Are the countries in the Belgariad based on real ones?

Question

Is there any info on which real-life countries the countries in David Eddings's Belgariad and Malloreon were based on? So far I've come up with the following:

Sendaria ~ Britain (mixture of cultures, reputation for 'common sense', and anyway ever since LotR the main character's home country in a fantasy world is always based on Britain or England)

Arendia ~ Ireland (lots of fighting between two rival factions: Mimbrates ~ Catholics and Asturians ~ Protestants)

Cherek ~ Scandinavia (Viking-type warriors in warships, lots of bear stuff)

Drasnia ~ Russia (big country with huge tracts of tundra waste, two main cities, omnipresent intelligence service)

Algaria ~ Kazakhstan (horses - say no more)

Cthol Murgos ~ China? (I think Murgos are described as having sallow skin and slanted eyes; also the dynasty system for rulers of Cthol Murgos sounds vaguely like the Chinese dynasties)

Tolnedra ~ ancient Rome? (this is mainly based on the legions; the merchants, bureaucrats, and disbelief in magic maybe don't fit so well)

Gar og Nadrak? Mishrak ac Thull? Nyissa? Riva? And of course the other continent - do different parts of Mallorea correspond to countries in the Americas (or maybe states in the US)?

I did consider Aloria ~ Scandinavia, since it splits into 3 countries with one culturally similar country way out in the northern part of the western ocean, but Drasnia and Algaria don't really seem very Scandinavian.

Suggestions for further correspondences as well as canon info will be appreciated!

Answer 1

Glancing at the David Eddings wiki, he at the least states that the Nyissans were loosely inspired by Egypt. From The Rivan Codex, "The Alorns are clearly Scandinavian; the Tolnedrans, Marags, Arends, and Nyissans are Mediterranean. The Angaraks ... were intended to suggest the Mongols of Genghis Khan or the Huns of Attila" (p. 106) On page 77, he started that Nyissan society "has echoes of the Egyptian, but only slight ones."

I have memories of reading a similar book by Eddings that was more explicitly his notes, but I have not not yet found a copy again.

Answer 2

Eddings is on record as saying he based his fictional worlds on real places:

I create people and places that I find very interesting (almost always derived from real places). I like some people and places and I hate some of the others. For some reason the ones I like always win. Isn’t that odd?

I'm not aware of any detailed breakdown of which real places served as inspiration for Eddings. Sometimes it's obvious (Cherek is Generic Viking, Tolnedra is mostly Generic Ancient Rome), other times less so.

As the above quote indicates, Eddings was a rather opinionated person. How he was inspired by particular places depends not only on the historical facts, but on his subjective opinion of those facts. Since Eddings is no longer around to tell us, it will often be futile to ask which specific times and places inspired his fictional kingdoms.

Also, I think it's fair to say Eddings wasn't very interested in detailed historical research. In the Belgariad/Malloreon universe, a number of things are left extremely vague:

• Why did these societies develop as they have? How do they interact with each other?
• How do the people live? For the most part they seem to be Generic Happy Peasants (in the Good kingdoms) or Generic Oppressed Peasants (in the Evil kingdoms), but beyond that we aren't given much information on social or economic structures.
• Why is there only one language? The heroes have no difficulty making themselves understood at the other end of a continent. Good luck with that on the real medieval (or modern) Earth.
• Why have these kingdoms existed for 7000 years with essentially fixed borders (!) and no particular cultural change?

In short, I think it's a mistake to go looking for very detailed parallels between Eddings' kingdoms and real ones, because Eddings wasn't attempting that level of historical versimilitude.

Answer 3

Based on this direct quote from the introduction section of The Rivan Codex (1999), written by the author himself, please note the following:

Most of the similarities between the people of this world and our imaginary one should be fairly obvious. The Sendars correspond to rural Englishmen, the Arends to Norman French, the Tolnedrans to Romans, the Chereks to Vikings, the Algars to Cossacks, the Ulgos to Jews, and the Angaraks to Hunnish-Mongolian-Muslim-Visigoths out to convert the world by the sword. I didn’t really have correspondences in mind for the Drasnians, Rivans, Marags, or Nyissans. They’re story elements and don’t need to derive from this world.

This said, any real world references for the Drasnians, Rivans or Marags are personal preference. A later section specifically covering Nyissa does mention Egypt, but it says it's a cross between Egypt and Chinese courts, not necessarily the culture.

Answer 4

Aloria is the Germanic Peoples... no Russians or Kazakhs here. Cherek is, of course, Viking-Age Scandinavia, Drasnia is Northern Germany, broadly Flanders to the Baltics (Hanseatic League Traders.) Algaria is broadly Southern Germanic lands, though their similarity is tenuous, and their character is more Hunnish than German. Riva would have to be Iceland, I think, or perhaps England... it has elements of each.

Sendaria may indeed be England, or possibly Flanders. Arendia is France, definitely. Tolnedra is Rome, Nyissa is Egypt. Murgo is Arabia. Mallorea is a strange combination of Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The Melcenes are probably Chinese and the Dals are probably Tibetans.