ''Comicbook/BatmanAndRobinEternal''), it has one scene in which Havok threatens the leaders of Markovia, Pokolistan, Slovekia (the pre-''Flashpoint'' Lord Havok's Latveria counterpart) and even Kaznia from the Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse.

* ''TV 21'', the comic which tied in to various Creator/GerryAnderson shows, had the country of Bereznik which acted as a recurring source of antagonists. This country was apparently carved out at some point in the 21st century from various real life countries following TheGreatPoliticsMessUp.

** There is also the occasional mention of the neighboring country of North Elbonia, which is just like Elbonia but with an even worse government which is downright evil instead of merely stupid.
** Incidentally, the strips which introduced Elbonia described it as an Eastern European country which had recently changed from communism to capitalism ([[RippedFromTheHeadlines this was written around the time of]] TheGreatPoliticsMessUp). This backstory appears to have been {{Retcon}}ned away in subsequent strips.
* Lower Slobbovia is a communist Ruritania which plays a large role in many ''ComicStrip/LilAbner'' plotlines.

* In ''Film/DodgeballATrueUnderdogStory'', White Goodman mentions that team [[OpposingSportsTeam Purple Cobras]]' resident DarkChick Fran Stalinovskovichdavidovitchsky hails form the country of Romanovia, where Dodgeball is the national sport.

* ''Film/TheGrandBudapestHotel'' is set in the fictional Central European country of Zubrowka (named after a well-known brand of Polish flavoured vodka), the seat of an empire before a conflict (described by director Creator/WesAnderson as a amalgamation of WWI and WWII) with its "neighbor to the north" breaks out in late 1932. The Empire of Zubrowka quickly falls due to government and military incompetence, endures a short-lived but imperious occupation, becomes the Republic of Zubrowka, and is overtaken by a Communist regime in the 1940's. By the modern day, the former Republic of Zubrowka is a quiet Alpine backwater. Zubrowka itself was designed as a representation of pre-WWI Austro-Hungary, with Lutz, its capital city, intended to be Vienna, Prague, and Budapest "all rolled into one". Hence, it's closer to the original (i.e. Germanic or "Habsburg-influnced") concept of the TropeNamer than many other examples.

* The largely forgotten W.C. Fields classic ''Film/MillionDollarLegs'' (1932) takes place in Klopstockia (chief exports: goats and nuts: chief imports: goats and nuts: chief inhabitants: goats and nuts). The country's out of money and the President's (Creator/WCFields) own cabinet are plotting against him. American salesman Migg Tweeney (Jack Oakie), who's fallen in love with the President's daughter Angela (Susan Fleming, later Mrs. Arthur (Harpo) Marx), notices a lot of champion-level athletes among the general population. Since his boss (George Barbier) plans to give huge financial grants to Olympic gold medal winners, Tweeney arranges to have Klopstockia entered in the 1932 Games. In the opening scene we see that Klopstockia is 56km from Haustpeff. Both this film and ''Duck Soup'' were produced for Paramount by Herman Manckiewicz.

* Concordia in the UsefulNotes/ColdWar comedy ''Film/{{Romanoff and Juliet}}'', a postage-stamp European nation that has been conquered and liberated so many times that its citizens "are nominally the freest people in the world", and every day is an Independence Day of some sort. (In the original stage version, the country is not named.) Fiercely determined to maintain neutral during the Cold War, the prime minister ended up playing matchmaker between [[StarCrossedLovers the Russian ambassador's son and the American ambassador's daughter]]. Concordia is the ass of the UN; at the UN roll-call, all the nations are called in alphabetical order, with a note on the bottom of the page, "P.S. [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg And Concordia]]." The country could be a parody of Tito's Yugoslavia.

* The 1940 film ''Film/TheSonOfMonteCristo'' takes place in the the Balkan kingdom of "Lichtenburg", where the good Princess Zona (Joan Bennett) suffers from the advances of the unscrupulous dictator, General Gurko Lanen (George Sanders). The eponymous hero (Lewis Hayward) leads the revolution in the guise of "The Torch."

* ''Film/TroubleForTwo'': A two-fer, as the crown prince of Corovia hurriedly leaves the country for England when he's told he's going to be wed in ArrangedMarriage to the princess of Irania.

* ''Literature/AgatonSax:'' This detective drama spoof featured the Balkan (and appearenly Communist) republics Brosnia and Mercegovina. The eponymous detective starts his career by stopping counterfeiters from wrecking the Brosnian economy. Brosnian criminal mastermind professor Anaxagoras Frank is a regular bad guy, and the author, who loved to play with language, gives us several examples of "Brosnian".

* Mixolydia is a Slavic Ruritania invented by Angela Thirkell for her ''Barsetshire'' novels. In the novel "Cheerfulness Breaks In," set in the opening year of World War Two, Barsetshire has to accomodate a number of refugees from Mixolydia, all of whom are various foreigner tropes. We learn that the local religion is Orthodoxy, and they have a long list of hereditary enemies among real-world nations. The name is a word-play on the mixolydian mode or scale in music.

* The ''Literature/ChaletSchool'' series has Belsornia, a fictional kingdom located somewhere in the Balkans, near Italy, where the state religion is Catholicism (as opposed to Orthodox Christianity). The king's granddaughter, Elisaveta, is the titular princess in 'Princess of the Chalet School'' and subject of a kidnapping conspiracy by her father's evil cousin, Prince Cosimo. In the World War 2 era books, Belsornia is invaded by the Nazis and Elisaveta and her family are forced to flee, and she becomes a FallenPrincess who works as a cleaner to survive, and takes on the name of 'Mrs Helston' (Helston being her mother-in-law's name). After the war ends, Belsornia becomes a republic and is annexed by the Soviet Union.

* An unusual example can be found in the city-state of Besźel, one of the title cities in Creator/ChinaMieville's ''Literature/TheCityAndTheCity''. It's described as being bustling and economically prosperous in the 80s, but decayed and backwater in the current day, overtaken by its neighbor city-state, the Istanbul analogue of Ul Qoma. What's so unique about Besźel and Ul Qoma is that ''they occupy the same space''. The citizens of one city are taught from birth to completely ignore the existence of the other, setting up much of the book's plot.

** The posthumously published ''Compleat Discworld Atlas'' hints at Borogravia, Zlobenia, Mouldavia and a patchwork of semi-autonomous statelets in Far Überwald being a kind of embryonic "Russian Federation" coming together, at first, as an "economic co-operation zone".

* The fictional country of Ravka in ''Literature/TheGrishaTrilogy'' is based off of Tsarist Russia.

* Robert Musil's "Kakania" (from the term "K.u.K.") wasn't so much based on the Habsburg Empire. Rather, it pretty much ''was'' Austria-Hungary. He proceeds to describe how strange, unappreciated and unflattering it was. In the end however, he realizes that Kakania/Habsburgia had an underlying order that betrayed a stroke of genius.

* ''Literature/NickVelvet'': In "The Theft of the Crystal Crown", Nick is hired to steal the symbolic (but valueless) glass crown of the Kingdom of New Ionia. New Ionia is a constitutional monarchy on a island between the southern tips of Italy and Greece. The island is 50 miles long and 25 miles wide with one major city. It also has a lot of strange customs, as is to be expected in a Ruritania, and Nick's theft has the potential to completely overthrow the social order.
* Splotvia in the ''Literature/NurseryCrime'' series. In keeping with Creator/JasperFforde's fondess for AnachronismStew and RetroUniverse, it was a monarchy until the 1990s, and ''then'' became a socialist republic at around the same time as the Soviet Union was collapsing.

** There is also a fair bit of UnbuiltTrope at work. Most later Ruritanias tend to be small, backwards and, at least in the early imitations, idyllic. Stephenson's Ruritania was a decent-sized (the capital city is large enough to have a cathedral and is described by Londoner Rassendyl as a "great city") modern (if not particularly socially progressive) country which played a pivotal role in European history on a number of occasions, and which was plagued by public order problems, deep socio-economic divides, having an absolute monarch who was neither particularly well-liked nor particularly competent and internal squabbling in the royal family bringing the nation to the brink of civil war.

** In "The Big Umbrella", the king of a nameless Ruritania gets deposed by a military coup, and winds up in New York with no money. (A character remarks that this is happening so often nowadays that ex-kings are becoming something of a nuisance.) This particular ex-king gets a job as a prize-fighter, which gives him some useful skills and acquaintances when he goes to get his throne back.

* James Hogan's ''Voyage From Yesteryear'' has Baluchistan, a tangentially-mentioned (and surprisingly extant, though only as a region in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, and not a state) battleground for the US and USSR.

* Spoofed in ''Series/{{Castle}}'' : A murdered spy was supposed to assassinate someone from a country called the Republic of Lovania, but quick Internet search reveals that no such country exists. [[spoiler:The murder victim turns out to have been taking part in a [[{{LARP}} "spy vacation."]]]]

* One episode of ''Series/{{Forever}}'' features a Ruritania called Urkesh. Henry saved its prince decades ago, before the monarchy was overthrown in a violent revolution. When the prince, now an old man, dies in New York, Henry investigates and discovers that he was poisoned. Henry's phrase to the deceased's wife after finding out who he was indicates that the people of Urkesh speak Russian. A scene at an Urkesh restaurant indicates that they use Cyrillic.

* ''Series/MissionImpossible'' sent the main characters into various incarnations of Soviet Ruritania on a regular basis. The producers made up a fake Ruritanian "language" (called Gellerese after the show's executive producer) to use on signs; the idea was that it look somewhat Slavic, but similar enough to English that the viewing audience could immediately guess what it meant - and thus such subtle jokes as "zona restrik", "machinawerke", "gäz" and "entraat verbaten" got into an otherwise serious show.

* ''Series/PerfectStrangers'', of course, has the Mediterranean island nation of Mypos, a takeoff on Greece and/or Cyprus with elements of a tourist's eye view of Turkey, Armenia and Lebanon. Aspects of Mypos culture seem to be borrowed from George Papashvily's famous book ''Anything Can Happen'', about his early days in the U.S. as a Georgian immigrant. In fact, one episode was a retelling of Papashvily's epic tale of how he attempted to go into business with some friends and made and sold ''khinkali'' dumplings to restaurants.

* While we aren't given the exact location of Yerba from ''Series/{{Victorious}}'', it does resembles a stereotypical Ruritanian country. The military outfits and the occurring conflicts seem to reference war-era Germany and Russia (or the more current Libyan civil war); and the Yerbanian flag's basis IS the Albanian flag.

* Often invoked during the "Improbable Mission" segments of ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway''. Colin and Ryan inevitably end up doing a task for the president or prime minster of a country with a name like Allupania or Garfunkistan.

* ''TabletopGame/Space1889'' places an actual Ruritania in the Balkans, in ''Conklin's Atlas of the Worlds''. The Army is mentioned in ''The Solider's Companion'' as having six regiments of infantry in grey, with green trim, two regiments of cavalry in grey with black trim. The flag has the upper 2/3rds with equal stripes of blue, white and green, with the lower third red.

* Possibly the UrExample : The Grand Duchy of Gerolstein in Music/JacquesOffenbach 1867 operetta ''Theatre/{{La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein}}''.

* ''Film/YoungFrankenstein'' says outright, in the song "Transylvania Mania," "Whether you're in Ruritania, or a dance hall in Albania."

** In ''Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth'' there is Cohdopia, an European nation that was split into two smaller countries (Babahl and Allebahst) as well. As well as as the republic of Zheng Fa.
* ''VideoGame/OperationFlashpoint'''s {{Spiritual Successor}}s, ''VideoGame/{{ARMA}}: Armed Assault'', is full of those as their main settings. Mostly to prevent controversies but still provide an accurate foregin conflict zone.
** ''VideoGame/{{ARMA}}: Armed Assault'' has The Kingdom of Sahrani Island played this trope fairly straight, being a stereotypical [[SpaghettiAndGondolas Mediterranean]]-[[TorosYFlamenco esque]] monarchy based on Cyprus. It's adversary is the aforementioned PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny in the northern half of the island, which broke away from the kingdom a few years ago. There's even a city, called ''Corazól'' located in the border between the North and South where there's a walled demilitarized zone diving the city in two, filled with ruined buildings. [[spoiler:If you succeed in beating the main campaign, you can defeat the Democratic Republic of Sahrani and help restore the original united kingdom.]]

** The Republic of Altis and Stratis in ''VideoGame/{{ARMA}} III'' is an interesting example. The maps are based on real life greek islands 'Lemnos' and 'Agios Efstratios' (Altough the game [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield makes clear it's NOT the islands with a different name in the future but an entire separate location]]), the general theme of the islands is very similar to the countries of UsefulNotes/{{Malta}} and UsefulNotes/{{Cyprus}} - independent Mediterranean island republic - with the history begin mostly similar to UsefulNotes/{{Cyprus}} than Malta, both Altis and Cyprus were colonized by various nations, such as the Phoenicians, Greeks and Arabs, both nations are mostly famous for their tourist attractions, both nations became independent recently from the British, both suffered at the hands of a bloody civil war (Altough Cyprus' case was mostly ethnic), both became overseen by foreign peacekeepers and were invaded by a Near Eastern power. The AAF is also very similar to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_of_Malta Armed forces of Malta]], the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypriot_National_Guard Cypriot National Guard]] and the [[UsefulNotes/ThisIsHellas Hellenic Armed Forces]].

** City 17, while not acknowledged to be anywhere specific within the game, is modeled after Sofia, capitol of Bulgaria and the Art Director's home town. The plaza in particular is almost identical (besides the Combine locks, checkpoints, cameras, and sense of Orwellian tyranny, of course).

* Arulco in ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2''. Possibly. Arulco seems to have some difficulty in deciding whether it wants to be a Ruritania or a BananaRepublic. Parts of the country are filled with pine forests and log houses, others are deserts and jungles. The BigBad is explicitly Romanian, but married the former king, who has the very Spanish-sounding name Enrico Chivaldori. The inhabitants all speak English, but their names and accents vary between American, Spanish, German and vaguely East European with no rhyme or reason whatsoever.

* Hyrule in ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' is a MedievalEuropeanFantasy version of this, being a monarchy with a lot of Greek influences in it's architecture, monsters and naming schemes that is constantly conquered, has quirky customs, a bloody history and borders a desert country inhabited by Arab-like peoples.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' - Outer Heaven, although various supplementary materials state that it is located within the Republic of South Africa. The Galzburg region of the Republic of South Africa, however, does qualify as a ruritania.

* ''VideoGame/NancyDrew The White Wolf of Icicle Creek'' features a character named Yanni who is a skiier from a country called "Fredonia". Not much is learned of Fredonia, but one can guess that it is an Eastern Europe or possibly former Soviet-union state from his accent. For a series that usually tires to set itself within the real world, it really stands out to see an entirely fictional country implied to exist. This was likely justified in that [[spoiler: Yanni is the game's culprit, who was bombing to attempt to mine for Uranium on orders of his government. Given the political motivations for his actions, Her Interactive probably did not want to point fingers at any particular real-world government nor did they want to make it an even more dated game by setting it pre 1990s and have him be a soviet spy.]]

* The Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse has Kaznia/Kasnia, a fictional country which appears to be located in the Balkans and to alternate (throughout the various time periods it is visited) between peace and a civil war between Northern and Southern factions.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' proper, Griffonstone is eventually revealed to be this, as a counterpart to Equestria's SchizoTech MedievalEuropeanFantasy. Everyone wears clothing that ranges from Hungarian/Romanian to Turkish to Mongolian. The houses seem vaguely reminiscent of Eastern European Gothic architecture, and are notably more primitive (for instance, they seem to have no internal plumbing). It's also backwards technologically and culturally, and almost everyone is impoverished and unfriendly since the loss of their national treasure.
* Fredonia and Sylvania, two Eastern European countries that appear in a single episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfSpeedRacer,'' have a centuries of hostility between them. The names are a nod to the countries in ''Film/DuckSoup'', above.

* Poldavia (Poldévie) was a fictional country invented by a French journalist who was a member of a far-right organization in 1929. Its supposed representatives wrote letters to French Senators to ask them to intervene in a Civil War supposed to take place in their country. The prank mainly targeted radical-leftist and anticlerical Senators. The politician Marcel Déat in an editorial printed on May 4, 1939, wrote that Danzig was not worth fighting a war over and that French farmers had no desire to die for the Poldavians ("mourir pour les Poldèves"). Déat went on to become a prominent fascist politician in Vichy and occupied France. Poldavia was also cited as the "birth place" of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki Nicolas Bourbaki]].

* Fredonia and Sylvania, two Eastern European countries that appear in a single episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfSpeedRacer,'' have a centuries of hostility between them.

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. This country is characterized by its small size, [[CloudCuckooland backward or quirky customs]], and forests full of SavageWolves and {{bears|AreBadNews}}. It is often the home of the FunnyForeigner.

Between the wars, the typical Ruritania became slightly less primitive. Wolves, bears, and superstitious peasants still abounded, but automobiles had been introduced and the army now had tanks and planes, with which it prepared bloody revenge on its neighbours. The royals were still around, if a bit less powerful then before, but are now being schemed against by even more dastardly [[ThoseWackyNazis fascists]] and [[DirtyCommies communists]]. When [=WW2=] rolled around, Ruritania was likely occupied by the Germans, or was possibly itself an Axis power. In either case, brave partisans equipped with [[BadassBeard formidable beards]] kept up a heroic struggle against tyranny without forgetting their true enemy - the village on the other side of the valley. After the war, many Ruritanias became CommieLand and continued to be a lurking place for DirtyCommunists, either Soviet-backed or home-grown.

With the coming of UsefulNotes/HoleInFlag revolutions, Ruritania has pretty much reverted to what it started with: ludicrous hair, ethnic strife, poverty, and backwardness. The most noticeable changes are that the monarchy is (usually) gone, replaced by a [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny mock democracy]] run by some [[TheGeneralissimo unsavoury generals]], [[FormerRegimePersonnel ex-communist strongmen]], or [[CorruptCorporateExecutive corrupt bajillionaires]], while the Great Powers are now acting through NATO or the UN. Everyone still seems to hate his neighbours, the anarchists may still be around, or they may have mutated into [[TerroristsWithoutACause terrorists]] or plain old gangsters. 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. Nonetheless, nationalists will spring up causing ruckus all over the country. 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 Series/EurovisionSongContest, which it wins frequently and handily thanks to votes from the Ruritanian guest workers omnipresent in rich Western European countries.

* Discover's advertising includes a bearded Ruritanian man calling himself "Advertising/{{Peggy}}," who acts to mock their competitors' overseas call centres.

* ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar'': Various maps place Julis's homeland of Lieseltania on the southeastern border of Germany, the real-life location of the Czech Republic. In fact it's implied it used to be the western half of Czechia: it used to be part of the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire and was given ''de jure'' independence by the [[OneNationUnderCopyright Integrated Enterprise Foundation]] in exchange for access to its Manadite resources, though it is ''de facto'' an IEF PuppetState.
* ''Manga/TheRoyalTutor'' is set in the Eastern European kingdom of Granzreich.

* ''ComicBook/AchilleTalon'' has the Zotrland, a German speaking monarchy whose main export is beer and that is constantly on the brink of civil war.
* ''[[Franchise/{{Tintin}} The Adventures of Tintin]]'' feature Syldavia, a kind of Balkan Belgium menaced by its warlike neighbor Borduria. Borduria stands in for Nazism in ''Recap/TintinKingOttokarsSceptre'' and for Stalinesque Communism in later stories. Syldavia is an atypically detailed version of {{Ruritania}} with its own flag, royal dynasty, historical events and even a language created by Hergé. The made-up language, despite being written in Cyrillic script, was, remarkably, not Slavic but a dialect of Flemish/Dutch with some curious phonetics. In ''Recap/TintinDestinationMoon'', it becomes the setting for a fictional space program.In ''Recap/TintinTheCalculusAffair'', Syldavia and Borduria are struggling in a secret war for [[AppliedPhlebotinum Calculus' device]]. The consul of Poldavia (see under Real Life) makes a brief appearance in ''Recap/TintinTheBlueLotus''.

-->'''Green Lantern (upon landing in Costa Verde):''' "This Earth may be smaller than ours, but they still have room for countries we don't have!"
** ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' - Ruritanias were very common in both UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks and UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks. The first appearance of Lex Luthor was in a 1940 comic in which he was revealed to be the mastermind behind a war between fascist Toran and peaceful Gallonia.
** The first storyline in ''Comicbook/JusticeLeagueOfAmericaRebirth'' features several of them, all pre-existing (although mostly not previously established in current continuity): Mostly set in Kravia (from 90s ''Comicbook/{{Nightwing}}'') and its neighbour Gardevia (from ''Comicbook/BatmanAndRobinEternal''), it has one scene in which Havok threatens the leaders of Markovia, Pokolistan, Slovekia (the pre-''Flashpoint'' Lord Havok's Latveria counterpart) and even Kaznia from the Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse.

** Slorenia, which was invaded and obliterated by Comicbook/{{Ultron}}.

-->''"Come ski in Vorozheika. Also shoot bears."''

* ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' has the imaginary Third World country of Elbonia, which according to WordOfGod, it represents [[HollywoodGeography the American view of any country without cable TV]]: they wear fur hats and wallow around in waist-deep mud. They're also an entire nation of idiots, who have animals in their government and fight wars over handedness (as in, left vs. right).

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' oneshot fanfiction, ''[[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/35530/Adored/ Adored]]'' the Changeling Kingdom is a straight-up allegory to Tsarist Russia. It is a mountainous, winter beset country, overwhelmingly populated by a large and extremely poor peasant population who are ruled over by an extremely rich, but incompetent and inept autocratic monarchy. Queen Chrysalis is essentially the Tsar; incompetent, having little grasp on the reality of her subjects' suffering, living in an extravagant palace.

* World Grand Prix competitor Rip Clutchgoneski from ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars 2}}'' hails from the newly independent "Republic of New Rearendia".

* ''Film/ChittyChittyBangBang'' has [[MeaningfulName Vulgaria]]. It is as much [[UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}} Prussian]] as [[{{Ruritania}} Ruritanian]].

* The Creator/MarxBrothers movie ''Film/DuckSoup'' (1933) has Freedonia, land of the brave and free! In a clear-cut case of Western Imperialism, the wealthy Mrs. Teasdale insists running dog Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) be appointed President in return for half her husband's fortune to avoid an impending liberation by neighboring Sylvania. (It's not clear whether this is the same Sylvania portrayed in the 1929 film ''Film/TheLoveParade,'' in which Creator/MauriceChevalier plays a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob who becomes prince consort to Sylvania's Queen Louise.)

* In ''Film/TheHunt2020'', Croatia is presented as a hellhole where it's relatively easy for a group of high-powered liberals to kidnap American citizens and hunt them for sport, with the army and police indifferent and apathetic to what little of the plot they hear about, and even [[spoiler:the ambassador is in on the Hunt. Probably.]]

* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'':
** ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' has Sokovia, a tiny fictional Balkan nation with HYDRA operations, and home to Pietro and Wanda Maximoff. It's a fairly obvious expy of Serbia, perhaps a break-off territory equivalent to Kosovo but populated by ethnic Serbians; its name is a cross between Kosovo and Serbia, all the signs are in Serbian Cyrillic, the buildings are possessing of an architectural mix of toned-down European-style facades with concrete buildings, and per Scarlet Witch's backstory it experienced civil war [[UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars sometime in the mid to late 90s.]] Its [[http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Sokovia?file=Flag_of_Sokovia.png flag]] is also very similar to Serbia's, being a red-white-blue tricolor (only vertical, like the French or Romania flag) with an eagle at the center. Generally the country is also notably more backward, with a restive population hostile towards the Avengers and the USA in general. It appears to be a mashup between the twins' comic book home country of Transia and the nation of Slorenia which Ultron massacred.

** ''Series/WandaVision'': A Cutaway Gag to Pietro and Wanda as children shows Sokovia as an exaggerated stereotype of life on the other side of the Iron Curtain: a little old lady gives the kids a dead fish as a Halloween treat while gunfire can be heard in the distance. Two men try to disassemble a car for parts. Wanda notes that she doesn't remember Sokovia like that. [[spoiler: Since this Pietro is a fake, she's probably right.]]

* According to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsO2QjbrUCA this video]], [[TheEeyore Sponge]] and his brother Pretzel of WebVideo/{{Vinesauce}} lore are stated to hail from the country of Kraskatalia. When the country is mentioned in the video, the accompanying visual depicts a blank map of Europe with the phrase [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield "I'm sure it's in here somewhere"]] edited over it.

* The ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'' has Kaznia/Kasnia, a fictional country which appears to be located in the Balkans and to alternate (throughout the various time periods it is visited) between peace and a civil war between Northern and Southern factions.

* The Robo-Hungarian Empire from ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', which manages to be impoverished and technologically backward despite being inhabited entirely by robots. Its capital, Thermostadt, is a robotic {{Uberwald}}.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'', the Holograms go to Morvania, a made up Slavic country, and in a season 3 episode, they go to Croatia, both of which are presented this way.

* Thembria from ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'' was a mock version of the Soviet Union (which was [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp still around]] at the time), with its hostile sub-arctic climate, babushka-clad peasantry, an inept centralized government that still insisted it was "glorious" and a moribund economy that resulted in constant shortages of everything. The last of which happened so often that a RunningGag was the Thembrian Air Force never had any actual bullets for shooting down enemy aircraft and would ineffectively wail away with whatever they ''did'' have, including bathtubs and lunch meat.\\
\\
It gets worse; they even ban imagination, because imaginative people do not conform.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' had an episode featuring the country run by the villain Baron Underbheit. It resembled the generic Eastern Europe country in every way... castles, forests, doomy dooms of gloom... but it is learned in the last few seconds of the episode that it somehow borders Michigan. Baron Underbheit is an {{expy}} of Doctor Doom. (As lampshaded by the Monarch)

* In the obscure Canadian series ''WesternAnimation/WeirdYears'', the Dorkovitch family (the stars of the show) are immigrants from Kryobia. To give you an idea of what Kryobia is supposed to be like, the nation's tourist slogan is [[RevolvingDoorRevolution "Our People are Always Revolting"]].

* Referenced in ''Fanfic/IfTheyHaventLearnedYourName'' when Sam Wilson refers to his current location somewhere in rural Russia as Central Buttfuckistan, because the last four places he's stopped at had no idea what macaroni and cheese was.

* ''Film/TheGrandBudapestHotel'' is set in the fictional Central European country of Zubrowka (named after a well-known brand of Polish flavoured vodka), the seat of an empire before a conflict (described by director Creator/WesAnderson as a amalgamation of WWI and WWII) with its "neighbor to the north" breaks out in late 1932. The Empire of Zubrowka quickly falls due to government and military incompetence, endures a short-lived but imperious occupation, becomes the Republic of Zubrowka, and is overtaken by a Communist regime in the 1940's. By the modern day, the former Republic of Zubrowka is a quiet Alpine backwater. Zubrowka itself was designed as a representation of pre-WWI Austro-Hungary, with Lutz, its capital city, intended to be Vienna, Prague, and Budapest "all rolled into one".

With the coming of UsefulNotes/HoleInFlag revolutions, Ruritania has pretty much reverted to what it started with: ludicrous hair, ethnic strife, poverty, and backwardness. The most noticeable changes are that the monarchy is (usually) gone, replaced by a [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny mock democracy]] run by some [[TheGeneralissimo unsavoury generals]], [[FormerRegimePersonnel ex-communist strongmen]], or [[CorruptCorporateExecutive corrupt bajillionaires]], while the Great Powers are now acting through NATO or the UN. Everyone still seems to hate his neighbours, the anarchists may still be around, or they may have mutated into [[TerroristsWithoutACause terrorists]] or plain old gangsters. 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 Series/EurovisionSongContest, which it wins frequently and handily thanks to votes from the Ruritanian guest workers omnipresent in rich Western European countries.

%% Image kept on page per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1583000817005523300
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

[[quoteright:350:[[Recap/TintinKingOttokarsSceptre https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Syldavie.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Syldavia: best known for its fezzes, [[TheBackwardsR Cyrillic writing]] and unpaved roads.]]

%% Caption selected per above IP thread. Please do not replace or remove without discussion in the Caption Repair thread:
%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900

%% Per crowner https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800&page=406#comment-10138, this is NRLEP as trope is defined as a fictitious Eastern European country.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' is set in what appears to have been at one time a former Soviet state. No word has been given on the place's true location, and judging by the accents of all the [=NPCs=] you meet there, none of them are from there (seeing that many of them were forcibly relocated.) The only true native seems to be Father Grigori.
** Strangely though, the gas pumps around City 17 are labeled in ''Swedish''.
** City 17, while not acknowledged to be anywhere specific within the game, is modeled after Sofia, capitol of Bulgaria and the Art Director's home town. The plaza in particular is almost identical (besides the Combine locks, checkpoints, cameras, and sense of Orwellian tyranny, of course).
** The car wrecks are distinctively eastern Bloc, like the trabant.
** A background detail in ''Half-Life 2: Episode One'' practically confirms City 17 as Riga, Latvia. There is a map showing City 17 with a river called the Daugava flowing through it. This is the name of a real river that flows through... you guessed it, Riga. There are also other bits of evidence. The skyline of Riga resembles City 17's, City 17 is coastal and borders a sea (Riga is the only coastal city that the Daugava flows through), the lettering on most signs is Russian suggesting an ex-Soviet country, and there's also occasionally Swedish lettering, suggesting that City 17 is not too far away from Sweden (Latvia is a stone's throw away from Sweden, and hosts many Swedish businesses). Finally, there's numerous restaurants with signs that translate to "Café Baltic", which would match Riga's location in one of the Baltic States.

* ''VideoGame/NancyDrew The White Wolf of Icicle Creek'' features a character named Yanni who is a skiier from a country called "Fredonia". Not much is learned of Fredonia, but one can guess that it is an Eastern Europe or possibly former Soviet-union state from his accent. For a series that usually tires to set itself within the real world, it really stands out to see an entirely fictional country implied to exist. This was likely justified in that [[spoiler: Yanni is the game's culprit, who was bombing to attempt to mine for Uranium on orders of his government. Given the political motivations for his actions, Her Interactive probably did not want to point fingers at any particular real-world government nor did they want to make it an even more dated game by setting it pre 1990s and have him be a soviet spy.]]
* Creator/{{Infocom}}'s ''Border Zone'' is set in the fictional Soviet satellite state of Frobnia, complete with gruff officials demanding papers, run-down Soviet-era block apartments, international Cold War espionage plots, and a faux-Slavic language.
* The satirical PC shooter ''Heavy Weapon'' revels in this trope, set in an alternate 1984 where the "Red Star" has declared war on the rest of the world, and the player rolls the title vehicle through nineteen faux-Soviet countries.
* Act 3 of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' simply takes place in "Eastern Europe". Although the specific country you're in is never named, it is certainly Prague within the Czech Republic. Notably, though, it's not portrayed as rural at all; the entire mission takes place in a reasonably modern city.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' - Outer Heaven, although various supplementary materials state that it is located within the Republic of South Africa. The Galzburg region of the Republic of South Africa, however, does qualify as a ruritania.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake'' - Zanzibar Land. It straddles the line between Ruritania and {{Qurac}}.
* Sega's tactical RPG ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' features the not-so-subtle "East European Imperial Alliance" as the villain nation, managing to mix together Tsarist Russia and the Warsaw Pact into one fun, evil package. They also look like PuttingOnTheReich ANaziByAnyOtherName.
* ''VideoGame/RepublicTheRevolution'' is set in [[MeaningfulName Novistrana]], a post-Communist {{Ruritania}} complete with lots of concrete and people SpeakingSimlish with a distinctly Slavic cadence.
* ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'' has the Republic of Borginia, which is vaguely eastern European and has what are probably Romani and its language, Borginian, is written in dingbat characters.
** In ''Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth'' there is Cohdopia, an European nation that was split into two smaller countries (Babahl and Allebahst) as well. As well as as the republic of Zheng Fa.

* Sercia (presumably a pun on Serbia) in ''VideoGame/TimeCrisis''.

* ''VideoGame/OperationFlashpoint'''s {{Spiritual Successor}}s, ''VideoGame/{{ARMA}}: Armed Assault'', is full of those as their main settings. Mostly to prevent controversies but still provide an accurate foregin conflict zone.
** ''VideoGame/{{ARMA}}: Armed Assault'' has The Kingdom of Sahrani Island played this trope fairly straight, being a stereotypical [[SpaghettiAndGondolas Mediterranean]]-[[TorosYFlamenco esque]] monarchy based on Cyprus. It's adversary is the aforementioned PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny in the northern half of the island, which broke away from the kingdom a few years ago. There's even a city, called ''Corazól'' located in the border between the North and South where there's a walled demilitarized zone diving the city in two, filled with ruined buildings. [[spoiler:If you succeed in beating the main campaign, you can defeat the Democratic Republic of Sahrani and help restore the original united kingdom.]]
** In ''VideoGame/{{ARMA}} II'', you get the Republic of Chernarus, a Czech-speaking country bordering on Russia that gets entangled in bloody civil war with Russophone Communist extremists (and later with Nationalist militias), sparking first a NATO, then a Russian intervention. It takes its name from Belarus, its geography from the Czech Republic, the conflict from the UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars, and its general aesthetics from Ukraine. Incidentally, since the outbreak of the War in Donbas in 2014, it has become [[LifeImitatesArt surprisingly prophetic]] [[FunnyAneurysmMoment in its subject matter]].
** Also, the conflict in [[{{Qurac}} Takistan]] seen in ''ARMA II: Operation Arrowhead'' has any resemblance to the First Gulf War for how it started, the Second Gulf War for what happened to the country, or to Afghanistan for how the local people behave.
** The Republic of Altis and Stratis in ''VideoGame/{{ARMA}} III'' is an interesting example. The maps are based on real life greek islands 'Lemnos' and 'Agios Efstratios' (Altough the game [[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield makes clear it's NOT the islands with a different name in the future but an entire separate location]]), the general theme of the islands is very similar to the countries of UsefulNotes/{{Malta}} and UsefulNotes/{{Cyprus}} - independent Mediterranean island republic - with the history begin mostly similar to UsefulNotes/{{Cyprus}} than Malta, both Altis and Cyprus were colonized by various nations, such as the Phoenicians, Greeks and Arabs, both nations are mostly famous for their tourist attractions, both nations became independent recently from the British, both suffered at the hands of a bloody civil war (Altough Cyprus' case was mostly ethnic), both became overseen by foreign peacekeepers and were invaded by a Near Eastern power. The AAF is also very similar to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_of_Malta Armed forces of Malta]], the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypriot_National_Guard Cypriot National Guard]] and the [[UsefulNotes/ThisIsHellas Hellenic Armed Forces]].
** Livonia in the ''Contact'' DLC has borders with Russia[[note]]Specifically Kaliningrad Oblast[[/note]] using Polish as the official language, and are considered a baltic country. The way on how they recently joined NATO and are a stepping-stone for a Russian invasion of NATO makes them a very clear stand-in for Baltic countries and Poland, with it being named after a region in Estonia and Latvia. The LDF even uses the "Promet" rifle, based on the Polish "MSBS Grot B" model adopted as Poland's service rifle in 2018.

* Arulco in ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2''. Possibly. Arulco seems to have some difficulty in deciding whether it wants to be a Ruritania or a BananaRepublic. Parts of the country are filled with pine forests and log houses, others are deserts and jungles. The BigBad is explicitly Romanian, but married the former king, who has the very Spanish-sounding name Enrico Chivaldori. The inhabitants all speak English, but their names and accents vary between American, Spanish, German and vaguely East European with no rhyme or reason whatsoever.
* Hyrule in ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' is a MedievalEuropeanFantasy version of this, being a monarchy with a lot of Greek influences in it's architecture, monsters and naming schemes that is constantly conquered, has quirky customs, a bloody history and borders a desert country inhabited by Arab-like peoples.
* ''VideoGame/JustCause3'' is set in Medici, a fictional small, poor Mediterranean island country under the control of an insane general who plans on conquering the world.
* ''VideoGame/AHatInTime'' has Mafia Town, a Mediterranean-like island city whose main inhabitants speak in Slavic accents and enjoy punching everything.
* The ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' series has Spielberg in ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryI'', Mordavia in ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryIV'' and Silmaria in ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryV''. The first is a German-style country, the second an Eastern European-style country and the third a Greek-style island country.
* Revachol in ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' is about 60% a modern Ruritania setting (post-Communist, lots of poverty and drugs, dominated by a thinly-veiled parody of the EU), but combined with a little bit of early 20th Century America (a sort of plucky immigrant melting pot culture dominated by organised labour disputes) and a little post-Revolutionary France (the King deposed by the Revolution is based on the decadent monarchy of pre-Revolutionary France, the characters have largely French names and [[TranslationConvention their language is rendered as French]]).
* Case 3 of ''VideoGame/CriminalCaseWorldEdition'' takes place in Bierburg, a fictional, rustic town in Germany.

* ''Annet Futatabi'' (the third game of the ''VideoGame/EarnestEvans'' series) takes place in Renvrandt, a small country in Eastern Europe.

* [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17474_the-7-most-unintentionally-hilarious-g.i.-joe-characters.html This article]] on Website/{{Cracked}} (about ridiculous ''Toys/GIJoe'' action figures) parodies this trope by mentioning that villain Darklon originates from "the kingdom of [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Darklonia]], a nebulous [[DirtyCommunists Eastern Bloc]] nation sharing its borders with [[PunnyName Borovia]] and Madeupbullshitistan".

* Fredonia and Sylvania, two Eastern European countries that appear in a single episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfSpeedRacer,'' have a centuries of hostility between them.

%% There was also an arc featuring a country that was actually called Ruritania.

* In UsefulNotes/TheSpaceRace episode of ''WesternAnimation/DogCity'', the "other side" was Catsylvania, represented by the feline cosmonaut [[PunnyName Bestov Breed]].
** Baron von Rottweiler's castle appears to be located in such a place the few times it's seen.
** The actual Transylvania, complete with Castle Frankenfido, appears in another episode. Everyone has a vaguely German accent and there are mobs of villagers in Victorian garb carrying torches and pitchforks.
** In "Bark to the Future," von Rottweiler takes over Dog City and turns it into Rottersburg, a Ruritania-style dystopia where StateSec {{Mooks}} patrol the streets and propaganda posters urging everyone to vote for von Rottweiler (OR ELSE!) adorn every wall and they have [[FelonyMisdemeanor Oktoberfest]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking all year long]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'' has Bolbi Stroganovsky, the school's FunnyForeigner, who hails from "Backhairistan".
* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' proper, Griffonstone is eventually revealed to be this, as a counterpart to Equestria's SchizoTech MedievalEuropeanFantasy. Everyone wears clothing that ranges from Hungarian/Romanian to Turkish to Mongolian. The houses seem vaguely reminiscent of Eastern European Gothic architecture, and are notably more primitive (for instance, they seem to have no internal plumbing). It's also backwards technologically and culturally, and almost everyone is impoverished and unfriendly since the loss of their national treasure.
* The setting of ''WesternAnimation/MaryShelleysFrankenhole'' is simply referred to as "somewhere in Eastern-Europe."
* ''WesternAnimation/RogerRamjet'' featured a country with the PunnyName of Runovia.
* Ptomania was the country of original of the title treasure in ''WesternAnimation/TheHairBearBunch'' episode "Gobs Of Gobaloons." The bears discover the treasure but they can't spend it because it was stolen from the country's treasury.
* In ''WesternAnimation/PrincessNatasha'', Zoravia is a small European kingdom that is half quaint tourist trap, half technological utopia.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingAdrenaliniBrothers'': The eponymous brothers hail from Réndøosîa, speaking constantly in its gibberish-sounding language. The country is noted for its constant natural disasters (to the point where the flag always has a hole in it) and being constantly at war with its neighbor Grimzimistan.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' episode "King Yakko" has Anvilania, the tiny anvil-shaped anvil-exporting country Yakko is suddenly king of, and its rival Dunlikus.
* Petratishkovna "Tish" Katsufrakis from ''WesternAnimation/TheWeekenders'' is the daughter of immigrants from an unnamed Eastern European country, with her parents frequently speaking of TheOldCountry. In one episode, after she gets [[TheBGrade a slightly lower grade than usual]], her friends attempt to make her lean into the FunnyForeigner trope under the belief that she can no longer be the TheSmartGirl of the group.

** Peladon, the setting for "The Curse of Peladon" and "The Monster of Peladon" has Ruritanian elements. The technologically premodern and tradition-bound planet of Peladon, which still has a monarchy nevertheless has great significance to the galactic powers, given its natural reserve of [[MineralMacGuffin trisilicate]].

* Often invoked during the "Improbable Mission" segments of Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway. Colin and Ryan inevitably end up doing a task for the president or prime minster of a country with a name like Allupania or Garfunkistan.
* ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'' has Lois's mother hailing from an unspecified Ruritania, full of wacky traditions including intricate sword dancing for the ladies and extreme contests of strength and mind for the men looking to obtain a wife. Not to mention said mother's ability to intimidate Lois just by [[BlackSpeech speaking her native language]].
** There were hints at this country being located in Eastern Europe, and one episode (relating to a St. Grotus day) also strongly implies that said country was actually Croatia (as it took place at a Croatian community center, had a Croatian flag, and it even had poster of Zagreb Cathedral).
* Several episodes of ''Series/GetSmart'' featured the Balkan nation of Coronia, which was so much a Ruritania that the episodes it appeared in were a retelling of ''Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda''.
* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' has a country called Belgravia. (See the comics section for its origin.) In one episode the team has to protect the daughter of the Belgravian ambassador.
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': In “Washington Holiday” Harm is assigned as naval escort to the daughter of the King of Romania while in DC. While Romania is a real country it has not restored its former monarchy in real-life.
* Spoofed in ''Series/{{Castle}}'' : A murdered spy was supposed to assassinate someone from a country called the Republic of Lovania, but quick Internet search reveals that no such country exists. [[spoiler:The murder victim turns out to have been taking part in a [[{{LARP}} "spy vacation."]]]]

* ''Series/TheMonkees'' episode "Royal Flush" has Davy rescuing the princess of Harmonica from drowning, only to find her uncle, Archduke Otto, is trying to assassinate her before she becomes queen. The trope is played with when he spells the name of the country on the phone, there's a pause and he exclaims "There is so!"
** Also, in “The Card Carrying Red Shoes,” a ballerina from the country Druvania falls in love with Peter (or, his “face”).
** And in “The Prince and the Paupers,” Davy switches places with his doppelganger, the prince of Peruvia.
** And again in "Everywhere a Sheik Sheik," Davy is set to marry the Princess Colette of the fictional middle-eastern nation Nahudi.

* ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' once offered a trip to "Boguslovania" as an April Fools' gag showcase.
* One episode of the Danish political drama ''Series/{{Borgen}}'' centres around the visit of the president of Turgisia, a former Soviet republic with a dubious human rights record.
* The long-running soap opera ''Series/DaysOfOurLives'' had an often villainous family, the Alamains, who were royalty from a small European country named Alamania. In an aversion, it's actually implied to be somewhere around France, Germany, and/or Switzerland (and Alemania is the RealLife alternate name of Germany in Spanish), but the country is often depicted as so impoverished, autocratic, and corrupt that it might as well be a former Soviet Bloc country.
* ''Series/FamilyTree'': Luba comes from Moldavia, which is treated as Ruritania. She frequently discusses bizarre beliefs and customs from her home country.
* Slaka from the British series ''The Gravy Train Goes East'' is a [[CommieLand post-communist version]] of this, and is PlayedForLaughs. Appropriately enough, the series was filmed in 1991, shortly after the UsefulNotes/HoleInFlag revolutions.
* One ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'' episode featured two nations called Samadia and Azmir.
* In ''Series/LondonsBurning'', Blue Watch tackle a fire at the London embassy of Crajova.
* In the introduction to one episode of ''Series/CanadasWorstDriver Ever'', host Andrew Younghusband says that he was doing some reading on "the driving practices of the [[PunnyName Volvovian tribe who live in Southern Truckcaristan]].''

* The ''Series/ThirtyRock'' episode "[=SeinfeldVision=]" reveals the existence of two European countries that only rich people know about: Svenborgia and Grenyarnia.
* One episode of ''Series/{{Forever}}'' features a Ruritania called Urkesh. Henry saved its prince decades ago, before the monarchy was overthrown in a violent revolution. When the prince, now an old man, dies in New York, Henry investigates and discovers that he was poisoned. Henry's phrase to the deceased's wife after finding out who he was indicates that the people of Urkesh speak Russian. A scene at an Urkesh restaurant indicates that they use Cyrillic.
* ''[[Series/CarryOnLaughing Carry On Laughing!]]'': Pluritania, from the spoof of ''Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda''.
* While we aren't given the exact location of Yerba from ''Series/{{Victorious}}'', it does resembles a stereotypical Ruritanian country. The military outfits and the occurring conflicts seem to reference war-era Germany and Russia (or the more current Libyan civil war); and the Yerbanian flag's basis IS the Albanian flag.
* [[''Series/TheSuiteLifeOnDeck'']] features the fictional European country of Liechtenstamp in it's first season.

* The [[Creator/TheBBC Radio 4]] SitCom ''Man of Soup'' was set in a {{Ruritania}} parody with all the associated tropes turned UpToEleven.

* ''TabletopGame/Space1889'' places an actual Ruritania in the Balkans, in ''Conklin's Atlas of the Worlds''. The Army is mentioned in ''The Solider's Companion'' as having six regiments of infantry in grey, with green trim, two regiments of cavalry in grey with black trim. The flag has the upper 2/3rds with equal stripes of blue, white and green, with the lower third red.

* Scythe has this for most of its Eastern European states, like the "Rusviet Union" and "Republic of Polania." While the Crimean Khanate did exist historically, it was gone by World War I.

* Possibly the UrExample : The Grand Duchy of Gerolstein in Music/JacquesOffenbach 1867 operetta ''La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein''.
* Andorra in Max Frisch's eponymous ''Andorra''. Explicitly stated ''not'' to be related to the real-life microstate of Andorra in any way. Then there is also its unnamed, bigger Fascist neighbour, which seems to be closely inspired by UsefulNotes/NaziGermany.
* The Irving Berlin musical ''Call Me Madam'' has the duchy of Lichtenburg -- a {{portmanteau}} of Liechtenstein and Luxembourg: "too small to be a city, too big to be a town." Its main export is cheese.

* In Ivor Novello's ''King's Rhapsody'', most of the action takes place in the kingdom of Murania.

* Creator/GilbertAndSullivan created two significant Ruritanias: Barataria in ''Theatre/TheGondoliers'' and Pfennig-Halbpfennig ("Penny-Halfpenny" in German) in ''Theatre/TheGrandDuke''.
* ''Don't Drink The Water'', written by Creator/WoodyAllen early in his career, is set in the American embassy of an unnamed Soviet Ruritania.
* Creator/JeanPaulSartre's ''Dirty Hands'' (''Les Mains Sales'') is set in a fictional European country called Illyria (in real life, a historical name for roughly the parts of the former Yugoslavia along the Adriatic) during UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo. It is supposed to be an ally of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, on the verge of being annexed to the [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheUSSR Eastern Bloc]].

* "The Loyal Traitor", in Creator/GKChesterton's 1930 book ''Literature/FourFaultlessFelons,'' takes place in the mythical Teutonic kingdom of Pavonia (<L., ''pavo'', peacock).

* However, the literary UrExample is found in Creator/RobertLouisStevenson 1885 novel ''Literature/Prince Otto'', featuring the alpine country of Grunewald.

* The Duchy of Strackenz in ''Royal Flash'' (Vol 2 of [[{{Literature/Flashman}} The Flashman Papers]]). This is something of a mobius example because, in-story, Anthony Hope based ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' on Flashman's account of his exploits in Strackenz.

* The fictitious travel guide ''[[Literature/JetlagTravelGuides Molvanîa: a Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry]]'' is about one of these. Molvanîa itself is probably better known on the Internet as the home country of pop singer Zladko Vladcik (played by the book's co-writer Santo Cilauro) of ''Elektronik Supersonik'' fame.
* Gerolstein in the Prince Rodolphe tales by Eugene Sue.
* The Former Soviet Autonomous Region of Krassnia in ''The Restoration Game'' by Creator/{{Ken MacLeod}}. The book is mostly set in [[TheNewTens the present]], in which Krassnia is a bit of the Georgia/Chechnya border with its own language and dreams of independence, but has extensive {{Flashback}}s to Krassnia under the Soviets in TheThirties and TheEighties and as part of the [[UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia Russian Empire]] in TheEdwardianEra. The name is a ShoutOut to an allegory by J.B.S. Haldane, in which the Republic of Krassnia has "materialism" as a state religion, and this very much informs the character of [=MacLeod=]'s Krassnia.
* Avram Davidson's stories of Dr. Eszterhazy are set in the Empire of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania, the "Fourth largest empire in Europe." It's pre-WWI Austria-Hungary turned up to 11, and a recurring theme in the stories is that any change will likely plunge the whole place into bloody chaos.
* Used by name in Creator/PhilipJoseFarmer's {{Literature/Riverworld}} book ''The Dark Design'' as one of the millions of tiny states along the great River.
* Lutha in ''Literature/TheMadKing'' by Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs is a small kingdom tucked in between Serbia and Austria-Hungary.
* Brungaria in some of the Literature/TomSwift books (e.g. ''Tom Swift and the Galaxy Ghosts'').
* The plot of the ''Literature/BernieRhodenbarr'' novel ''The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart'' has the [[SdrawkcabName creatively named]] kingdom of Anatruria stand in for Malta for references to ''Film/{{The Maltese Falcon|1941}}'' and for Czechoslovakia for references to ''Film/{{Casablanca}}''. Due to the tone of the aforementioned films, Anatruria is PlayedForDrama.
* The fictional country of Ravka in Literature/TheGrishaTrilogy is based off of Tsarist Russia.
* Samavia in ''Literature/TheLostPrince'' by Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of the last hurrahs of the pre-WWI romantic Ruritania. It's somewhere on the far side of Austria-Hungary from England, but the one time its precise location is given it is expressed in terms of the countries Samavia shares borders with, all of which are just as fictional as it is.
* The Creator/EnidBlyton novel ''The Circus of Adventure'' has the fictional kingdom of Tauri-Hessia.
* An unusual example can be found in the city-state of Besźel, one of the titular cities in Creator/ChinaMieville's ''Literature/TheCityAndTheCity''. It's described as being bustling and economically prosperous in the 80s, but decayed and backwater in the current day, overtaken by its neighbor city-state, the Istanbul analogue of Ul Qoma. What's so unique about Besźel and Ul Qoma is that ''they occupy the same space''. The citizens of one city are taught from birth to completely ignore the existence of the other, setting up much of the book's plot.
* Simon Templar aka ''Literature/TheSaint'' spent much of his early career fighting the villainous Crown Prince Rudolf - whose country is never named but who gives a distinctly Ruritanian impression.
* ''[[Literature/SallyLockhart The Tin Princess]]'' by Creator/PhilipPullman is a Ruritanian romance that takes place in the fictitious little kingdom of Razkavia (near Germany).
* From austrian author Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando's novel ''Maskenspiel der Genien'' comes the Tarockania, a thinly-veiled stand-in for Austria.
* In the murder mystery novel ''Literature/AShillingForCandles'' by Creator/JosephineTey, there are several mentions of a fictional Eastern European nation where several different ethnic groups are simultaneously fighting for independence. [[spoiler:It turns out that one of the suspects has ties to the independence movement, and lied to the police about his movements on the day in question because he was involved in dubiously legal activities on its behalf.]]
* ''Literature/Rule34'' by Creator/CharlesStross features two: Krygzystan, a former Soviet state which has severe financial problems, but whose current president is a very intelligent economist; and Issyk-Kulistan, formerly part of Krygzystan, until it was given independence ''against its will'' and also saddled with 80% of the national debt and Mob 2.0 connections [[spoiler: in what turns out to be a very complex scam based on "What if we did the subprime mortgage thing, only with countries? And made the victims gangsters, with international law enforcement's blessing?"]]
* Splotvia in the ''Literature/NurseryCrime'' series. In keeping with Creator/JasperFforde's fondess for AnachronismStew and RetroUniverse, it was a monarchy until the 1990s, and ''then'' became a socialist republic at around the same time as the Soviet Union was collapsing.
* The ''Literature/ChaletSchool'' series has Belsornia, a fictional kingdom located somewhere in the Balkans, near Italy, where the state religion is Catholicism (as opposed to Orthodox Christianity). The king's granddaughter, Elisaveta, is the titular princess in 'Princess of the Chalet School'' and subject of a kidnapping conspiracy by her father's evil cousin, Prince Cosimo. In the World War 2 era books, Belsornia is invaded by the Nazis and Elisaveta and her family are forced to flee, and she becomes a FallenPrincess who works as a cleaner to survive, and takes on the name of 'Mrs Helston' (Helston being her mother-in-law's name). After the war ends, Belsornia becomes a republic and is annexed by the Soviet Union.
* ''Literature/NickVelvet'': In "The Theft of the Crystal Crown", Nick is hired to steal the symbolic (but valueless) glass crown of the Kingdom of New Ionia. New Ionia is a constitutional monarchy on a island between the southern tips of Italy and Greece. The island is 50 miles long and 25 miles wide with one major city. It also has a lot of strange customs, as is it be expected in a Ruritania, and Nick's theft has the potential to completely overthrow the social order.
* Creator/DamonRunyon:
** In "The Big Umbrella", the king of a nameless Ruritania gets deposed by a military coup, and winds up in New York with no money. (A character remarks that this is happening so often nowadays that ex-kings are becoming something of a nuisance.) This particular ex-king gets a job as a prize-fighter, which gives him some useful skills and acquaintances when he goes to get his throne back.
** In "Gentlemen, the King!" a group of Philadelphia gangsters are hired to go to a Ruritania and assassinate the king.
* Vystrana in ''Literature/AMemoirByLadyTrent'' is a FantasyCounterpartCulture of a generic Eastern European country (although one that practices pseudo-Judaism).

* 1938 novel ''[[iterature/{{Biggles}} Biggles Goes To War]]'' features two Ruritanias: small, peace-loving Maltovia and bullying larger neighbour Lovitznia. Although a thinly-disguised allegory for the German takeover of Austria, in the novel it is the Maltovians who appear more German and the Lovitznians who have more of the Slav about them. It is left to the reader to decide whether Capt. Johns was inverting the stereotype or subtly pushing a message about the Red Menace...

* Borogravia from the Literature/{{Discworld}} book ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment''.
** The posthumously published ''Compleat Discworld Atlas'' hints at Borogravia, Zlobenia, Mouldavia and a patchwork of semi-autonomous statelets in Far Überwald being a kind of embryonic "Russian Federation" coming together, at first, as an "economic co-operation zone".

* Mixolydia is a Slavic Ruritania invented by Angela Thirkell for her ''Barsetshire'' novels. In the novel "Cheerfulness Breaks In," set in the opening year of World War Two, Barsetshire has to accomodate a number of refugees from Mixolydia, all of whom are various foreigner tropes. We learn that the local religion is Orthodoxy, and they have a long list of hereditary enemies among real-world nations. The name is a word-play on the mixolydian mode or scale in music.
* Barrayar in Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's Literature/VorkosiganSaga book series is basically a [[PlanetOfHats planet-wide]] {{Ruritania}}. The planet was settled by Russians, Greeks, French, and English, with Russian culture dominating. Take a multi-cultural interstellar colony, add [[LostColony several centuries of dark ages]], and shake.
* The plot of the Creator/AgathaChristie novel ''The Secret of Chimneys'' is about the murder of the prince of the Balkanic state of "Herzoslovakia", and the identity of the next in line for the throne. Many plot elements are (probably deliberately) reminiscent of ''The Prisoner of Zenda''.
* Creator/DashiellHammett's [[Literature/TheContinentalOp Continental Op]] novella ''This King Business'' is a weird genre hybrid that puts a hard-boiled detective into a ''Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda''-style plot.
* Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin's ''Orsinian Tales'' - The fictional Central European nation Orsinia fits this trope perfectly, covering several centuries of imagined history.
* "The Loyal Traitor", in Creator/GKChesterton's 1930 book ''Literature/FourFaultlessFelons,'' takes place in the mythical Teutonic kingdom of Pavonia (<L., ''pavo'', peacock).
* James Hogan's ''Voyage From Yesteryear'' has Baluchistan, a tangentially-mentioned (and surprisingly extant, though only as a region in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, and not a state) battleground for the US and USSR.
* ''Literature/AgatonSax:'' This detective drama spoof featured the Balkan (and appearenly Communist) republics Brosnia and Mercegovina. The eponymous detective starts his career by stopping counterfeiters from wrecking the Brosnian economy. Brosnian criminal mastermind professor Anaxagoras Frank is a regular bad guy, and the author, who loved to play with language, gives us several examples of "Brosnian".

* Creator/EvelynWaugh's ''Vile Bodies'' just went ahead and named its version "Ruritania". The ex-king is a minor character who appears at a party and misses his old pen, which had an eagle on it.
* Many Creator/MichaelMoorcock works feature the fictional Central European state of Waldenstein and its capital Mirenberg to a greater or lesser extent, although it's quite a lot more culturally and artistically sophisticated than the usual Ruritania.
* Robert Musil's "Kakania" (from the term "K.u.K.") wasn't so much based on the Habsburg Empire. Rather, it pretty much ''was'' Austria-Hungary. He proceeds to describe how strange, unappreciated and unflattering it was. In the end however, he realizes that Kakania/Habsburgia had an underlying order that betrayed a stroke of genius.

* Creator/AndreNorton's first novel, ''Literature/ThePrinceCommands'', took place in "Morvania" in the early 1930s. The Air Force consisted of one [[AllegedCar barely-flyable plane]], and horse cavalry was still a viable force because machine guns were rare and armored cars or tanks not available. The conspirators against the throne included a Communist agitator; the old king had been a brutal tyrant; and the rightful new king, [[spoiler:after dodging an assassination attempt, was FakingTheDead '''and''' pretending to be]] a bandit chieftain, rebel, and werewolf. Despite its small size, the place was apparently strategic enough that the main character, [[SpareToTheThrone newly designated as Crown Prince]], had to make state appearances in Paris, London, and Berlin on his way to Morvania (he'd grown up in the U.S., and ignorant of his heritage, too).
* Bram Stoker's ''The Lady in the Shroud'' features the Land of the Blue Mountains, a very, very thinly-veiled MarySuetopia version of Montenegro.
* Calbia, from the Franchise/DocSavage novel ''The Kingmaker''.
* The kingdom of Zembla in Charles Kinbote's "notes" in Creator/VladimirNabokov's ''Literature/PaleFire''. Anything more would confuse you.

* ''Literature/ACollegeOfMagics'' and ''Literature/WhenTheKingComesHome'' feature a cluster of small countries that were each a duchy in the old-time Kingdom of Lidia before it fell apart. Most of them (including Galazon, the heroine's homeland in ''A College of Magics'') are still duchies, but Aravill promoted itself to a kingdom (and is considered jumped-up by its neighbours).
* The American government textbook [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin American Government]] by Wilson and [=DiIulio=] contains a hypothetical scenario in which you are asked how you, as a journalist, would deal with inside information about terrorists from Ruritania.

* In ''Film/{{Eurotrip}}'', Bratislava is presented as such, with bleak, [[UsefulNotes/RussiansWithRustingRockets post-Soviet]] urban decay and overblown stereotypes of [[UsefulNotes/HoleInFlag post-collapse]] Eastern European poverty.
* In ''Film/DodgeballATrueUnderdogStory'', White Goodman mentions that team [[OpposingSportsTeam Purple Cobras]]' resident DarkChick Fran Stalinovskovichdavidovitchsky hails form the country of Romanovia, where Dodgeball is the national sport.
* ''Film/TheStudentPrinceInOldHeidelberg'' is set in an obviously Germanic little kingdom called "Karlsberg" around the beginning of the 20th century.
* ''Film/TheGrandBudapestHotel'' is set in the fictional Central European country of Zubrowka (named after a well-known brand of Polish flavoured vodka), the seat of an empire before a conflict (described by director Creator/WesAnderson as a amalgamation of WWI and WWII) with its "neighbor to the north" breaks out in late 1932. The Empire of Zubrowka quickly falls due to government and military incompetence, endures a short-lived but imperious occupation, becomes the Republic of Zubrowka, and is overtaken by a Communist regime in the 1940's. By the modern day, the former Republic of Zubrowka is a quiet Alpine backwater. Zubrowka itself was designed as a representation of pre-WWI Austro-Hungary, with Lutz, its capital city, intended to be Vienna, Prague, and Budapest "all rolled into one".
* ''Film/{{Civilization}}'' is a 1916 anti-war film set in the nation of Wredpryd, which is obviously (spiked helmets, upturned mustaches, submarine warfare), supposed to be Germany.
* Both the [[Film/TheMerryWidow1925 1925 version]] and the [[Film/TheMerryWidow1934 1934 version]] of ''The Merry Widow'' are set in fictional tiny Eastern European principalities, Monteblanco in 1925 and Marshovia in 1934, countries tiny enough that one widow taking her fortune abroad is SeriousBusiness. See Theatre below for the original opera.
* ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' has Sokovia, a tiny fictional Balkan nation with HYDRA operations, and home to Pietro and Wanda Maximoff. It's a fairly obvious expy of Serbia, perhaps a break-off territory equivalent to Kosovo but populated by ethnic Serbians; its name is a cross between Kosovo and Serbia, all the signs are in Serbian Cyrillic, the buildings are possessing of an architectural mix of toned-down European-style facades with concrete buildings, and per Scarlet Witch's backstory it experienced civil war [[UsefulNotes/TheYugoslavWars sometime in the mid to late 90s.]] Its [[http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Sokovia?file=Flag_of_Sokovia.png flag]] is also very similar to Serbia's, being a red-white-blue tricolor (only vertical, like the French or Romania flag) with an eagle at the center. Generally the country is also notably more backward, with a restive population hostile towards the Avengers and the USA in general. It appears to be a mashup between the twins' comic book home country of Transia and the nation of Slorenia which Ultron massacred.
** Its capital is [[AllThereInTheManual called]] Novi Grad, which in real life is the name of a suburb of Serbia's capital, Belgrade.
** In ''Civil War'', a common dish in Sokovia is stated to be [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_paprikash chicken paprikash]], which is a Hungarian dish that's also very popular in the Serbian region of Vojvodina owing to the multicultural history of the region (which historically had a large Hungarian minority).
** Also in ''Civil War'', it's noted that [[spoiler:Zemo]] comes from Sokovia, where he was a colonel in the "EKO Scorpion black ops unit", which operated during an unknown conflict in Sokovia and apparently behaved quite brutally. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpions_(paramilitary) Scorpion]] was also the name of a Serb black ops unit during the Yugoslav Wars, involved in war crimes in Bosnia.
** ''Series/WandaVision'': A Cutaway Gag to Pietro and Wanda as children shows Sokovia as an exaggerated stereotype of life on the other side of the Iron Curtain: a little old lady gives the kids a dead fish as a Halloween treat while gunfire can be heard in the distance. Two men try to disassemble a car for parts. Wanda notes that she doesn't remember Sokovia like that. [[spoiler: Since this Pietro is a fake, she's probably right.]]
** ''Series/TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldier'' reveals Sokovia had nobility, of which [[spoiler:Helmut Zemo was a part of]].
* In ''Koenigsmark/Crimson Dynasty'' (1935), Grand Duchess Aurora is forced into marriage with the much older Grand Duke Rudolph, who mysteriously "dies abroad". Aurora returns to her castle and duchy, where she falls in love with her husband's nephew's French tutor. War between France and the eastern empire or federation breaks out. Caught between divided loyalties and a dynastic struggle, what is Aurora to do? Takes place mainly in a Bavarian-style castle surrounded by wolf-haunted forests. Based on a novel by Pierre Benoit, it was made in both English and French.
* In ''Film/ThePrinceAndTheShowgirl'', the titular prince is the prince regent of a fictional Balkan country called Carpathia.
* Creator/CharlieChaplin's 1957 comedy film ''Film/AKingInNewYork'' begins with King Igor Shahdov being deposed by a revolution in his distinctly Ruritanian East European country, fleeing to the United States only to discover his securities were embezzled by his Prime Minister.
* Carpania in ''Film/TheGreatRace''. Magnificent castles, peasants who provide crowds but are otherwise completely irrelevant, beautiful nobles who specialize in dancing at gorgeous parties, [[KlingonPromotion scheming royalty]], and a completely nut-case leader. Oh, and pies: [[PieInTheFace lots and lots of pies]].
* In ''Film/FinalScore'' the BigBad and the man he's searching for are respectively the general and former leader of a failed revolution in the Eastern European country of Sakovia.
* In ''Film/TheHunt2020'', Croatia is presented as a hellhole where it's relatively easy for a group of high-powered liberals to kidnap American citizens and hunt them for sport, with the army and police indifferent and apathetic to what little of the plot they hear about, and even [[spoiler:the ambassador is in on the Hunt. Probably.]]
* Parts of ''Film/ScreamAndScreamAgain'' are set in an unnamed eastern European country that greatly resembles East Germany.
* ''Film/AnAmericanPickle'': Herschel Greenbaum leaves his country called "Schlupsk" for the USA. It's clearly meant to evoke Central or Eastern European countries that had lots of shtetls (towns with large Jewish populations) before World War II.

* The TropeNamer is the fictional country from Creator/AnthonyHope's novel ''Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda'', which was [[OlderThanTelevision published in 1894]] and inspired a whole genre of "Ruritanian Romances." There's some evidence that Hope intended Ruritania to be a NoCommunitiesWereHarmed version of {{UsefulNotes/Romania}} rather than a generic East European country, having done [[ShownTheirWork rather a lot of research]], but it was hard to tell [[GeniusBonus unless one happened to have done as much research as he did]] and overlooks that he placed Ruritania not in Eastern Europe, but smack in between Saxony and Bohemia, two of what then were some of the most advanced industrial regions in Central Europe[[note]] The capital of Ruritania seems to be roughly where Prague is in the real world, and Prague is further west than Vienna[[/note]].
** There is also a fair bit of UnbuiltTrope at work. Most later Ruritanias tend to be small, backwards and, at least in the early imitations, idyllic. Stephenson's Ruritania was a decent-sized (the capital city is large enough to have a cathedral and is described by Londoner Rassendyl as a "great city") modern (if not particularly socially progressive) country which played a pivotal role in European history on a number of occasions, and which was plagued by public order problems, deep socio-economic divides, having an absolute monarch who was neither particularly well-liked nor particularly competent and internal squabbling in the royal family bringing the nation to the brink of civil war.
** As a ShoutOut, Ruritania is mentioned by name by both Creator/EvelynWaugh (in ''Vile Bodies'') and Creator/PGWodehouse (in several works), both portraying the "ex-King of Ruritania" living in reduced circumstances in London. One Wodehouse story mentions the ex-king as visiting Nice with the Prince and Princess of Graustark (below).
** Creator/ShirleyJackson gives it a little nod in ''Life Among the Savages'' when she describes how her husband and son started collecting coins and would frequently receive in the mail heavy little packages with coins from Ruritania and {{Atlantis}}.
* However, the literary UrExample is found in Creator/RobertLouisStevenson 1885 novel ''Prince Otto'', featuring the alpine country of Grunewald.

* The Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a tiny European country about the size of a small town, in the ''Mouse'' books by Leonard Wibberley. It defeats the United States in a war in ''Literature/TheMouseThatRoared'' (which it [[SpringtimeForHitler intended to lose]]); beats the U.S. and Soviet Union in a space race in ''The Mouse on the Moon''; and disrupts the world's finances in ''The Mouse on Wall Street''. In a medieval prequel, ''Beware of the Mouse'', he gives more background on the founding of Grand Fenwick. Here Grand Fenwick is located between France and Switzerland, and the population is English.

* Genovia in ''Literature/ThePrincessDiaries'' book series is a fictitious European Principality, however it is more Mediterranean than Eastern European. It's a teeny place (1 mile long, with a population of 50,000) which is supposed to be between France and Italy (reminiscent of Monaco, or, maybe, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Seborga Seborga]]) or between France and Spain (like Andorra) in the movies where it's a Kingdom. It's pretty nice, if a bit dull.
* 1938 novel ''Biggles Goes To War'' features two Ruritanias: small, peace-loving Maltovia and bullying larger neighbour Lovitznia. Although a thinly-disguised allegory for the German takeover of Austria, in the novel it is the Maltovians who appear more German and the Lovitznians who have more of the Slav about them. It is left to the reader to decide whether Capt. Johns was inverting the stereotype or subtly pushing a message about the Red Menace...

* ''Anime/IzettaTheLastWitch'' has the Principality of Eylstadt, which is based on the real-life Austria. True to this trope, they're mostly an agricultural society stuck in the late 18th century at most, and their armed forces lack sufficient amounts of modern weaponry. The Germanian Empire ends up wanting to annex them thanks to their strategic location, being directly north of their ally the Romulus Federation.

* The Franchise/MarvelUniverse has several, most notably Doctor Doom's homeland of Latveria.
** Depictions of Latveria itself run the whole gamut described above, from 19th-century throwback to violence-torn post-CommieLand. Doom's own proximity to the country seems to influence this; when he's in residence, it tends toward the primitive. Doom being Doom, he may well have a MedievalStasis beam in his castle.
** Latveria's next-door neighbor Symkaria, which exists mostly as a base for the Sablinova family's assassin company, the Wild Pack. They hold annual diplomatic dinners. In 21st-century comics, Symkaria and Latveria are constantly on the edge of war with each other.
** Slorenia, which was invaded and obliterated by Comicbook/{{Ultron}}.
** Vorozheika, a former Soviet republic currently ruled by rogue Eternal Druig.
-->''"Come ski in Vorozheika. Also shoot bears."''
** Nightcrawler once rescued a woman named Judith Rassendyll, who turned out to be the queen of Ruritania (Uncanny ComicBook/XMen #204).
** To some extent, the portrayal of real Central and Eastern European countries in Marvel comics can verge on this — it can be only a small step from {{Oktoberfest}} to Ruritania. Germany, apart from Berlin, for instance is generally portrayed in older Marvel comics as a mostly rural place rife with superstitious villagers and sinister looming medieval castles. ''Giant-Size X-Men'' #1, for example, opens in the village of Winzeldorf that "has hardly changed over the centuries", apparently to such an extent that they haven't even installed street lighting. Culturally, the place where Mystique gave birth to Nightcrawler, lorded over by a local baron, resembles part of prewar Europe. Pre-[[UsefulNotes/FrancoPrussianWar Franco-German War]], that is.

* ''[[Franchise/{{Tintin}} The Adventures of Tintin]]'' feature Syldavia, a kind of Balkan Belgium menaced by its warlike neighbor Borduria. Borduria stands in for Nazism in ''Recap/TintinKingOttokarsSceptre'' and for Stalinesque Communism in later stories. Syldavia is an atypically detailed version of {{Ruritania}} with its own flag, royal dynasty, historical events and even a language created by Hergé. The made-up language, despite being written in Cyrillic script, was, remarkably, not Slavic but a dialect of Flemish/Dutch with some curious phonetics. In ''Recap/TintinDestinationMoon'', it becomes the setting for a fictional space program.In ''Recap/TintinTheCalculusAffair'', Syldavia and Borduria are struggling in a secret war for [[AppliedPhlebotinum Calculus' device]]. The consul of Poldavia (see under Real Life) makes a brief appearance in ''Recap/TintinTheBlueLotus''.
* ''ComicBook/SpirouAndFantasio'' visit the country of Bretzelburg, a [[{{Kaiserreich}} faux-Austrian military dictatorship]] which borders another imaginary country of faux-Italian flavor, Maquebasta. It is probably a faux-Liechtenstein, a very tiny monarchy located between Austria and Switzerland.
* ''ComicBook/AchilleTalon'' has the Zotrland, a German speaking monarchy whose main export is beer and that is constantly on the brink of civil war.
* Creator/CarlBarks' and Creator/DonRosa's ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse have Brutopia, an obvious name-changed version of the USSR.
* Also appears in several [[ComicBook/MickeyMouseComicUniverse Mickey Mouse comics]]:

* ''TV 21'', the comic which tied in to various Creator/GerryAnderson shows, had the country of Bereznik which acted as a recurring source of antagonists. This country was apparently carved out at some point in the 21st century from various real life countries following TheGreatPoliticsMessUp.

* The germanic Zôtrland in AchilleTalon adventure ''Le Roi des Zôtres''.
* The ''[[ComicBook/GIJoeARealAmericanHeroMarvel G.I. Joe]]'' comics has Borovia. Interestingly, as the Marvel series ran from the early eighties to mid-nineties and there were several years between stories set in Borovia, its political development ran pretty much [[RippedFromTheHeadlines lock step with what was happening in the real world]], starting as a Soviet bloc country, then gaining independence, followed by very unstable internal conditions.

* ''ComicBook/BartSimpson'' episode "From Lichtenslava with Love" and "Pen Pals" make a reference to the East-European country [[https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/Lichtenslava Lichtenslava]].

* ''ComicBook/WonderWomanBlackAndGold'': "Espionage" is set in the fictional Eastern European of Modora.

* ''Film/ChittyChittyBangBang'' has [[MeaningfulName Vulgaria]]. It is as much [[UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}} Prussian]] as [[{{Ruritania}} Ruritanian]].
* The 1940 film ''The Son of Monte Cristo'' takes place in the the Balkan kingdom of "Lichtenburg", where the good Princess Zona (Joan Bennett) suffers from the advances of the unscrupulous dictator, General Gurko Lanen (George Sanders). The eponymous hero (Lewis Hayward) leads the revolution in the guise of "The Torch."
* ''Film/TheGreatDictator'': Tomania, FictionalCounterpart to UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, Bacteria, FictionalCounterpart to Fascist Italy, and Osterlitch, FictionalCounterpart of Austria.

* Concordia in the UsefulNotes/ColdWar comedy ''Romanoff and Juliet'', a postage-stamp European nation that has been conquered and liberated so many times that its citizens "are nominally the freest people in the world", and every day is an Independence Day of some sort. (In the original stage version, the country is not named.) Fiercely determined to maintain neutral during the Cold War, the prime minister ended up playing matchmaker between [[StarCrossedLovers the Russian ambassador's son and the American ambassador's daughter]]. Concordia is the ass of the UN; at the UN roll-call, all the nations are called in alphabetical order, with a note on the bottom of the page, "P.S. [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg And Concordia]]." The country could be a parody of Tito's Yugoslavia.
* ''Film/TroubleForTwo'': A two-fer, as the crown prince of Corovia hurriedly leaves the country for England when he's told he's going to be wed in ArrangedMarriage to the princess of Irania.
* ''Film/AustinPowers'' features a nuclear warhead being stolen from the country "Kreplachistan", indicated by Dr. Evil to be a breakaway Russian republic. [[BilingualBonus Kreplach is a Yiddish word for small dumplings]].
* The Duchy of Grand Fenwick in ''Literature/TheMouseThatRoared''.
* The country of [[http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fic_flas.html Strackenz]] from ''Royal Flash'', a movie explicitly parodying Hope's ''Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda'' and its imitations.
* The unnamed country in the 1978 UK-Canadian mockumentary drama ''Power Play''. The whole plot starts with a coup that tries to overthrow the local PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny that ruled the country until then.
* ''Film/ThePrincessDiaries'': The tiny European kingdom of Genovia (a stand-in for Monaco).

[[folder:Real Life]]
* A real life counterpart of Ruritania could be some of the East European unrecognized nations such as UsefulNotes/{{Transnistria}} (officially part of Moldova) or UsefulNotes/{{Abkhazia}} (officially part of Georgia): They have their own government, money and so on. Still, they don't appear on any official diplomatic map. Or also territories that claim nation status at some point or another (and thus, become the center of the world's attention when civil wars break there). Some have since become independent (eg. Kosovo), others failed to do so (eg. Chechnya).
** All of the Caucasus is kind of a Ruritania.
* ''Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination'', by Serbian author Vesna Goldsworthy, is one attempt to prove how the perceived Ruritania is essentially an offensive "Balkan-sploitation": the various Southern, Central and Eastern European peoples are turned into a silly {{Flanderization}}, an exotic setting full of funny and silly ethnic stereotypes, where all the many problems are exclusively their own fault, and which contrasts with self-perceived "civilization" and "high culture" of the Western audience.
* Needless to say, Eastern and Central Europe is a pretty big place and ranges from big cities like Prague or Warsaw, which are about as developed as those in Western Europe (if a bit smaller) to backwater villages in which this is almost TruthInTelevision. As for political situation, it varies - in Russia, not much progress was made in terms of democratization, and don't even ask about Belarus ([[SocietyMarchesOn Though the pro-Tsikhanouskaya protests leave a lot of room for optimism]]), but many other countries are fully democratic, even if the corruption is often high, and despite 2010's seeing a rise of fashy elements in politics and dictator-ish strongmen such as Viktor Orbán. Relations between neighboring countries vary from extremely friendly (Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, have spend the better part of 20th century together and think of each other as kind of geographic siblings) to extremely hostile (like countries of former Yugoslavia, or Russia with all the rest of former soviet republics). In regards to financial situation, it is very much not as bad as in the case Greece (and when Greece asked for financial support, countries of Eastern Europe tended to drag their feet the most). And Eurovision? They mostly take it too seriously for their own good...
[[/folder]]

* Poldavia (Poldévie) was a fictional country invented by a French journalist who was a member of a far-right organization in 1929. Its supposed representatives wrote letters to French Senators to ask them to intervene in a Civil War supposed to take place in their country. The prank mainly targeted radical-leftist and anticlerical Senators. The politician Marcel Déat in an editorial printed on May 4, 1939, wrote that Danzig was not worth fighting a war over and that French farmers had no desire to die for the Poldavians ("mourir pour les Poldèves"). Déat went on to become a prominent fascist politician in Vichy and occupied France. Poldavia was also cited as the "birth place" of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki Nicolas Bourbaki]].

* Ernest Gellner's history book ''Nations and Nationalisms'' explains the origin of nationalism through the hypothetical example of a place called Ruritania (probably based on the Czechs, Serbs, and/or Slovaks), a culturally-distinct province in the equally-hypothetical empire of Megalomania (which is probably meant to be the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Gellner then describes how Ruritania might become an independent nation-state by inventing a national tradition based on various folk cultures (which is what most of them did), or might try to assimilate into mainstream Megalomania. We should note that Gellner was a German-speaking Czech Jew from Prague, and was in a position to certainly know about the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its ethnic makeup.

[[folder:Real Life]]

* ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'' had Boris and Natasha's home country of Pottsylvania, an imaginary Soviet satellite where literally ''everyone'' is a spy.
** There was also an arc featuring a country that was actually called Ruritania.

* Arulco in ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2''. Possibly. Arulco seems to have some difficulty in deciding whether it wants to be a Ruritania or a BananaRepublic. Parts of the country are filled with pine forests and log houses, others are deserts and jungles. The BigBad is explicitly Romanian, but married the former king, who has the very Spanish-sounding name Enrico Chivaldori. The inhabitants all speak English, but their names accents vary between American, Spanish, German and vaguely East European with no rhyme or reason whatsoever.