Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully,
J. R. R. Tolkien
There’s also his response to his publisher who had forwarded him the german’s request, lol:
I must say the enclosed letter from Rütten and Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of ‘arisch’ origin from all persons of all countries?
Personally I should be inclined to refuse to give any Bestätigung [confirmation] (although it happens that I can), and let a German translation go hang. In any case I should object strongly to any such declaration appearing in print. I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.
You are primarily concerned, and I cannot jeopardize the chance of a German publication without your approval. So I submit two drafts of possible answers.
I know J.R.R isn’t a completely unproblematic fave (what early 20th century British dude is?) but this is pretty dope I thought. I particularly enjoy the part where he’s like “nah I’m not aryan, I’m not Persian/Roma/Hindu”, I bet the Nazis loved that lol.
Tolkien had extremely inconsistent political views. Someone once said anarcho monarchism.
He also has a line near the end of LOTR where Frodo becomes mayor and the only thing he does is defund the police. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbhHW3wU4AEKY2X.jpg:large
His ideology makes sense if you view it from this lens.
Late medieval rural England and Ireland were basically utopia. He thought the best life a person could live was being a cabbage farmer in a town of 50 other cabbage farmers were you all drink artisanal cider and smoke weed by a stream. It's an idealized version of Feudalism where there isn't an aristocracy, it's a commune of Yeoman farmers of roughly equal material condition. Tolkien was basically an AnPrim but was chill with domestication and written language, but not too much past that.
idealized version of Feudalism where there isn’t an aristocracy, it’s a commune of Yeoman farmers of roughly equal material condition.
Jefferson also had pretty much the same views: everyone should be a yeoman farmer with enough land to work themselves, for themselves. Except Jefferson was a hypocritical horrible person for slavery and SV reasons.
The whole ideology runs into two problems.
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for a lot of these "Yeomen" to be sustainable financially they had to exploit labor, whether it be literal slaves or migrant workers or just poorly paid farmhands. Pretty much every economy of private agriculture creates a pool of cheap or free labor.
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these Yeomen upon making more money want to buy shit that comes from industrialized urban centers. Their ice boxes and flush toilets and gramophones have to be made in urban centers where there are wage laborers, which usually means immigrants since the native population have all become small property owners. So Jefferson's image of a nation of independent farm owners actually paved the way for a wave of Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles and Germans to come into the country to make shit to sell them to dress up their cute little farm houses.
I agree, the idealism that naive early capitalism won't lead to capital accumulation and that industrialisation just won't happen because ... yeoman, is impossible and naive. You need socialism, even if all you want to do is be a yeoman farmer.
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I feel like I should reread them. I read them back in high school and don't remember much other than the movies.
He had better views than Joanne Rowling. Anti imperialist, anti racist, and environmentalist. He was just a little reactionary about the past which is why Nazis take his work at face value.
I thoroughly read the hobbit, Lotr, and the Silmarillion like two years ago and it cemented itself as my favorite literature universe. I never noticed how beautiful some of the passages are.
I love Tolkien's love of language. I also love that he wrote "let a German translation go hang." Y'know. Considering how many of them got the old "short rope with a long fall."
In his later years, he claimed he was an anarchist.
Though he was a conservative supporter of Franco earlier on, so I guess his politics were pretty eclectic.
It was incredibly common for Catholics to support Franco on religious grounds, ignoring his politics almost entirely. Ireland for example overwhelmingly supported the Nationalists, even centre-left groups were pretty neutral on the conflict for religious reasons.
True, at least a few good IRA lads fought against Franco. Viva la Quinta Brigada
I do love that song as well, but I was actually referring to another song by the same name that talks about the Irish who went and fought!
Oh damn.
By the way, check out the movie "Ay Carmela", it's great. One of the best movies of the spanish cinema and probably the best one of the subgenre "movies about the civil war".
and the black and tans, like lightning ran, from the rifles of the IRA
That’s one of the few good subreddits. It really helped me realize and learn the depths of his work.
Damn I wonder why the Nazis wanted to publish his book
Man I'm not even sure what that situation would look like. The words make sense, but the picture in my brain doesn't.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hobbit-camps-fascism-italy.amp
Bro was a South African at the turn of the century who combined folklore with race science to create the fantasy genre
