Jack Orwell George Orwell Biography

Biography

Creation

All animals are equal. But some are more equal than others.

- "Barnyard"

People sacrifice their lives in the name of certain communities - for the sake of the nation, people, co-religionists, class - and realize that they ceased to be individuals, only at the very moment that the bullets whistle. If they had felt a little deeper, this devotion to the community would have become a devotion to humanity itself, which is not at all an abstraction.

“A Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley was an excellent cartoon capturing a hedonistic utopia that seemed achievable, making people so eager to deceive themselves with their conviction that the Kingdom of God should somehow become a reality on Earth. But we must remain God's children, even if God from the prayer books no longer exists.

Original text (eng.)

People sacrifice themselves for the sake of fragmentary communities - nation, race, creed, class - and only become aware that they are not individuals in the very moment when they are facing bullets. A very slight increase of consciousness and their sense of loyalty could be transferred to humanity itself, which is not an abstraction.

Mr Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was a good caricature of the hedonistic Utopia, the kind of thing that seemed possible and even imminent before Hitler appeared, but it had no relation to the actual future. What we are moving towards at this moment is something more like the Spanish Inquisition, and probably far worse, thanks to the radio and the secret police. There is very little chance of escaping it unless we can reinstate the belief in human brotherhood without the need for a 'next world' to give it meaning. It is this that leads innocent people like the Dean of Canterbury to imagine that they have discovered true Christianity in Soviet Russia. No doubt they are only the dupes of propaganda, but what makes them so willing to be deceived is their knowledge that the Kingdom of Heaven has somehow got to be brought on to the surface of the earth. We have not to be the children of God, even though the God of the Prayer Book no longer exists.

- Essay "Thoughts on the Road" by J. Orwell (1943)

Everything turns out to be insignificant, if you see the main thing: the struggle of a gradually gaining consciousness of the people with the owners, with their paid liars, with their sloths. The question is simple. Do people recognize a worthy, truly human life that can be provided today, or is it not given to them? Will ordinary people be driven back into slums, or will it fail? I myself, perhaps without sufficient reason, believe that sooner or later an ordinary person will win in his struggle, and I want this to happen not later, but earlier - say, in the next hundred years, and not in the next ten millennia. That is what was the real purpose of the war in Spain, that is the real purpose of the present war and the possible wars of the future.

George Orwell is a British writer and publicist, a man who, like many representatives of the European intellectual elite, was an ardent supporter of leftist views, but then completely disappointed in socialism. You could get a prison term for Orwell’s books in the Soviet Union.

George Orwell is a pseudonym, the real name of the writer is Eric Arthur Blair. He was born in 1903, in Bengal (part of India), in the family of a petty British official who served in the Opium Department. In 1904, he returned with his mother to the UK. The future writer received primary education at St. Cyprian, from 1917 to 1921 attended Eton College, where he received a nominal scholarship. Already at 11 years old in one of the English newspapers published his poem. From 1922 to 1927, the future writer served in the colonial police of Burma, but Orwell’s unsociable nature led to his resignation. Much later, this part of his life will be displayed in the writer's work ("Shooting an Elephant"). In 1927 he returned to Europe.

Since that time, Orwell begins active writing, he writes prose and journalism. He earns a living by earning odd jobs. Leads a poor, difficult existence, sometimes engaged in vagrancy. One day, Orwell deliberately got drunk heavily in order to find himself in a prison and find out what it was like there. The writer takes on any low-paying job: a dishwasher, an auxiliary worker, an assistant second-hand bookkeeper. He later portrayed this period in his book Down and Out in Paris and London. Also at this time his literary pseudonym is born. During this period, he draws closer to representatives of left-wing political forces. In 1936, the writer marries, and six months later leaves for the war in Spain, as a special correspondent for one of the English publications. After a while, he joins the partisan detachment, consisting of Trotskyist socialists. Orwell's wife followed him to Spain.

He was at war for six months, then was seriously wounded in the throat. Orwell was seriously disappointed with leftist ideas when confronted with an internal struggle among the leadership of the movement. His former associates were declared "Trotskyists" and the Spanish Communists themselves began to hunt for them. Orwell had to flee Spain. It was then that his views began to change, and gradually from a socialist he began to turn into a bourgeois liberal and an ardent anti-communist. In Spain, Orwell had to face the Stalinist type of communism, and he hated it. He will later describe the events of the Spanish civil war, in which he happened to participate (the novel "Memory of Catalonia").

After the outbreak of World War II, Orwell served in the people's militia, worked for the BBC, where he led the anti-fascist program and was a correspondent for the British newspaper Observer.

At the end of 1943, he began writing the story "Animal Farm". It describes without any embellishment the Soviet Union and all the events that occurred after the 1917 revolution. Satire was so murderous and frank that the story was refused to be printed in England and the USA (the USSR was an ally against Hitler). The Farmyard was first published in 1945. This year, the writer’s wife suddenly dies, and he moves to a small island, where he begins to work on the main work of his life - the novel "1984".

“1984” is a cult dystopian novel that shows what a state that is following a totalitarian path of development can turn into. Orwell’s novel does not have a bright and wonderful future, it depicts a society in which the state controls everything: the economy, politics, the media, the personal life of a person, and even his thoughts and actions. Many words and expressions from the book have long become recognizable quotes. In the USSR, the books "Animal Farm" and "1984" were called, only "ideological sabotage aimed at undermining the Soviet system."

An ardent opponent of the Stalinist regime and communism, the defender of democratic socialism, who fought in the Second World War on the side of the USSR, this writer became one of the most controversial people of his time. Arranging a rebellion against the society to which he strove so much, he wrote about himself that he was a stranger in this world and time.

Childhood and youth

Eric Arthur Blair (creative name George Orwell) was born in Motihari (Bihar, India) on June 25, 1903. Eric's father served as an official in the department that controlled the production and possession of opium. About the mother of the future writer, the biography is silent. According to contemporaries, the boy grew up in an authoritarian family: as a child, he sympathized with a girl from a poor family, but his mother rigidly suppressed their communication, and the son did not dare to argue with her.

At eight years old, he entered an English school for boys, where he studied until 13 years old. At age 14, Eric won a scholarship, thanks to which he entered a private British school for boys - Eton College. After graduating from school, Eric Arthur joined the Myanmar police force (formerly Burma). Disappointed in the political system of modern society, Blair went to Europe, where he lived due to low-skilled work. Later, this stage of his life, the writer will reflect in his works.

Literature

Having discovered his literary talent, Blair moved to Paris and began writing books. There he published the first story, Pounds of Dashing in Paris and London, where he described his adventures during his life in Europe. In Britain, the writer wandered, and in France, washed dishes in Parisian restaurants. The first version of the book was called “Dishwasher Diary” and described the author’s life in France. However, the writer was refused the publishing house, after which he added London adventures to the book and turned to another publishing house, where he again faced the rejection.

Only on the third attempt did the publicist and publisher Viktor Gollants appreciate Blair’s work and accept the manuscript for publication. In 1933, the story was published, becoming the first work of the then-unknown George Orwell. To the surprise of the author, critics favorably reacted to his work, but readers were in no hurry to purchase the already limited edition of the book.

Orwell's researcher V. Nedoshivin noted that Orwell, disappointed with the social system, organized a personal rebellion following the example. And in 1933, the writer himself talked about how he feels like a stranger in the modern world.

Returning to England from Spain after being wounded, Orwell joined the Independent Labor Party, which supported the development of socialism. Then, a sharp criticism of the Stalinist totalitarian regime manifested itself in the writer's worldview. At the same time, George is releasing his second work, the novel Days in Burma.

The work was first published in the United States. This book also reflects a certain period of the author’s life, specifically, service in the police unit. The author continued this theme in the stories “Execution by hanging” and “How I shot an elephant”.

Orwell described participation in the hostilities in Spain in the ranks of the Marxist party in the little-known novel “In Memory of Catalonia”. During World War II, the writer spoke on the side of the USSR, despite the rejection of the regime of the Soviet leader. By the way, criticizing the politics of the USSR in literary works and journalistic notes, Orwell himself never once in his whole life visited the Soviet Union, and the British secret services even suspected him of political ties with the Communists.

At the end of the hostilities and the liberation of Europe from the Nazis, Orwell wrote the political satire "Animal Farm". Researchers George's work in two ways consider the basis of the story. On the one hand, given the author’s worldview, literary scholars argue that the Animal Farm exposes the events of the 1917 Revolution in Russia and the events that followed. The story clearly and allegorically describes how the ideology of the ruling elite changes during the revolution.

On the other hand, after the victory of the USSR in World War II, Orwell’s political views underwent a number of changes, and the story may reflect events in Great Britain. Despite the discrepancies of critics and researchers, the story was published in the Soviet Union only during perestroika.

The plot of the “Animal Farm” was based on a situation that the writer once witnessed. In the English village, George saw a boy chasing a horse with a rod. Then Orwell was first visited by the idea that if animals had consciousness, they would have long been rid of the oppression of a much weaker person.

Five years later, George Orwell wrote a novel that brought him worldwide fame. This is a book written in the style of dystopia. This genre came into vogue earlier, after the publication of the novel “Brave New World”. However, if Huxley runs far ahead, describing the events of the 26th century and focuses on the caste of society and the cult of consumption, then Orwell dwells in more detail on the description of the totalitarian regime - a topic that interested the writer at the very beginning of his career.

A number of literary critics and critics accuse Orwell of plagiarizing the ideas reflected in the novel by the Soviet writer “We,” and George’s essay does have information about his intentions to write his own work based on Zamyatin’s ideas. After Orwell’s death, two films of the same name were made based on the novel.

It was from Orwell's pen that came out the popular expression, “Big Brother is watching you.” In the novel 1984, by Big Brother, the author meant the leader of the totalitarian regime of the future. The plot of dystopia is tied around the Ministry of Truth, which, with the help of two minutes of hatred, as well as the introduction of a newspeak, programs the society. Amid totalitarianism, a fragile love develops between the main character Winston and the young girl Julia, who, however, is not destined to defeat the regime.

Why the author called the novel “1984” is unknown. Some critics insist that the author believed that by 1984 society would have the form described in the novel if global changes in the social system did not occur. However, the generally accepted version is that the name of the novel reflects the year it was written - 1948, but with the last figures mirrored.

Given that the society described in the novel allegorically hinted at the regime of the USSR, the book was banned on the territory of the Soviet Union, and the writer himself was accused of ideological sabotage. And by 1984, when the Soviet Union had embarked on perestroika, Orwell’s work was revised and presented to readers as a struggle against the ideology of imperialism.

Personal life

Despite the complete lack of stability in life, Orwell managed to find his happiness and arrange a personal life. In 1936, the writer married Eileen O Shaughnessy. The couple did not have children, but they adopted a boy named Richard Horatio.

Six months later, the newlyweds decided to take part in the armed conflict between the Second Spanish Republic and the opposition military-nationalist dictatorship F. Franco, who was supported by the government of fascist Italy. Six months later, the writer was seriously injured, as a result of which he was hospitalized. Orwell never returned to the front.

George's wife died suddenly in 1945. Loss of the one loved one broke the writer, in addition, he himself had health problems. As a result of the misfortunes that haunted him, George secluded himself on a small island and focused on creating a novel, the concept of which he had hatched for many years.

Since the writer was burdened with loneliness, he proposed a "companionable" marriage to four women. Only Sonya Brownell agreed. They married in the fall of 1949, but lived together for only three months due to the imminent death of Orwell.

The death of George Orwell

Making changes to the dystopian novel "1984", George referred to a sharp deterioration in well-being. In the summer of 1948, the writer went to a remote island in Scotland, where he planned to finish work on the work.

With each passing day, Orwell found it increasingly difficult to work due to progressive tuberculosis. Returning to London, George Orwell died on January 21, 1950.

Bibliography

• 1933 - “Pounds of dashing in Paris and London”
• 1934 - Days in Burma
• 1935 - The Daughter of the Priest
• 1936 - "Long live the Ficus!"
• 1937 - "The Road to the Wigan Pier"
• 1939 - "Swallow Air"
• 1945 - Animal Farm
• 1949 - 1984

Quotes

“All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others. ”

“Leaders who frighten their people with blood, hard work, tears and sweat enjoy greater confidence than politicians who promise prosperity and prosperity”

“Each generation considers itself smarter than the previous, and wiser than the next”

“The truth is that for many people who call themselves socialists, revolution does not mean the movement of the masses with whom they hope to connect themselves; it means a set of reforms that "we," smart, are going to impose on them, "lower order beings"

“He who rules the past rules the future. He who rules the present rules the past. ”

George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) - British writer and publicist - born June 25, 1903 in Motihari (India) in the family of an employee of the Opium Department of the British Colonial Administration of India - the British intelligence agency, which was in charge of controlling the production and storage of opium before being exported to China. His father's position is “assistant to the assistant deputy authorized representative of the opium department, fifth-grade official.”

Received primary education at St. Kipriana (Eastbourne), where he studied from 8 to 13 years. In 1917 received a scholarship and until 1921 attended Eton College. From 1922 to 1927 He served in the colonial police in Burma, then spent a long time in the UK and Europe, living in odd jobs, then he began to write fiction and journalism. Already in Paris, he came with the firm intention of becoming a writer. Starting with an autobiographical story entitled “Pounds of dashing in Paris and London” ( 1933 ), published under the pseudonym George Orwell.

Already at the age of 30, he would write in verse: "I am a stranger at this time."

In 1936 got married, and only six months later he went with his wife to the Aragonese front of the Spanish Civil War. Fighting in the ranks of the militia formed by the anti-Stalinist Communist Party POUM, faced with the manifestations of the factional struggle among the left. He spent almost half a year in the war, until he was shot in the throat by a fascist sniper in Huesca. Arriving from Spain to Britain as a leftist opponent of Stalinism, he joined the Independent Labor Party.

During the Second World War, he led the anti-fascist program on the BBC.

Orwell’s first major work (and the first work signed by this pseudonym) was the autobiographical novel Pounds Dashing in Paris and London, published in 1933. This story, based on the real events of the author’s life, consists of two parts. The first part describes the life of a poor man in Paris, where he interrupted by casual work, mainly working as a dishwasher in restaurants. The second part describes homeless life in London and its environs.

The second work - the story "Days in Burma" (published in 1934) - also based on autobiographical material: from 1922 to 1927 Orwell served in the colonial police in Burma. On the same colonial material the stories “How I shot an elephant” and “Execution by hanging” were written.

During the Spanish Civil War, Orwell fought on the Republican side in the ranks of the POUM, a party that was outlawed in June 1937 for "complicity with the Nazis." About these events, he wrote a documentary short story “In Memory of Catalonia” (Homage to Catalonia; 1936 ) and the essay “Remembering the war in Spain” ( 1943 fully published in 1953).

In the story "Animal Farm" ( 1945 ) the writer showed the rebirth of revolutionary principles and programs. "Farmyard" - a parable, allegory of the 1917 revolution and subsequent events in Russia.

The dystopian novel "1984" ( 1949 ) became an ideological continuation of the “Animal Farm”, in which Orwell depicted a possible future world society as a totalitarian hierarchical system based on sophisticated physical and spiritual enslavement, permeated by universal fear, hatred and denunciation.

He also wrote many essays and articles of a socially critical and culturological nature.

The Complete Works of George Orwell is published in the United Kingdom. Orwell's works translated into 60 languages

Works of art:
1933 - the story "Pounds of dashing in Paris and London" -Down and Out in Paris and London
1934 - “Days in Burma” novel - Burmese Days
1935 - Priest's Daughter - A Clergyman’s Daughter
1936 - the novel "Long live the ficus!" - Keep the Aspidistra Flying
1937 - The story “The Road to Wigan Pier” - The Road to Wigan Pier
1939 - “Swallow Air” novel - Coming Up for Air
1945 - fairy tale "Farmyard" - Animal Farm
1949 - novel "1984" - Nineteen Eighty-Four

Memoirs and documentaries:
Pounds of dashing in Paris and London ( 1933 )
Road to Wigan Pier ( 1937 )
In memory of Catalonia ( 1938 )

Poems:
Awake! Young Men of England ( 1914 )
Ballade ( 1929 )
A Dressed Man and a Naked Man ( 1933 )
A Happy Vicar I Might Have Been ( 1935 )
Ironic Poem About Prostitution (written by before 1936 )
Kitchener ( 1916 )
The Lesser Evil ( 1924 )
A Little Poem ( 1935 )
On a Ruined Farm Near the His Master’s Voice Gramophone Factory ( 1934 )
Our Minds Are Married, but We Are Too Young ( 1918 )
The Pagan ( 1918 )
Poem from Burma ( 1922 - 1927 )
Romance ( 1925 )
Sometimes in the Middle Autumn Days ( 1933 )
Suggested by a Toothpaste Advertisement ( 1918-1919 )
Summer-like for an Instant ( 1933 )

Journalism, stories, articles:
How i shot an elephant
Hanging Execution
Bookseller's Memories
Tolstoy and Shakespeare
Literature and Totalitarianism
Remembering the war in Spain
Literature suppression
Reviewer Confessions
Notes on Nationalism
Why am i writing
Lion and unicorn: socialism and the English genius
The British
Politics and english language
Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool
About the joy of childhood ...
Not counting black
Marrakesh
My country, right or left
Thoughts on the go
Frontiers of Art and Propaganda
Why socialists do not believe in happiness
Acid revenge
In defense of English cuisine
A cup of excellent tea
How the poor die
Writers and Leviathan
In defense of P.G. Woodhouse

Reviews:
Charles Dickens
Review of Mine Kampf by Adolf Hitler
Tolstoy and Shakespeare
Wells, Hitler and the World State
Foreword to Jack London's Love of Life and Other Stories
The Art of Donald McGill
Juror fun
Privilege of the Spiritual Shepherds: Notes on Salvador Dali
Arthur Koestler
Review of "WE" E.I. Zamyatina
Politics versus literature. A Look at Gulliver's Travels
James Burnham and the Managers Revolution
Reflections on Gandhi

George Orwell - English writer and publicist.

His father, a British colonial employee, held an insignificant post in Indian Customs. Orwell studied at St. Cyprian, in 1917 received a nominal scholarship and until 1921 attended Eton College. In 1922-1927 he served in the colonial police in Burma. In 1927, having returned home on vacation, he decided to resign and get involved in writing.
Orwell’s early — and not only documentary — books are largely autobiographical. Having been a shipwrecker in Paris and a hop collector in Kent, wandering around English villages, Orwell receives material for his first book, Dog Life in Paris and London (Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933). “Days in Burma” (Burmese Days, 1934) largely reflected the eastern period of his life.
Like the author, the hero of the book “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” (1936) works as an assistant to a second-hand book dealer, and the heroine of the novel “The Priest's Daughter” (A Clergyman's Daughter, 1935) teaches in seedy private schools. In 1936, the Left Book Club sent Orwell to the north of England to study the life of the unemployed in working quarters. The direct result of this trip was the angry documentary The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937, where Orwell criticized English socialism to the displeasure of his employers. , on this trip, he gained a strong interest in works of mass culture, which was reflected in his classic essays "The Art of Donald McGill" and "Boys' Weeklies."
The civil war that erupted in Spain caused a second crisis in Orwell's life. Always acting in accordance with his convictions, Orwell went to Spain as a journalist, but immediately upon arriving in Barcelona he joined the partisan detachment of the POUM Marxist workers party, fought on the Aragonese and Teruel fronts, and was seriously wounded. In May 1937, he took part in the battle for Barcelona on the side of the POUM and the anarchists against the communists. Pursued by the secret police of the communist government, Orwell fled Spain. In his narrative of the trenches of the Civil War - “In Memory of Catalonia” (Homage to Catalonia, 1939) - he exposes the intentions of the Stalinists to seize power in Spain. Spanish impressions did not release Orwell throughout his life. In the last pre-war novel, “Over a breath of fresh air” (Coming Up for Air, 1940), he exposes the erosion of values \u200b\u200band norms in the modern world.
Orwell believed that real prose should be "transparent like glass," and he wrote extremely clearly. Examples of what he considered the main virtues of prose can be seen in his essay “Shooting an Elephant” and especially in the essay “Politics and the English Language”, where he argues that dishonesty in politics and sloppy language are inextricably linked. Orwell saw his writing duty as defending the ideals of liberal socialism and combating the totalitarian tendencies that threatened the era. In 1945, he wrote the Animal Farm, which made him famous, a satire on the Russian revolution and the collapse of its hopes, in the form of a parable telling about how animals began to manage on one farm. His last book was the novel 1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949), an anti-utopia in which Orwell portrays a totalitarian society with fear and anger.