If you were compiling a list of novels banned for being dangerous and encouraging dissent, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s charming children’s classic Anne of Green Gables might not seem an obvious choice. Yet for several years during the Soviet control of Poland, Montgomery’s novel was banned as a ‘subversive’ book that was feared by the authoritarian regime because it was seen as inspiring hope and resistance to authority.[1]
Anne of Green Gables had become a treasured text in Polish society after it emerged as an unlikely symbol of resistance to Nazism and the Soviet Union during World War Two.[2] The Polish army’s literary department had distributed the book to soldiers to inspire and bolster them as they tried to fight off the invading forces. Following the war, Anne of Green...