Fantasts at War: George Orwell, J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling on the Russian-Ukrainian Front

Can fantasy writers foresee the future? In times when reality feels like the plot of a gripping novel, the works of George Orwell, J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling take on a striking new relevance. They reveal the nature of war, propaganda, and the struggle between good and evil — and in each story, we can trace a distinctly Ukrainian thread.

In this discussion, we’ll explore how Animal Farm exposes the mechanics of totalitarianism and why Orwell wrote his only ever foreword for a Ukrainian translation. We’ll revisit Tolkien, a veteran of World War I who created an entire mythical world yet eerily captured the battles we see today — even though his works were banned in the Soviet Union for decades. And we’ll discover how Harry Potter became part of a cultural war with Russia long before the full-scale invasion.

This is a conversation about the power of fantasy to reveal truths sharper than news reports, and about Ukrainians who left their mark on global literature. And perhaps, together, we’ll try to answer one question: can a single story change the course of a war?