 This is a clear reference to the well-known thriller "The Day of the Jackal", where an assassin of the same nickname comes close to assassinating Charles de Gaulle.Welde's career also includes an episode touching on a Belgian paedophile serial killer, reminiscent of the real-life such affair in Belgium a century later than the time in which the book is set.The figure of general Sobolev was based upon the White General Mikhail Skobelev.