[HN Gopher] 1976 Soviet edition of 'The Hobbit' (2015)
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1976 Soviet edition of 'The Hobbit' (2015)
Author : us-merul
Score : 237 points
Date : 2025-08-10 22:54 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (mashable.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (mashable.com)
| us-merul wrote:
| I found this starting with the recent XKCD comic about Tom
| Bombadil in LOTR, seeing he appeared in a 1991 Soviet TV
| adaptation that's now on YouTube, checking here if anyone had
| posted it, and someone had provided the link to this book in that
| thread. Really cool find.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| They're really amazing. Thank you
| georgecmu wrote:
| As bonus trivia, depiction of Bilbo was based on the "short,
| round stature, expressive eyes, broad and open face" of the
| famous Soviet actor Yevgeniy Leonov
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Leonov).
|
| In this video Leonov mentions this fact before reading an excerpt
| from the book: https://youtu.be/z7hEJxTBsTs
| Raztuf wrote:
| That's the most Hobbit-looking man I ever seen.
| abcd_f wrote:
| He actually says just that!
|
| Basically, he says that he was approached by some random
| person and was gifted a copy of The Hobbit. This person
| turned out to be an illustrator of translated edition (same
| as at the OP's link) and he made Bilbo look like Leonov (the
| guy in the video).
|
| As a footnote, Leonov famously voiced Soviet version of
| Winnie The Pooh in all its glorious 3 episodes:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh_(1969_film)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQmGXzNMw0E
| davidw wrote:
| George Costanza is looking at those stamps and thinking he
| coulda been someone in the USSR
| Thorrez wrote:
| I'm assuming you're not saying Tolkien based his description of
| Bilbo on that Leonov. Are you saying the illustrator based the
| illustrations on Leonov?
|
| Does Leonov actually say that? Or just that the description and
| illustrations are similar to him?
| demaga wrote:
| In the video, Leonov says Belomlinskij (artist who made
| illustrations for this edition) himself gifted him this book
| and explained that he based Bilbo looks on Leonov.
| pelasaco wrote:
| He and Danny Devito would be such great Hobbits
| RyanOD wrote:
| Inconceivable!
| pineaux wrote:
| I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for
| my brains.
| culebron21 wrote:
| Here's that video in much better quality:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvNzEkS2B9U
| curioser wrote:
| I wonder if there are other sites that show the custom
| illustrations for the German, French, Spanish, and Japanese
| translations of JRRT's books?
| mbeex wrote:
| Google Search for an edition from Eastern Germany. Read it,
| when I was 10 years old (50 years ago!). It was long before all
| the fantasy hype, and it was magical. Klaus Ensikat was the
| illustrator.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=ensikat+illustration+h...
| pavlov wrote:
| Tove Jansson, author of the Moomins, also illustrated "The
| Hobbit" in the 1960s.
|
| Her version turned out controversial because Gollum is a giant
| compared to Bilbo. Turns out Tolkien hadn't described Gollum's
| size anywhere, and the author actually reworded future editions
| of the book to make it clear that Gollum is a small creature.
|
| You can see the image here:
|
| https://www.thepopverse.com/jrr-tolkien-the-hobbit-tove-jans...
|
| In my opinion Jansson's "Hobbit" is a great interpretation by a
| legendary artist, and this Gollum controversy has overshadowed it
| too much.
|
| The Soviet 1970s version (the OP link here) has an obvious debt
| to Jansson's illustrations, but the style is much more
| conventional and stiff. Jansson's linework and compositions are
| exquisite.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| >Her version turned out controversial because Gollum is a giant
| compared to Bilbo. Turns out Tolkien hadn't described Gollum's
| size anywhere
|
| Cain and Abel, whom Deagol and Smeagol (Gollum) parallel, may
| have been giant themselves, given that Adam (their father) is
| specified in certain religious /apocryphal texts as being
| 60-100 cubits tall, or 90-150 feet.
| antx wrote:
| that's a wild theory, considering that Tolkien himself
| described Gollum to be "a small, slimy creature" after the
| revisions, probably because of Jansson's depiction of him.
| and although the parallel is clear between many characters of
| the Hobbit and the Bible, do you have any credible sources
| that Tolkien took inspiration from apocryphal texts (or in
| this case the Hadith) ?
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Not in this specific case. There are other examples that
| could be brought up, such as the Gift of Men (death), which
| may draw on the Book of Jubilees which suggests that death
| was given to man to limit wickedness and allow for renewal.
| Or Book of Enoch and the fall of Numenor. "Credible
| sources" will be difficult to procure as Tolkien notably
| avoided citing specific influences when discussing his
| works
| mlinhares wrote:
| What an incredible thing, had no idea this existed!
| dumbidiot wrote:
| I can see why one would think Gollum was huge early on. Without
| the context of the Lord of the Rings (where it's established he
| was something like a hobbit before becoming Gollum), and also
| the fact that he ate goblins who wandered in his area of the
| caves, one might easily guess he was huge.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > the author actually reworded future editions of the book to
| make it clear that Gollum is a small creature
|
| The primary retconning occurred in 1951, when the encounter in
| _The Hobbit_ between Bilbo and Gollum was rewritten to be
| confrontational rather than amicable, because TLOTR now needed
| the Ring to have a malevolent influence. The retconning is
| reflected in Bilbo 's apology in the Council of Elrond to those
| (i.e. Gloin, but implicitly the readers) who may have heard a
| different version of his story. I'd love to see a first edition
| of the Hobbit to see what Tolkien actually did say about
| Gollum.
|
| [Edit]. Just checked my (third edition) copy of _The Hobbit_.
| It only says that Gollum was "a small slimy creature" who "had
| a little boat". There aren't any other descriptions of their
| relative size, except that Bilbo actually jumps over Gollum's
| head when escaping him (Gollum is crouched down at this point),
| as a sibling comment has just observed.
| bananaflag wrote:
| https://www.ringgame.net/riddles.html
| NateEag wrote:
| Fascinating - Jansson's artwork is lovely. Thank you for
| sharing it!
|
| I think the huge Gollum is a very understandable
| misinterpretation, but I think it's likely false the text she
| worked from was ambiguous about Gollum's size.
|
| If she was working from the 1951 revision, which seems likely
| if she was working in the 60s, then there is an explicit cue in
| the text showing that Gollum must be roughly Bilbo's size, when
| Bilbo is escaping the caves:
|
| > Straight over Gollum's head he jumped, seven feet forward and
| three in the air...
|
| If Bilbo could jump over Gollum with a three-foot leap, Gollum
| cannot be a giant.
|
| That said, it's well after the passage she illustrated, and
| would require a pretty attentive reader to catch, so as I said,
| the mistake is certainly understandable.
|
| Additional caveat that I've not read the second edition of The
| Hobbit, only more recent ones, so it's conceivable that passage
| wasn't _exactly_ as I've quoted it.
|
| I strongly suspect was largely as written, however, and even
| without the explicit numbers, if Bilbo jumps over Gollum, the
| inference remains largely the same.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > If Bilbo could jump over Gollum with a three-foot leap,
| Gollum cannot be a giant.
|
| Agree (although Gollum was crouched down)
|
| > I strongly suspect was largely as written, however, and
| even without the explicit numbers, if Bilbo jumps over
| Gollum, the inference remains largely the same
|
| I'm guessing that the jump wasn't in the first edition at
| all, where Bilbo and Gollum apparently parted amicably.
| simplicio wrote:
| Also the ring fits both Gollum and Bilbo, which limits how
| different in size they could be.
|
| (LOTR says the ring can change size, but this wasn't
| discussed in the Hobbit, and presumably hadn't occurred to
| Tolkien yet when he wrote it).
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Thumb/pinkie?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Nice! any more of her illustrations?
| vodou wrote:
| Most books are, sadly, quite worthless nowadays (monetary
| value). But the Tove Jansson illustrated, swedish edition of
| Bilbo is still a sought-after book that usually goes for
| hundreds of dollars.
|
| Here is an ongoing auction on Tradera (the swedish ebay),
| currently at SEK 3050 (~$320):
|
| https://www.tradera.com/item/341571/686383148/j-r-r-tolkien-...
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >Most books are, sadly, quite worthless nowadays (monetary
| value).
|
| I am not sure I understand. Aren't books "worthless" because
| they are readily available? Books are only expensive if they
| are rare (out of print, special limited edition, hand made or
| labor intensive, author signed, etc.). I don't think I would
| want "most" books to be rare and difficult to obtain.
| pineaux wrote:
| This is only partly true. The fact that the OP is referring
| to is the fact that books aren't sought after. Many books
| that have been bought for a 100 dollars in 1980 are worth
| only a few dollars nowadays even if they are relevant. Not
| many people look for used books.
| winnit wrote:
| There are plenty of books which are scarce but not sought
| after. Not necessarily because they lack intrinsic value
| but simply because they are forgotten. Beautifully crafted
| antique books which can be bought for almost nothing
| nowadays since the collector's value isn't there.
| vodou wrote:
| It is becoming increasingly difficult to sell, or even give
| away, books. In Stockholm, Sweden, where I am most familiar
| with the situation, most charity second-hand stores no
| longer accept hardcover books at all. The monetary value of
| most second-hand books is so low that many end up being
| thrown away instead of recirculated.
|
| Of course, there are rare antiquarian books that always
| find a buyer, but they are quite few. And perhaps nobody
| will mourn the vast number of cheap crime novels thrown
| away every day, but there is so much more: good, beautiful,
| high-quality books that happen to be out of fashion for the
| moment. These, too, are being thrown away.
|
| It was a long time since public libraries aimed to maintain
| a somewhat curated (or complete-ish) collection. Nowadays
| it is all about statistics. If books are not borrowed often
| enough, they are removed from the shelves and disappear.
|
| Perhaps I am overly pessimistic, but I fear that many, many
| books will, for all intents and purposes, be lost. There
| are so many books that aren't scanned/digitized.
| mongol wrote:
| Wow, printed in 1994
| VincentEvans wrote:
| I always thought that the passages that talk about Smeagol
| before he was corrupted by the ring - made it rather easy to
| think of him as a hobbit or maybe a human.
| kej wrote:
| It's still on my to-be-read list, but anyone exploring the
| Russian/Tolkien rabbit hole might also like The Last Ringbearer,
| which is a retelling from the other side's perspective. The
| English translation was never officially published but is on
| archive.org and probably other less reputable sites.
| Wildgoose wrote:
| It really is worth reading. And I say that as a die-hard
| Tolkien fan. Genuinely highly recommended.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| If anyone is curious:
| https://archive.org/details/TheLastRingbearerSecondEdition/
| culebron21 wrote:
| Worth noting: the author, Kirill Yeskov, authored a great book
| on the Earth history and the old theories of it. And the
| reasons he wrote The Last Ringbearer, according to his (now
| deleted) blog, were 1) the geology of Tolkien's world was
| impossible, the landmass had to be bigger, 2) if the orcs were
| an army, there must have been a country, a money system, a
| bureacracy, a developed economy, and so on. From that country's
| perspective, the elves were a small bunch of rioters on the
| fringe of the empire.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| In Hungary, the Lord of the Rings book was translated by Goncz
| Arpad who later went on to become President of Hungary.
| michaeldoron wrote:
| Best credentials for a public servant if I ever saw one
| p_ing wrote:
| If you're into various designs of Tolkien books, check out
| https://old.reddit.com/r/tolkienbooks/comments/vngd3x/isbn_g....
|
| awesomebooks.com is a good resource for Americans wanting to
| purchase Harper Collins versions, though those versions are not
| always of better quality.
| rightbyte wrote:
| It feels like the illustrator didn't read the book? The stone
| trolls are giants? (Am I missremembering that they were trolls?)
| And the battle is between two human armies. Surely goblins were
| described in Bilbo as not human barbarians?
| sevensor wrote:
| I thought the trolls were perfect. Big, unkempt, medium drunk.
| They should be a great deal bigger than Bilbo.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye reading some background it is the classical view of trolls
| as like big humans?
|
| I mean orcs are wretched elfs so it makes sense to draw them
| very human in some sense.
|
| I think my view was very much inspired by DnD. It is
| interesting to note how different this stuff were viewed at
| the time.
| sevensor wrote:
| Just from reading the text itself. I'm well familiar with
| the D&D troll, but Tolkien's trolls are just big ruffians
| covered in mutton grease.
| tokai wrote:
| Trolls, like Jotun, can be both monstrous or humanlike. In
| Scandinavian folklore a troll is more of a broad category
| than a specific 'species'. The main thing is that they are
| malevolent and supernatural. Some trolls are grotesque
| creatures with a dozen heads, while others are so human
| like that they can exchange their children for human
| children without the human parents ever realizing.
| Following is from a Danish historic dictionary:
|
| <<1) according to folk belief: a supernatural being hostile
| to humans (dangerous) (of a more or less human-like form),
| especially of supernatural size and strength, ugly (creepy)
| appearance, thought to live in hills (mountains), forests,
| etc. (cf. Hill, Mountain, Sea, Forest troll and
| underground); also of smaller beings such as dwarfs or
| gnomes (Junge.308. NPWiwel.NS.22. Feilb. cf. Small troll)>>
| bee_rider wrote:
| They seemed a bit big to me too. Although I'm not sure to what
| extent that's colored by modern interpretations.
|
| When I was a kid and had encountered less fiction, the image of
| trolls that popped into my head from the Hobbit was more like
| Ogres in Warhammer, Warcraft, or DnD (the portrayal is pretty
| consistent, something like an enormous, crude, gluttonous man-
| like thing).
|
| Nowadays trolls tend to be portrayed one step further toward
| the animalistic side. Even in the Lord of the Rings (as
| distinct from The Hobbit) they'd gotten a bit more animalistic
| IIRC (then again, I need to reread the books, this might be
| colored by the movies).
| KineticLensman wrote:
| There are very few descriptions of trolls in TLOTR. The troll
| that the Fellowship encounter in Moria has "a huge arm ...
| with a dark skin of greenish scales [and] a great, flat
| toeless foot". The mountain trolls who are intended to wield
| Grond in the siege of Minas Tirith aren't described at all.
|
| None of them are anything like the vaguely comedic trolls in
| The Hobbit.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Interesting! I'd forgotten and, I think, entirely
| substituted in the movie version.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I love their Gollum.
|
| https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/archives/03gGWt8x1MUJt...
| chkhd wrote:
| I still have this book! my mom reading this to me and my brother
| was my introduction to Tolkien.. very nostalgic.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| The illustration style reminds me of the villains from Rocky &
| Bullwinkle (1959-64), Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale - who
| were, as it were, Russian.
| HelloUsername wrote:
| (2015) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26698736
| aleyan wrote:
| My sister read me the first chapter of this edition of The Hobbit
| and refused to read me any more. So I had to read the rest myself
| to find out what happens. It became the first "grown up" book I
| ever finished.
|
| When I read LoTR a few years later, these illustrations formed
| the images of what hobbits, dwarfs, and Gollum looked like in my
| minds' eye. Decades later, having seen the Peter Jackson films
| several times, Bilbo still looks wrong to me as I expect Leonov;
| Gollum looks wrong too for that matter.
| Tallain wrote:
| Similar experience for me, except my imagery was influenced by
| the Brothers Hildebrandt. I collected all their cards and was
| obsessed with the detail in them.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _Gollum looks wrong too for that matter._
|
| "Down the face of a precipice, sheer and almost smooth it
| seemed in the pale moonlight, a small black shape was moving
| with its thin limbs splayed out. [...] The black crawling shape
| was now three-quarters of the way down, and perhaps fifty feet
| or less above the cliff's foot.[...] They peered down at the
| dark pool. A little black head appeared at the far end of the
| basin, just out of the deep shadow of the rocks."
|
| No visual version of Tolkien's works could ever be made now
| which depicts Gollum accurately.
| ajd555 wrote:
| I love this! Anyone else seeing the resemblance to Bill Murray?
| https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/archives/03gGWt8x1MUJt...
| malkia wrote:
| In Bulgaria, our longest running comic magazine (D'ga ("Duga")
| e.g. Rainbow) had version of the Hobbit -
| https://www.endorion.org/books/comics/ - This was in fact the
| first version of the "books" I got exposed in, and then much
| later read the real stuff :)
| nottorp wrote:
| Romanian 1975 edition of The Hobbit:
|
| https://www.pinterest.com/pin/581457001928701869/
|
| https://tainthemeat.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/o-poveste-cu-un...
| malkia wrote:
| These are wonderful! Thank you neighbour!
| clan wrote:
| Another illustrator from the 70's was Ingahild Grathmer[1] which
| was said to be a favourite by Tolkien himself[2]. Maybe he was
| polite because of the noteriaty (not sure if known at the time)
| but I do like them as well. Have a look at the documentary on
| YouTube: https://youtu.be/rNqVqzIxi3A&t=24m19s
|
| (Go to 24:19 for Ingahild herself)
|
| [1] a.k.a. Margrethe Alexandrine Thorhildur Ingrid
| (https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Margrethe_II_of_Denmark) [2]
| https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/66764/time-queen-denmark...
| quibono wrote:
| I enjoy all illustrations of LOTR & The Silmarillion from BEFORE
| the Jackson trilogy. I love the film adaptation but one could say
| that it's been _too_ influential in shaping the portrayal of
| Tolkien's characters and world.
|
| Especially to people born after the movies came out.
| alexalx666 wrote:
| no they are not brilliant, there were much better ones in
| Albrecht Durer style
| apples_oranges wrote:
| The Soviets probably identified easier with the fact that someone
| would embark on a highly experimental adventure when prompted by
| a bearded guy.
| pgaddict wrote:
| The funny thing is the local communist newspaper "Red Truth"
| (as if there were non-communist ones, ...) published a review
| of LOTR in 1977, in which they pretty much took the side of the
| Mordor. (It might be a made-up joke from the 90s, but the
| spirit of absurdity is spot on for 1977.)
|
| The reasoning was roughly:
|
| * Mordor is obviously meant to be USSR, as it's in the east.
|
| * The orcs are clearly heavy industry workers, building the
| world of future.
|
| * Bilbo is obviously a son from a bourgeoisie family, disgusted
| by hard work.
|
| * The west is represented by elves = aristocracy, people =
| bourgeoisie, hobbits = landowners.
|
| * The group of reactionaries are afraid of a made up "threat
| from the east", led by Gandalf.
|
| * Gandalf = a reactionary ideologue, keeping people in state of
| fear of progress and knowledge.
|
| * Saruman = protector of the oppressed, declared a traitor and
| destroyed by the reactionaries.
|
| * But socialism can't be destroyed by throwing something in the
| fire. All the power to Mordor, surrounded by reactionary
| neighbors.
| mamonster wrote:
| Mordor revisionism is very popular in Russia(due to the
| reasons you already outlined).
|
| See from example
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer as perhaps
| the most famous from the genre
| trhway wrote:
| And these days many Russian ultra-patriots are proudly
| accepting the representation of Russia as Mordor and its
| soldiers as orcs in the war in Ukraine.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Well, they are not entirely wrong: Tolkien was a big fan of
| "old England", as he saw it, with its primarily agricultural
| focus, and held rather dim view on industrialization and
| modernism. While Soviets of course were fanatics of
| industrialization and considered the petty bourgeoisie and
| kulaks (and Bagginses certainly look a lot like kulaks) their
| mortal enemies. Tolkien was very adamant that he does not do
| allegories, and yet the Soviets were right to consider him
| ideologically opposed to them. He was also a devout Catholic
| and ardent anti-Communist, so whether or not the Red Truth
| really declared him an enemy, they certainly would have
| strong reasons to.
| duxup wrote:
| The Soviet illustrations remind me of Samuri Jack.
|
| I read my youngest The Hobbit recently and being familiar with
| Lord of The Rings and knowing there is a little disconnect
| between LOTR and the Hobbit ... I was still surprised by how much
| the Hobbit jumps from event to event and leaves things unsaid,
| but lingers other places a great deal. It feels almost
| unpolished.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| To me it feels exactly the right tone for a children's book
| (which it is!)
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Might not be a coincidence. Samurai Jack's creator, Genndy
| Tartakovsky, was born in 1970 in Soviet Moscow. Non-zero chance
| he might have seen this right as he was getting into drawing.
| usrnm wrote:
| I had that book as a kid and it was one of my favorite books at
| the time. Just seing these illustrations brings back so many
| memories. Thank you
| bubblebeard wrote:
| Gotta love that spaghetti Golum, this is truly great stuff.
| WalterBright wrote:
| My favorites are the ones on the 1960s paperback editions:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Towers-Authorized-Revised-Special-Foe...
|
| I bought the whole set of those.
| geldedus wrote:
| Brilliant? To me they are rather naive, childish
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Which makes a lot of sense sense since The Hobbit is a
| children's book.
| blacklion wrote:
| It was my first book by JRRT.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| "Notice, comrades, how evil dragon sits on hoarded wealth."
| r34 wrote:
| Would be great to be able to reconstruct the whole story in the
| style of the images as a comic book or animation. Might be a nice
| job for the generative models of the future.
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