References to Orcs, the evil characters of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels, have increased in frequency in Russian society since the start of Vladimir Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, although the words is typically dismissed as nothing more than a term of abuse, Dimitry Savvin says.

But in fact, they provide extraordinarily valuable keys to the understanding of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian society, given that many Russians now view Orcs as something positive, according to the editor of the conservative Russian Harbin portal based in Riga (harbin.lv/obraz-orka-v-tvorchestve-tolkina-i-sovetskaya-identichnost).

Tolkien’s positive heroes are representatives of what he recognized as the passing of peasant societies, with all their myths, Savvin says. Indeed, he saw as........

© Eurasia Review