What
is Corvinia?
Corvinia
is a self-declared principality, with a small group of citizens - a so-called
micronation. The full title of our nation is The Sovereign Principality
of Corvinia.
The
Principality declared its nationhood on July 2, 1997, and the form of government
is an enlightened absolute monarchy, under the rule of His Corvine Highness,
Prince Peter I Ravn.
What
is a micronation?
Micronations
(also called ephemeral states) are small nation-states who are unrecognized
by the major powers of the world, and who are generally in control of little
or no actual territory. The seriousness of micronations varies, some being
merely infantile jokes, others having large populations of acknowledged
citizens. Some micronations "graduate" into true nationhood, the Vatican
and Palestine being excellent examples hereof. Among the nations recognized
by Corvinia are several "would-be" states, whose endeavours are endorsed
by Corvinia.
For
more information on micronations, see Yahoo's
Micronations page. We also maintain an index
of known micronations and a list of links to micronational
resources on the WWW.
What
does "Corvinia" mean, if anything?
The
name of our fair country is derived from the Latin word corvus,
meaning "raven". Corvinia, hence, means "raven-land". Unless you are entirely
dense, you will be unable to avoid noticing a certain fascination with
ravens on our part. The name Ravn, borne by both the Prince and
the Heir, is Danish for "raven".
How
serious are you about this?
Not
very. Corvinia is mostly a bit of casual fun, which is why every page of
Corvinia's website is clearly marked with the words "Not to be confused
with reality". The Principality of Corvinia was conceived as almost entirely
divorced from reality.
Who
are you?
If
you mean me, the guy who designed and maintains these pages, my name is
Peter Ravn Rasmussen. In my mundane life, I am a student at the
University of Copenhagen, and a freelance webdesigner and programmer. In
the context of Corvinia, I am "His Corvine Highness, Prince Peter I
Ravn". You don't have to bow to me - I am pretty informal, as absolute
monarchs go.
If
you mean the people of Corvinia as a whole, we are a motley group, but
mostly we're Danes (for those of you who are geographically challenged,
this means that we are natives of the Kingdom of Denmark, a nation in the
North of Europe).
Can
I get in on the fun?
Sure
you can. Send us a lot of money in a plain, unmarked envelope, and we'll
make you a citizen on the spot...
Seriously,
though, we're quite happy to accept new citizens. Citizenship is absolutely
free. Corvinia levies no taxes, but strongly encourages citizens to pay
taxes in their country of residence.
There
are, however, a few things to remember, and these are very important:
-
Corvinia
is not a democracy, and will never be one. If you become a citizen, you
must accept that, in all things Corvinian, the Prince is the one and only
boss.
-
It
is not a sign of sanity to believe that Corvinia is a real nation.
-
The
object of Corvinia is entertainment. If you behave badly, we have lots
of creative ideas for teaching you the error of your ways (someone suggested
offenders should be sent to inspect our Antarctic claims). Keep it up,
and you will find that citizenship can be a mighty ephemeral thing.
-
If
you are already a citizen of another micronation, we will, generally speaking,
not accept you as a citizen. We do make exceptions, so feel free to apply
- just don't expect a positive response.
If
you're still interested in applying for citizenship, please fill out our
Petition for naturalisation form. Should your
browser not support forms, send a written application to the Permanent
Committee on Immigration. If the committee approves your application,
the Prince may see fit to grant you citizenship, and with it, such titles
and offices as he may feel you have merited.
Doesn't
any of this cost any money?
Well...
if you insist on filling out the aforementioned plain brown envelope with
money and sending it to us, we won't refuse. The only expense you will
incur in connection with Corvinia is time (a valuable commodity in and
of itself, I am sure you will agree).
We
do have plans to produce various memorabilia, as well as issuing passports.
These will be available for purchase, but you are under no obligation to
buy them.
If
I become a citizen, will I get a title?
Not
necessarily, though a quick perusal of our census
will show you that most citizens have plenty of titles and offices. It
depends on your background. Nearly every title or office held by a citizen
is based on some aspect of their own qualifications and personalities.
Some of our citizens have offices but no titles, or vice versa, but it
is unlikely that you would be left entirely unoccupied.
How
do Corvinians keep in touch?
A
lot of us see each other in daily life (with varying regularity), and most
of us have e-mail access in one form or another.
As
often as there is material for it, the Ministry of Propaganda sends out
a newsletter (in Danish at present, though an English version may follow),
detailing "all the news that's fit to print". The distribution of the newsletter
is to citizens only.
Corvinian
news is also available in the form of the Bulletins
of the Ministry of Propaganda and Imprimatur
Magazine. The latter of these is a general e-zine,with a generally philosophical slant, while the former presents the "official" version of the news.
Corvinia
also has a mailing list, corvinia-l, maintained by the Prince, and
limited to Corvinian citizens. To subscribe to the mailing list, send an
e-mail to the list administrator
containing your name and e-mail address and a notice that you want to subscribe
to the mailing list. The administrator will reply when he has added you
to the list. Thereafter, mailing to corvinia-l@corvinia.org
will cause your message to be distributed to all subscribers to the list.
The mailing list is in its infancy at present, so there will not be much
volume on it, but we expect it to grow.
Finally,
there is also the possibility that you may encounter Corvinian nationals
visiting #corvinia or #micronat on the IRC Undernet. The
Prince frequently attends these channels, in the evening hours (Central
European Time).
What
is all this about installing fonts?
The
page footer says that, "for best results", you should install the fonts
Frankenstein and Ottawa; in some cases, the font recommended
is Goudy Old Style, instead. This is because the Corvinia pages
are designed with these fonts in mind.
Upcoming
versions of the HTML standard will allow the use of bitstreamed fonts,
but currently, the only way to use other fonts on a web-page is via the
FONT tag.
To
view Corvinia's website as it was intended, acquire and install the two
fonts (or a reasonable substitute - Lincoln or Old English
are similar to Frankenstein, and Goudy Old Style will substitute
well for Ottawa or vice-versa; the HTML code for Corvinian pages
supports these fonts). All these fonts are available as TrueType. If you're
using Macintosh, and have a similar font that you'd like to use, drop us
a line, and we'll see when we get around to it.
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