4 ms·
Putin doesn't care one iota about the Lord of the Rings Western non-sense. In fact, most of the people around these parts of the continent (Eastern Europe) don'
by paganel 4y ago
Putin doesn't care one iota about the Lord of the Rings Western non-sense. In fact, most of the people around these parts of the continent (Eastern Europe) don't care about the novels themselves, apart from a very thin layer of the Westernised middle-class (I'm part of that Westernised middle-class layer and I don't care for the books, the movies were interesting for an one-time viewing 20 years ago).
But, yes, people from the West will always make everything be about them.
Later edit: If anything, it is Tolkien who has borrowed "the giving of expensive jewellery as an act of power" from Tsarist Russia, see articles like this one [1] about how 19th century Russian emperors were delighted in making such gifts. If anything, Putin wants to be a 19th century Russian emperor, again, he doesn't care at all about Western-created stupid memes.
[1] https://www.thejewelleryeditor.com/jewellery/article/as-the-jeweller-du-jour-in-imperial-russia-the-tradition-of-giving-faberge-as-a-gift-dates-back-more-than-130-years/ https://www.thejewelleryeditor.com/jewellery/article/as-the-...
- yakshaving_jgt 4y ago> most of the people around these parts of the continent (Eastern Europe) don't care about the novels themselves [Citation needed]
- paganel 4y agoThis is not reddit, but I can invite you to some of the most frequented old books stores in Bucharest where almost no-one purchases the Ring books. Yes, I do go there religiously two days out of three.
- yakshaving_jgt 4y agoFascinating. You have an anecdote. Which is about as convincing as any anecdote of my own. I know plenty of people in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia who all love Tolkien’s work. Does my anecdote trump yours, do you think?
- sidlls 4y agoYou think tributes and gifts of this sort are an invention of Tsarist Russia?
- paganel 4y agoThey certainly aren't an invention of a geeky writer from mid 20th century England, like most of the comments in here would seem to suggest. So much Eurocentrism and geek-centrism that it hurts.
- selimthegrim 4y agoSurely Last Ringbearer got some PR there
- allarm 4y ago> most of the people around these parts of the continent (Eastern Europe) don't care about the novels themselves That’s false. The Tolkien novels are very well known in Russia. There was a huge role playing subculture in 90s and 00s, probably still is.
- paganel 4y agoSomehow I think that most of the people that were into that back then are now posting from Georgia, Belgrade or Kazakhstan, if not them, then their kids. That was my point, leaders like Putin don't focus on the thin layer of the Westernised middle class.
- molotovh 4y agoNobody is claiming he does. The article is merely pointing out the irony of the situation.