Since Start of Putin’s War in Ukraine, Russians Buying More Anti-Utopian Books, LitRes Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 29 – Putin’s war in Ukraine has affected Russian reading habits. In March, Russians purchases 33 percent more copies of anti-utopia fiction than they did a month earlier, according to the LitRes company which sells electronic and audio books (stoletie.ru/lenta/v_rossii_vyrosli_prodazhi_antiutopij_492.htm).

            The most dramatic increase came in purchases of copies of George Orwell’s 1984, sales of which jumped 234 percent from last month to this. But others which showed significant increases include Viktor Pelevin’s Transhumanism, Inc., Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and Vladimir Sorokin’s Day of the Oprichnik.

            Many of those choosing to read this kind of fiction at a time of war and increasing repression may be doing so to find out what is likely to come next. But others, as one Russian joke has it, may be doing so in order to have a guide for how they should fit into the new reality of Putin’s wartime Russia.