For Russians Under 30, Most Significant Book is Orwell’s ‘1984’; for All Russians, It’s Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 4 – The Russian Field polling agency, at the request of Aleksandr Asafov, a member of the Social Chamber, surveyed Russians on which books were in their minds the most significant for them. The differences between Russians under 30 and those older than that are striking.

            Those under 30 listed George Orwell’s 1984 first, followed by Tolstoy’s War and Peace, the Harry Potter books, Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, the Bible and the Constitution. For Russians as a whole, the top spot was occupied by War and Peace, followed by Ostrovsky’s How the Steel was Forged and Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita (kommersant.ru/doc/8251546).

            For Russians as a whole, Orwell’s anti-utopia was fifth, largely the result of young people putting it first. In 15^th place was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s GULAG Archipelago; and in 17^th place was the Koran, with one percent of all Russians naming the former and only 0.3 percent of all Russians the latter.