The popularity of the fantasy genre surged in Russia after the release of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings in 2001, simultaneously with the trilogy's world premiere. But the book had not been translated into Russian until the early 1990s, or some forty years after its British debut publication. A lot of Russians then fell in love with Tolkien's "Middle-Earth" and its dwellers, and hard-core fans began forming Tolkien societies.
As for the world's most famous boy wizard, his fans in Moscow - like everywhere around the globe - lined up outside book stores into the early hours of July 21 this year to be the first to buy the final book in the Harry Potter series. They were not even discouraged by the book's high price, 1,000 rubles (about $40).
So far, only the original English version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been on sale in Russia, but a Russian translation is forthcoming. Its initial print run will be 1.8 million copies, and the book will hit the stores on November 1.
It is only natural that people in Russia and other post-Soviet states should be so passionate about fantasy fiction. The breakup of the U.S.S.R. led to an identity crisis in communities and made many feel like escaping into an imaginative world built on strong ethical and moral values.
Russia was one of the first countries to publish C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia in translation, a children's book with a Christian message. Russian Orthodox priest Alexander Men thought Narnia's Lion, Aslan, was the best ever representation of Jesus in literature.
Many fantasy fiction lovers in Russia are now eagerly waiting for the release of a screen version of Northern Lights, the first book in Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials, whom some Western critics compared to Anton Chekhov and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The film, entitled The Golden Compass, is to hit the big screen in December. The book itself sold out in Moscow even faster than the first volume of Harry Potter. So, there is every reason to expect that the movie adaptation, too, will be an instant hit with Russian audiences.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
