Short description:

George Orwell and Communist Poland is the first major account of George Orwell?s Polish reception during WWII and the cold war.

Long description:

George Orwell and Communist Poland is the first major account of George Orwell?s Polish reception during the Second World War and the Cold War era. It shows how Orwell, the epitome of a censored writer in the Soviet bloc, enjoyed a fulsome reception both outside and within communist Poland. It does so by developing a tripartite framework to study reception in conditions of state-imposed censorship, where three modes are likely to develop in response: émigré, official and clandestine.

The book thus brings to light Orwell?s overlooked relationships with Polish exiles who informed his work and looked upon him not only as a writer but also a personal friend and political ally. They eagerly translated his works and sought multinational promotion, even behind the Iron Curtain. The volume argues that Orwell also experienced official reception, smuggled into state-controlled culture in officially accepted ways. Additionally, communist censorship files reflect his reception within the state apparatus. Finally, the book examines passionate clandestine responses to Orwell's writing and myth in diaries and letters from as early as under Stalinism and explores Orwell?s popularity among underground publishing networks, which enabled his works to become bestsellers.

The book draws on sources in foreign languages and previously unseen material, including Orwell?s ?lost? letters to Teresa Jeleńska, the Polish translator of Animal Farm. The volume significantly broadens our understanding of Orwell?s life, work and legacy. It also contributes to discussions in English literature and comparative literature, literary exchanges, translation, reception and censorship and East European studies.

"A fascinating, powerful book: exhaustively researched, timely, important, and surprising at every turn. Opening up the terrain of Orwell?s posthumous reception in Poland and charting how Orwell interacted with Polish writers and activists, Wieszczek constructs a radically new angle on the man and his work."

--Nathan Waddell, Associate Professor in Twentieth-Century Literature, University of Birmingham, UK

"A fascinating and meticulously researched account of Orwell's reception by an audience for whom his two great novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, might have been expressly written."

--D.J. Taylor, author of Orwell: The New Life

"The untold history of George Orwell's reception in Poland is recounted here in fascinating detail. Despite official censorship of this ?quasi-official enemy? of the Soviet bloc, his works did circulate in a ?nuanced presence? thanks to clandestine publications and the work of Polish émigrés."

--Christopher Rundle, Associate Professor in Translation Studies, University of Bologna, Italy

"Krystyna Wieszczek?s text is a fascinating, highly original and meticulously researched examination of the reception and censorship in Poland of the work of George Orwell. Including a study of Orwell?s ?lost? letters to Teresa Jeleńska, the Polish translator of Animal Farm, it amounts to an important addition to the ever-growing field of Orwell Studies."

--Professor Richard Lance Keeble, University of Lincoln, UK

"Krystyna Wieszczek de Oliveira's book is a pioneering attempt to present the Polish post-war reception of George Orwell's works in three complementary approaches: official reception, i.e. subjected to supervision by institutional censorship, emigration reception and illegal reception (samizdat). Both among Polish émigré circles and in communist Poland, Orwell's works were very popular, and the subversive novels: Animal Farm or Nineteen Eighty-Four were read strictly according to an anti-communist key.

As a researcher of communist censorship, I would like to emphasize that the work George Orwell and Communist Poland: Émigré, Official and Clandestine Receptions is very good, reliable and revealing. Moreover, it opens a new current of comparative research: on the history of editing, translation and censorship of literature of the most outstanding works of world literature, including English-language literature, in Poland of 1944 -1989."

--Kamila Budrowska, Professor in Literature, University of Bałystok, Poland

Table of Contents:

Introduction    

Chapter 1        Émigré Reception ? Orwell a Friend and Political Ally

The Rare British Friend Speaks up for the Polish Cause  

    Orwell a Friend and Political Ally         

    Poland in Orwell?s Writing       

        Censorship Troubles     

        Orwell?s ?Omissions?   

        Polish Friends Reciprocate        

Polish Friends Speak up for Orwell       

    Polish Émigré Media and Orwell Good for All   

    How Appropriate for Us: Animal Farm in Polish

    Animal Farm to Save the World with a Little Help from Polish Friends   

    Not Only Animal Farm: An Overlooked Would-Be Essay Collection in Polish  

    The Most Poignant Book of Our Times: Echoes of Nineteen Eighty-Four

Dead but Much Alive: Orwell?s Afterlife among the Polish Diaspora      

    Polish Exiles Mourn the Author?s Death

    Another Paris-London Collaboration: Nineteen Eighty-Four in Polish     

    A Weapon in Unorthodox Cold War Offensives 

    Orwell Defies Détente  

    The Orwell Year 1984 Commemorated 

Chapter 2        Official Reception ? Orwell an Enemy

Orwell and the Communist Censorship System  

Banned Yet Present ? Smuggled, Disguised, Misread

    Innocent and Anonymous

    Socialist Realism Versus a Shadowy Enemy of Humankind

    The 1956 Thaw Attempts to Tame the Foe         

    The Nemesis Frozen for Decades

        But Lurking in Libraries

        But Evoked in Official Culture 

    The 1980s and Orwell Back in Sight     

        Reinscribed Books       

        Back in the Fourth Estate under Censor?s Keeping         

        The Orwell Year Relief of Alliance Transmutations       

        Affable Anonymous Aspidistra for the Relentless Crisis 

        Aspidistra Is Not the Orwell; or, a Death Foretold

Chapter 3        Clandestine Reception ? Orwell a Liberator   

Orwell Ammunition     

Before the Paper Revolution     

    Orwell in Diaries, Letters and Other Writing      

    A Homo Sovieticus Antidote     

After the Paper Revolution

    Top of the Charts         

    Orwell Published Underground 

    The Solidarity Carnival

    Big Brother?s Return: Martial Law        

    The Orwell Year Looming        

    Life after 1984 

4 Orwell Good for All    

Appendix A: Orwell?s Response to Wiadomości?s Survey on Joseph Conrad (1949)

Appendix B: List of Orwell?s Polish Clandestine Book Editions (1976?1989)

Appendix C: List of Selected Polish Translations of Orwell?s Essays and Shorter Pieces by the Chronology of Their First Appearance

Selected Thematic Bibliography         

Letters, Diaries and Memoirs

    Letters: Orwell?Jeleńska; Giedroyc?Mieroszewski; Giedroyc?Świderska; and Giedroyc?Weintraub

    Other Letters, Diaries and Memoirs       

Polish Communist Records       

    Unpublished

    Published

Polish Émigré and British Records        

Interviews       

Other Communication 

Broadcasts       

Artefacts and Transformations  

Publications of Orwell?s Works

    Émigré

    Official

    Clandestine     

    Non-Polish and Polish Post-1989          

Polish Publications Concerning Orwell from the Period  

    Émigré

    Official

    Clandestine

Secondary Sources

    Orwell Criticism and References           

    Translation and Reception        

    Censorship      

    Émigrés and Diaspora

    Official Culture in Poland         

    Clandestine Printing and Second Circulation

    Reference Works

    Literature

    Major Sources Available Online        

Archives Consulted