George Orwell and Communist Poland

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