Russia as Mordor: Fantasy Allusions in Contemporary War Narratives

Abstract

The purpose of the study — to highlight and analyze the circulation of fantasy allusions in contemporary narratives used to label Russia and its military aggression against Ukraine.

The research methodology is based on the strategies of comparing and analyzing the transitory components of Tolkien’s mythology in the form of symbolic images that have been transformed and used in modern narratives to define Russia.

The scientific novelty. This article illustrates the conflicting and complex history of how J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy narrative was perceived in the USSR and in post-Soviet Russia. The practices of using fantasy images and characters as allegories to represent the Soviet regime and its leaders have been considered. It is noted that the attractiveness of the allegorical likening of the USSR to Mordor as an image and topos / place of “universal Evil” is explained by the fact that the reader of that time perceived the fantasy narrative as a coded totalitarian history. It is emphasized that Tolkien’s narrative constructed a kind of mythopoetic reality oriented to a certain experience of the reader. The reasons for the surprising adaptability of images, plots, and characters from the fantasy narrative and Tolkien’s mythology have been revealed, allowing their high transition level and quick transfer to the current realities of war, primarily to label Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Conclusions. It is argued that fantasy allusions, as elements of the traveling trans-myth, have become part of modern war narratives. Russia has been portrayed as Mordor, the “kingdom of Evil”, due to the adaptation of totalitarian and old imperial heritage into the modern Russian state and political project. Fantasy images are being used in a rather peculiar way due to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, reflecting the complex search for new lines of cultural and worldview demarcation.