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>Horrified by Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany, Orwell spun a tale that continues to color how we picture state censorship in controlled societies. .

>Horrified by Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany, Orwell spun a tale that continues to color how we picture state censorship in controlled societies. ...no. It was inspired by his observations during the Spanish Civil War: “Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.” ― George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 1938 A year before World War II even started.

KennyBlanken 3y ago
No, actually. I have no idea why you're relying on a quote 8 years prior to him starting writing 1984. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four > In his 1946 essay "Why I Write", Orwell explains that the serious works he wrote since the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) were "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism".[3][89] Nineteen Eighty-Four is a cautionary tale about revolution betrayed by totalitarian defenders previously proposed in Homage to Catalonia (1938) and Animal Farm (1945), while Coming Up for Air (1939) celebrates the personal and political freedoms lost in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). > In one 1948 letter, Orwell claims to have "first thought of [the book] in 1943", while in another he says he thought of it in 1944 and cites 1943's Tehran Conference as inspiration: "What it is really meant to do is to discuss the implications of dividing the world up into 'Zones of Influence' (I thought of it in 1944 as a result of the Tehran Conference), and in addition to indicate by parodying them the intellectual implications of totalitarianism".[13] Orwell had toured Austria in May 1945 and observed manoeuvering he thought would likely lead to separate Soviet and Allied Zones of Occupation.[14][15] > In a June 1944 meeting with Fredric Warburg, co-founder of his British publisher Secker & Warburg, shortly before the release of Animal Farm, Orwell announced that he had written the first 12 pages of his new novel. Keep on reading that wikipedia page, which explains in detail all the characters, agencies, events, etc in the book that are in many cases directly taken from elements of Stalinism.
waffleiron 3y ago
Inspired by but according to him definitely about the Soviet union; from the preface to the Ukrainian edition of 1947 > I have never visited Russia and my knowledge of it consists only of what can be learned by reading books and newspapers. […] But on the other hand it was of the utmost importance to me that people in western Europe should see the Soviet regime for what it really was. […] On my return from Spain I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other languages.

KennyBlanken 3y ago

No, actually. I have no idea why you're relying on a quote 8 years prior to him starting writing 1984. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four > In his 1946 essay "Why I Write", Orwell explains that the serious works he wrote since the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) were "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism".[3][89] Nineteen Eighty-Four is a cautionary tale about revolution betrayed by totalitarian defenders previously proposed in Homage to Catalonia (1938) and Animal Farm (1945), while Coming Up for Air (1939) celebrates the personal and political freedoms lost in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). > In one 1948 letter, Orwell claims to have "first thought of [the book] in 1943", while in another he says he thought of it in 1944 and cites 1943's Tehran Conference as inspiration: "What it is really meant to do is to discuss the implications of dividing the world up into 'Zones of Influence' (I thought of it in 1944 as a result of the Tehran Conference), and in addition to indicate by parodying them the intellectual implications of totalitarianism".[13] Orwell had toured Austria in May 1945 and observed manoeuvering he thought would likely lead to separate Soviet and Allied Zones of Occupation.[14][15] > In a June 1944 meeting with Fredric Warburg, co-founder of his British publisher Secker & Warburg, shortly before the release of Animal Farm, Orwell announced that he had written the first 12 pages of his new novel. Keep on reading that wikipedia page, which explains in detail all the characters, agencies, events, etc in the book that are in many cases directly taken from elements of Stalinism.

waffleiron 3y ago

Inspired by but according to him definitely about the Soviet union; from the preface to the Ukrainian edition of 1947 > I have never visited Russia and my knowledge of it consists only of what can be learned by reading books and newspapers. […] But on the other hand it was of the utmost importance to me that people in western Europe should see the Soviet regime for what it really was. […] On my return from Spain I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other languages.