Hergé's use of research and photographic reference allowed him to build a realised universe for Tintin, going so far as to create fictionalised countries, dressing them with specific political cultures. These were heavily informed by the cultures evident in Hergé's lifetime. Pierre Skilling has asserted that Hergé saw monarchy as "the legitimate form of government", noting that democratic "values seem underrepresented in [such] a classic Franco-Belgian strip". Syldavia in particular is described in considerable detail, Hergé creating a history, customs, and a language, which is actually a Slavic-looking transcript of Marols, a working-class Brussels dialect. He set the country in the Balkans, and it is, by his own admission, modelled after Albania. The country finds itself threatened by neighbouring Borduria, with an attempted annexation appearing in "King Ottokar's Sceptre". This situation parallels the Italian conquest of Albania, and that of Czechoslovakia and Austria by expansionist Nazi Germany prior to World War II.