[GOPJ]

“But what’s interesting about Tolkien, one sign that’s there more economic message to these texts than people realize, is that the Soviet Union banned all of Tolkien’s writings. It’s not often known, but we tell the story at the end of the book about those great days during the collapse of the Soviet Union when thousands of civilians poured into Red Square and there was this question about what the tanks were going to do. And in the middle of those crowds a sign popped up that said: ‘Frodo is with us’.

“And that’s when a lot of Americans found out that in fact, the Soviets had been passing around this sort of contraband, mimeographed version, bad translation of The Lord of the Rings for decades.”

fyi

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks GOPJ.