Empire: World History · 2025-11-20 · 44 min · 8,225 words

309. Tintin, Nazis, & Soviets

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Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnhem and me, William Durymple. Last episode we were talking about cartoon characters and we're going to talk about a proper doozy in this one. So we talked about Barba, the elephant, and asterisk. It is that thing that we have so often. on Empire where two things are true simultaneously.

And Baba, the elephant, is enormously charming and we all love those pictures, but it is also enormously offensive to many people at the same time. And trying to keep both those visions in in the same pair of binoculars is a tricky thing, isn't it? Well, I mean I I was really interested in your response to pictures that you had. seen and accepted as a child and now you were going, oh my god. Never occurred to me growing up in 1970s sort of semi-Edwardian Scotland that any of the stuff was at all dodgy.

But yes, no, I totally see it now. Anyway, look, we continue the discussion, but we're talking about Tintin, Danton, if you're on the other side of the channel. And it's a cracker of a story that you've covened Lita. I have to say, this is Lita's research, not mine this episode, and it is one of the most extraordinary stories we've ever dealt with. So

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