George Orwell works. Biography of George Orwell

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 - a British intelligence service responsible for controlling the production and storage of opium before its export to China. His father's position is "Assistant Junior Deputy Commissioner of the Opium Department, Fifth Class Official."

He received his primary education at St. Cyprian (Eastbourne), where he studied from 8 to 13 years old. In 1917 received a personal scholarship and until 1921 attended Eton College. From 1922 to 1927 served in the colonial police in Burma, then spent a long time in Great Britain and Europe, living at odd jobs, and then began writing fiction and journalism. He already arrived in Paris with the firm intention of becoming a writer. Starting with the story “Pounds of Dashing in Paris and London”, based on autobiographical material ( 1933 ), published under the pseudonym "George Orwell".

Already at the age of 30, he would write in poetry: “I am a stranger at this time.”

In 1936 got married, and six months later he and his wife went to the Aragonese front of the Spanish Civil War. Fighting in the ranks of the militia formed by the anti-Stalinist communist party POUM, he encountered manifestations of factional struggle among the left. He spent almost six months in the war until he was wounded in the throat by a fascist sniper in Huesca. Having arrived from Spain to Great Britain as a leftist opponent of Stalinism, he joined the Independent Labor Party.

During the Second World War he hosted an anti-fascist program on the BBC.

Orwell's first major work (and the first work signed by this pseudonym) was the autobiographical story "Rough Pounds in Paris and London", published in 1933. This story, based on real events in the author's life, consists of two parts. The first part describes the life of a poor man in Paris, where he did odd jobs, mainly working as a dishwasher in restaurants. The second part describes homeless life in and around London.

The second work is 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. The stories “How I Shot an Elephant” and “Execution by Hanging” were written on the same colonial material.

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 “aiding the fascists.” He wrote a documentary story about these events, “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 degeneration of revolutionary principles and programs. “Animal Farm” is a parable, an allegory of the 1917 revolution and subsequent events in Russia.

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

He also wrote many essays and articles of a socio-critical and cultural nature.

The complete 20-volume collected works of Orwell (The Complete Works of George Orwell) have been published in the UK. Orwell's works have been translated into 60 languages

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

Memoirs and documentaries:
Pounds 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
Execution by hanging
Memoirs of a Bookseller
Tolstoy and Shakespeare
Literature and totalitarianism
Remembering the war in Spain
Suppression of literature
Reviewer Confessions
Notes on Nationalism
Why am I writing
The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius
English
Politics and English
Lear, Tolstoy and the jester
About the joy of childhood...
Not counting blacks
Marrakesh
My country, right or left
Thoughts on the way
The Boundaries of Art and Propaganda
Why socialists don't believe in happiness
Sour revenge
In defense of English cuisine
A cup of excellent tea
How the poor die
Writers and Leviathan
In defense of P.G. Wodehouse

Reviews:
Charles Dickens
Review of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf
Tolstoy and Shakespeare
Wells, Hitler and the World State
Preface to Jack London's collection "Love of Life" and Other Stories
Art by Donald McGill
Sworn Funny
The Privilege of Spiritual Shepherds: Notes on Salvador Dali
Arthur Koestler
Review of “WE” by E.I. Zamyatin
Politics versus literature. A Look at Gulliver's Travels
James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution
Reflections on Gandhi

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, fellow believers, class - and realize that they have ceased to be individuals only at the very moment when the bullets whistle. If they felt even a little deeper, this devotion to community would become devotion to humanity itself, which is not an abstraction at all.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was a superb cartoon, capturing the hedonistic utopia that seemed achievable, making people so willing to delude themselves into believing that the Kingdom of God must somehow become a reality on Earth. But we must remain children of God, even if the God of the prayer books no longer exists.

Original text(English)

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 the people gradually gaining consciousness with the owners, with their paid liars, with their hangers-on. The question is simple. Will people recognize the worthy, truly human life that can be achieved today, or will this not be given to them? Will ordinary people be driven back into the slums, or will it fail? I myself, perhaps without sufficient reason, believe that sooner or later the ordinary person will win his struggle, and I want this to happen not later, but earlier - say, in the next hundred years, and not in the next ten thousand years. This is what was the real purpose of the war in Spain, this is the real purpose of the present war and possible future wars.

Biography

Often in the conversation of people associated with the political side of public life there are phrases such as “cold war” or “thought police”, “Big Brother”. Almost no one thinks about where they come from, moreover, about who first used them. The “father” of these neological expressions is George Orwell, a British writer and publicist, known for the novel “1984” and the story “Animal Farm.” Fans of his work believe that he was a very extraordinary person with his own views on all aspects of life.

Like other famous people, the writer has come a long way in his development not only as a person, but also as an author. In order to understand where he got the urge to write stories that captivated the whole world, it’s worth taking a short trip through his biography. In addition, few people know that Mr. Orwell's real name is Eric Arthur Blair.

Childhood

The future publicist was born in June 1903. His birth is dated the twenty-fifth. Despite the fact that in the future the boy would become a British writer, he spent his childhood in India, which at that time was a colony. His father was an employee of the Opium Department of the British colonial administration.

And although the boy’s parents were not rich people, he managed to get a place at St. Cyprian’s School, which is located in a place called Eastbourne. It was there that Eric Arthur Blair showed his extraordinary mind and abilities. His studies here lasted five years, after which the boy received a personal scholarship from Eton College.

Youth

Mr Orwell's teenage years began in 1917, when he first arrived to study at Eton. It is known that in college the young man was a student who received a royal scholarship. From there he could easily have entered any prestigious university in Britain, for example, Oxford or Cambridge, however, his creative path was somewhat different.

After studying at Eton until 1921, Mr Blair went to Burma to join the civil service. It took him about five years to realize that he didn’t like this kind of work. In 1927, he returned to Europe to change countless professions.

It is known that Eric Arthur worked as a teacher, cared for a boy unable to move independently, and as a salesman. At the same time, he managed to write short articles, essays for small newspapers and magazines with a literary orientation. Only after arriving in Paris did Mr. Black realize that it was important for him to give up everything except writing. Thus, in 1935, “George Orwell” was born.

Mature years

After starting his writing career, it cannot be said that the man forgot about his work as a publicist. In 1936, he had to become a participant in hostilities and go to the Aragonese front, formed during the Spanish Civil War. Six months after joining the ranks of the militia, the man was wounded and discharged.

But only in 1940 the publicist was declared completely unfit for military service. However, he was not going to give up. It was then that his publications began to appear in the Partisan Review magazine, where he spoke in detail about the combat strategies that worked, pointing out the advantages of fortifications and the weaknesses that arise during their construction.

From the very beginning of World War II, the writer broadcast on the BBC channel, which had an anti-fascist orientation. Orwell was a deeply humane person, and therefore the policies promoted by the Nazi leader offended his entire living being. This can also be seen in the stories and novels he wrote during the war period.

Personal life

Mr. Orwell gained a reputation as a ladies' man and womanizer. However, this did not stop him from being an exemplary husband and father. In 1936, the man got married for the first time. His chosen one was Eileen O'Shaughnessy. The man often admitted that he had several mistresses, however, his wife always remained faithful to him.

Four years after their marriage, the couple decided to adopt a child. For some reason, unconfirmed by a medical examination, Eric Arthur believed that he could not become the father of his own baby. The little boy he and Eileen adopted was named after the writer's favorite uncle - Richard.

They said about Orwell that he was a wonderful father, however, the family idyll in his life was present for a short time. In 1946, the writer’s beloved wife died of a heart attack during an operation to remove an oncological lesion on her female genital organs. At the time of his death and funeral, the man was away, and therefore only upon arrival he managed to plant a rose bush on his wife’s grave as an eternal reminder of their relationship.

After Eileen's death, a woman named Susan helped raise Richard. All of them lived together for some time on the island of Jura, where in 1948 the writer learned about his terrible illness - tuberculosis. It was then that the family moved to the capital of Great Britain, where he again met his second wife, Sonia Brownell. The girl worked with a friend of the writer and expressed a desire to meet him.

The young people got married in the hospital room where Orwell lay in 1949. It seemed that happy events in her personal life would extend her life as a writer, however, this was not enough. A couple of months after the wedding, namely on January 21, 1950, the man died in a hospital bed at the age of forty-six.

The writer's political views

All the political ideas and views of the writer were reflected in his books. So, “Animal Farm” is just an allegorical depiction of the events that took place on the territory of the USSR in 1917. It is known that Mr. Orwell openly spoke about his disappointment in Stalin, as the main revolutionary at that time.

He was sure that the revolution did not achieve the absence of classes, but brought to power the one that was stronger. Tyranny, despotic attitude, ruthlessness, unprincipledness - these were the characteristics the publicist gave in his statements to people who survived the revolutionary actions. He did not consider the new political system in the USSR to be socialist, and therefore was openly indignant when it was called such.

Despite the fact that the USSR helped Britain recover from the defeat inflicted by fascist troops, Orwell was never able to come to terms with the political system that had been established there. He dreamed that his beloved homeland would accept socialism as he and his followers saw it, however, this did not happen. Some publicists I knew said that this state of affairs accelerated his death, since Orwell could not survive the doom of the future.

USSR's response to Orwell

Until 1984, the story “Animal Farm” was not published or distributed among residents of the Soviet Union. However, it was believed that secret service agents did receive copies of the work in order to familiarize themselves with it. Subsequently, the authorities did a huge amount of work to “whiten” the name of George Orwell. To some extent, the people who came out to fight imperialism at that moment identified themselves with the writer. And at the moment when the “whitening” process was practically completed, the Soviet Union collapses, censorship is removed and the publicist’s book reaches the general readership. It is difficult to say that it was popular at that moment, however, some of the residents of the post-Soviet space found it very interesting.

The man who became a famous publicist and writer had different hobbies. He not only followed political events in the world and took part in military operations, but also studied different languages, for example. So, in addition to English, the writer spoke Hindi, Latin, Greek, Burmese, French, Catalan, and Spanish. Other interesting facts about the personality of Eric Arthur Blair include:

• love of tea drinking - every day the writer drank tea at the same time, arranging a whole ceremony out of it, even if he was alone with himself;
• a love of collecting beautiful things - it is known that the man had a collection of mugs that were dedicated to the holiday in honor of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, as well as a large number of postcards and newspaper clippings. In addition, he had a handmade Burmese sword hanging on his bedroom wall;
• love of handicraft - the man often made furniture according to his own sketches. And although it turned out awkward, he found true pleasure in the process of creating it.

In addition, it is known that the writer was one of the superstitious atheists; he learned many literary techniques from Mikhail Zamyatin, and until a certain point he was a fan of H.G. Wells. George Orwell was not just an extraordinary personality, a passionate and interesting person. He could be called a lazy perfectionist, someone who combines the incompatible. That is why his articles and works are widely known throughout the world and have a sufficient number of fans.

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