Giorgia Meloni quotes Tolkien: “Gone is the time when culture was one-sided”

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has used quotes from Tolkien to claim that the political right wing has tried and failed to take over popular culture. On Instagram she posted a video of her visit to an exhibition in Rome dedicated to the writer and said: “This beautiful exhibition on Tolkien promoted by the Ministry of Culture is a tribute to the wealth of ideas, imagination and ability to inspire generations”.

Political opponents of Italy’s government have accused the Minister for Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, of currying favour with the Prime Minister by using €250,000 of public money to fund a personal project.

However, Meloni said, “The controversy over the organisation of the largest exhibition ever dedicated in Italy to the author of one of the best-selling and best-loved books in the history of literature are astonishing. It shows the nervousness of those who thought that culture belonged to them, that it could be the prerogative of one political party and not of everyone. That time is over”.

Far-right embraced Tolkien

In the UK during the 60s and 70s, Tolkien’s books, in particular the most famous, ‘The Lord of the Rings’trilogy, were loved by people of all generations and political persuasion. In Italy, however, the fantasy worlds created by the writer were embraced by the far right. Italian neofascists drew comparisons with the Middle-Earth tales and their own struggles against left wing anarchists.

Georgia Meloni is a huge Tolkien fan. In her autobiography, she described Tolkien’s epic as a “sacred” text and, as a youth activist in the post-fascist Italian Social Movement, Meloni had visited schools dressed as a hobbit.