After The Hobbit was published in the Soviet Union in 1976 the same translation was used for subsequent editions. The artists again featured those same furry feet and legs for Bilbo Baggins. Like the creature above who looks far from human-like with his claws, donkey ears, and misshapen face. Well, it’s an honest attempt at being original. But note how the artist has modeled Bilbo’s face on Mikhail Belomlinsky’s depiction, the first one to be published in Russia, down to the cleft chin.
This was actually the cover to a graphic novel published in 1992. There’s more info about it here at the Babel Hobbits site. The inside is better than the cover indicates.
Artist: N. Fadeieva
This frizzled-haired being from 1992 is wearing pants, but by his feet’s appearance it’s clear the hair runs all the way up and is not just on the top of his feet like Tolkien said. Interior illustrations indicate he has hairy hands as well. Hey, that’s not in the book!
But both are better than the below cover from 1994, where Bilbo resembles Mad Magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman.
What, me worry?
Illustration by N. Martynowa
That’s a goofy-looking Smaug too. Very misleading because it’s not Bilbo who killed the dragon and stood over it in triumph.
This illustration by Roman Pisarov pays a more direct homage to Belomlinsky’s originals — a more realistic version of the same characters. Though we can’t see Bilbo’s hairy legs he has hairy ankles. (Also note the exasperation on Gandalf’s face at his nonchalance.) I’d imagine that by this time, with more translations available, the differences with the feet were taken as canon by the illustrators, with a sort of pride in that this was a uniquely Russian twist.
This cover of The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, is by Denis Gordeev, the same artist who did this one of The Silmarillion. By the book’s graphic design it’s likely both, along with the LOTR trilogy, were released as a group. Gordeev has a classic Russian painting style, one that might have been used a century ago to depict historical events or icons of the Russian Orthodox Church… a sort of dramatic Mannerism. The same illustrations appeared in children’s edition from 2005, which may be what they were originally commissioned for.
How carefully and cold-bloodedly Bilbo cleans his sword!
By this time the hairy legs have evolved into just hairy ankles, like furry boots on Bilbo’s feet. You can also how the artist has accurately given him a “tough, leathery” sole.
This is such a Russian (and Polish too) pose: Bilbo or Frodo arguing lazily with Gandalf’s sound advice.
Another pic showing Bilbo in a different outfit. Or maybe it’s Frodo this time? The details on the hobbit hole are slightly different, as might have happened over the intervening decades.
This 1997 edition was published in Poland, but they must have used the Russian translation as the basis because again there’s those furry feet. Though in this case, it looks like there’s less hair on the top of the feet, and more on the ankles/legs. And the artist has given him hairy arms to match! I wonder if there was a mistranslation of the mistranslation, as might have happened in the Soviet Bloc years when a more direct English-to-Polish translation wasn’t permitted?
