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Frequently Asked Questions
about the
Principality of Corvinia
 
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:

  1. 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.
  2. It is not a sign of sanity to believe that Corvinia is a real nation.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.

 
Back to Corvinia's Homepage
 
This document is maintained
by Peter Ravn Rasmussen
 Not to be confused with reality!
 For best results, install the fonts
Frankenstein and Ottawa
 Last updated: August 11, 1998