Talossa

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Kingdom of Talossa

Flag	Coat of Arms
Motto: Miehen Huone on Hänen Valtakuntansa (English: A Man's Room Is His Kingdom) Musical Anthem: Chirluscha àl Glheþ (English: Stand Tall, Talossans)
Type of entity:	Micronation
Location:	Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Cézembre, Antarctica
Area claimed:	13 km² (exclusive of Antarctic claims)
Membership:	123 (2008)
Date of foundation:	26 December 1979
Leadership:	Monarch - King John I
Purported organisational structure:	Hereditary constitutional monarchy
Language:	Talossan and English
Purported currency:	Bent (plural Bence) and Talossan Louis = 60 bence (plural Louise) (1 Louis = $1.50 US, basis September 2009)

Pengöpäts (Talossa's Antarctic claim)

Talossa is the name of two micronations - the Kingdom of Talossa and the Republic of Talossa.

Talossa was founded as a kingdom on 26 December 1979 by Robert Ben Madison, a 14-year-old resident of Milwaukee, shortly after the death of his mother. At that time the kingdom occupied Madison's bedroom, and he adopted the name "Talossa" for it after discovering that the word means "inside the house" in Finnish. Over the years, Talossa's territorial claims expanded from Madison's childhood bedroom to encompass most of Milwaukee's East Side, as well as the French island of Cézembre and a large chunk of Antarctica (called Pengöpäts, which means Penguin-land in the Talossan language)^[1].

Madison maintained Talossa throughout his adolescence. During this time its only other members were about a dozen relatives and acquaintances. This changed in the mid 1990s, when Talossa's web page came to the attention of hundreds of thousands of readers via a series of stories published in such newspapers as the New York Times and Wired, which were subsequently republished by newspapers in many other countries. Several dozen new "citizens" joined Talossa as a result. Around this time, Madison began to claim that he was the inventor of the term "micronation".

In late 2003-early 2004, some citizens of the Kingdom began to see Madison as intolerably eccentric and autocratic in the wake of certain actions on Madison's part including an attempt to have a citizen thrown out on false charges of domestic violence. Led by Chris Gruber (now called Kane Gruber), they responded by creating the secessionist Republic of Talossa on 1 June 2004. As of the 17 December 2007 census, the breakaway group claims 20 members. Although the Republic is not officially recognized by the Kingdom of Talossa, an agreement of friendship and cooperation has been signed between the two parties.

Madison continued to lead the Kingdom until 2005, when he abdicated and renounced his citizenship, in favour of his wife's grandchild Louis, who became King on 16 August. Dr. Gregory Rajala held the post of Regent until Louis' abdication on 29 November 2006. An "interregnum" was in effect until 14 March 2007, when John W. Woolley was elected King of Talossa. As of 2009 the Kingdom claims 120 members.

References

1. ^ La Mha, M; Siervicül, C. Ün Guizua Compläts àl Gramatica es àl Cünsuetüd Del Glheþ Talossan, Prüma Ediziun Angleasca (A Complete Guide to the Grammar and Usage of the Talossan Language, First English Edition) (2008). ISBN 978-1441436917.

External links

• The Kingdom of Talossa Official Website
• The Republic of Talossa Official Website
• "It's Good to Be King" by Alex Blumberg. Wired 8.03 (March 2000).
• "Castles in the air." The Economist, 20 December 2005.
• "Shortcuts: Starting your own country" CNN.com, 27 September 2006.
• "Art in Review: We Could Have Invited Everybody" by Roberta Smith. New York Times 7/15/2005.

Talossa is also a name given to a small village in southern Lebanon. The name of the village has been kept for generations and it is believed to have existed for around a thousand years. The village is populated by some 5000 people where te majority live on remittances transferred by their sons living in America and Europe as a result of an expelling campaing carried out by vicious Israeli occupation that lasted 22 years (1978-2000). The village is beautifully situated on a hilltop surrounded by distant mountains that stretch from the Nabatieh area to the medeterenian shores of Nakoura.