Tolkienism as a subculture. (Kuznetsov).

According to the statistics of the public-opinion poll, the majority of people in Russia refers themselves to some sort of subcultures. As you can easily understand from the root of the term «Subculture», it is closely connected with the word «Culture». Modern scientific definition of this term symbolyses the beliefs, values, expressive means of language which should be common for a particular group of people. In all types of the society we can find different subgroups which are different from the others by their cultural values and traditions.

The majority of subcultures has their own basis on fantasy books or films, for example, Harry Potter's trilogy or The Lord of Rings which I took as an example which I would like to describe as a subculture.

The main reason of such numerous quantity of subcultures we can call the desire of young generation to escape from the difficulties of real life. Supporting the idea of any subculture they associate it with the alternative life or virtual world where they can be kings or acquire special magical skills to persuade anybody to do what they want.

One of these groups was formed in 1950s by the followers of the well-known English writer John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. First club of Tolkienists called «Fellowship of the Ring» and it was organised by Ted Johnson at Pitkone, USA. In 1965 American Society of Tolkienists conducted a meeting at the camp of University of the District of Columbia by Richard Plots. In 1967 their community numbered one thousand members. In 1969 first conference took place in Wahington and was characterized as a great scientific event.

As any subculture the Tolkienism followers have their own style of clothes. We can't imagine the tolkienist without a sword or helmets, because the most important thing in his life is a fight for safe of his life. Tolkienists, like any professional society, have their own activities.

The directions of Tolkienists' activities are really varied. Firstly, it can be scientific observations which are dedicated to the evidences of the events' reality which had been described in The Lord Of Rings, the language of characters and their life manners. Even after the author's death the scientists search the references of Tolkienist's world in the modern society. Secondly, the tolkienists are famous by their creative writings. Such kind of events is peculiar for all fan groups but in view of this motion's age some of their compositions became classics. Except this, Tolkien's son periodically reconstructs his novels. The third branch of tolkienists is the role-playing games. The significance of these games concludes in the reconstruction of the time images which are described in the books. The gamers use the weapons (swords, axes, pikes and javelins) and of course characters: elves, dwarfs and even ents and create theatrical performances at the open air. They have special places for such kind of games. For instance in Moscow they have two places: country estate Tsaritsyno and Neskuchny Garden.

In conclusion, I would like to say that Tolkienism is one of the most original subcultures in the modern society and unquestionably it deserves special attention to itself from the real society as the cultural phenomena.