person
Stroom
The central comic villain of The Civilizer: a caricature Austrian bureaucrat-colonizer who arrives with cartloads of paperwork to 'civilize' a Hungarian farm. His name suggests the German/Dutch Strom ('current, stream'), an unstoppable bureaucratic flood.
Reading notes
- The Civilizer §2 Stroom, the great civilizer
Stroom is a caricature of the Austrian bureaucrat-colonizer sent to 'civilize' Hungary after the 1848–49 revolution was crushed. The name echoes the Dutch/German word for 'current' or 'stream,' suggesting an unstoppable bureaucratic flood.