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Banned in Russia for 40 years, this book is 2022's bestseller amid Ukraine war
Russia-Ukraine War: The novel is the most popular fiction download of 2022 on the platform of the Russian online bookseller LitRes.
George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" has topped electronic bestseller lists in Russia, CNN reported quoting state news agency Tass. Set in an imagined future where totalitarian rulers deprive their citizens of all control in order to maintain support for wars, the novel is the most popular fiction download of 2022 on the platform of the Russian online bookseller LitRes, and the second most popular download in any category, the report said.
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The novel, published in 1949, was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988.
George Orwell had then said that he had used Stalin's dictatorship as a model for the personality cult of the all-seeing Big Brother for his book, whose "thought police" force cowed citizens to engage in "doublethink" in order to believe that "War is peace, freedom is slavery."
Some see contemporary echoes in the rule of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the report said. Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in February prompted new laws that made it a crime to publish any information about the war that would be different from official statements. The Kremlin does not even use the word "war," referring to its Ukraine invasion as "special military operation".
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However, the Russian translator of a brand new edition of "1984" sees the parallels with George Orwell's novel elsewhere, the report added.
"Orwell could not have dreamt in his worst nightmares that the era of 'liberal totalitarianism' or 'totalitarian liberalism' would come in the West, and that people -- separate, rather isolated individuals -- would behave like a raging herd," Darya Tselovalnikova said.
