If you ask Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy which book made the most impression on her, she doesn’t hesitate for a moment. No far-right tracts, no analyzes by nationalist historians. The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, that is her favorite. “The most special book I have ever read,” she wrote on Facebook four years ago on the British writer’s birthday. “A metaphor for man and the world.” She really means that. Before Meloni became Prime Minister in September 2022, she regularly dressed up as a hobbit.
Tolkien’s famous Middle-earth trilogy, about the ring that must be destroyed to prevent evil from triumphing, is one of the most popular fantasybooks in the world. The brave hobbit Frodo, the wizard Gandalf – tens of millions of readers are captivated by them. Should you be concerned now that an exhibition about the creator of this mythical story has opened in Rome?
The name is neutral: Tolkien. Man, professor, writer. Culture Minister Sangiuliano colored it: “Tolkien was a Catholic and authentic conservative who defended the traditional values that have been forgotten in the West: the sense of community, the tradition of nature, resistance to the most dehumanizing aspects of modernity. ” That is why critics of the right-wing nationalist government see the exhibition as a political power play. The Italian right deploys Tolkien in a culture war to break the alleged dominant role of the left in Italian cultural life.
Because the fact that Meloni dressed up as a hobbit was no coincidence. Around 1980, when Meloni was three, a number of Italian neo-fascists organized three ‘hobbit camps’. They wanted to distance themselves from the existing party culture, which was strongly focused on confrontation and polarization. It remained with those three camps, more celebration than lessons in politics, but within the small neofastist party a current continued to exist that identified itself with hobbits and Frodo’s attempt to defeat evil. No macho heroes, but smart individuals who, sometimes against the grain, tried to do good. Myths as a response to the rationality and materialism of the modern world.
These elements can still be found in Meloni, who has described himself as an underdog. Her program is full of echoes of a world that is in danger of being lost, of traditional values that need to be restored. As Prime Minister, she is like the hobbit Frodo, who must overcome many obstacles to prevent ‘the (left-wing) evil’ from triumphing.
An undercurrent is the feeling that, now that Meloni and her nationalist-right party Fratelli d’Italia are firmly in the saddle, it is time to assert themselves more in the cultural field. A new boss of the Venice Biennale. New directors of important museums. Political appointments at the state broadcaster RAI.
And now Tolkien, as an inspiration for the right. La Repubblica, a left-wing newspaper, sneered that the right has little to offer intellectually other than hobbits and elves. With the implicit undertone: that is not enough to win a culture war. But isn’t that an underestimation of Tolkien?
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