George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, set in a fictional future where totalitarian rulers deprive their citizens of any ability for self-determination, topped the Internet bestseller list in Russia.

The novel is the most popular in terms of downloads for 2022 on the platform of the Russian online bookstore LitRes, according to the state news agency TASS.

The English author’s novel was published in 1949, when Hitler’s Nazi regime was defeated and the Cold War began between the West and the Soviet Union.

The book was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988.

Orwell said he used “Stalin’s dictatorship as a model for the cult of the all-knowing Big Brother” whose “thought police” make citizens cringe and engage in “doublethink” to believe that “war is peace, freedom is slavery.” ‘.

But some believe that Big Brother has something in common with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in the last two years of his presidency has eliminated opposition and critical media from the public sphere.

In addition, after the February invasion of Ukraine, Russia introduced new laws that make it a crime to publish any information about the war that differs from official government statements.

After all, the Kremlin avoids the word “war” and uses the term “special military operation.”

A few days ago, Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin was sentenced last week to 8.5 years in prison on charges of spreading “false information” about the military. Also last month, a Kremlin spokesman said there were no attacks on civilian targets, despite a series of explosions at Ukrainian energy facilities that left millions without heat and electricity.

“Orwell, even in his worst nightmares, could not dream that the era of “liberal totalitarianism” or “totalitarian liberalism” would come in the West and that people would behave like a rabid herd,” even Daria Chelovalnikova said. publisher in May.

Source: CNN