1st Edition
George Orwell and Communist Poland Émigré, Official and Clandestine Receptions
George Orwell and Communist Poland is the first major account of George Orwell’s Polish reception during WWII and the cold war. Offering a tri-partite approach to studying reception in conditions of state-imposed censorship – from émigré, official and clandestine perspectives – the volume reveals how Orwell, an emblematic censored writer, enjoyed a thriving reception in both communist Poland and abroad. It brings to light Orwell’s overlooked relationships with Polish exiles who informed his work and saw in Orwell a writer but also a personal friend and political ally. They eagerly translated his works and sought multicultural promotion, also behind the Iron Curtain. The book further argues that Orwell experienced official reception too: smuggled into state-controlled culture in officially accepted ways, while communist censorship files portray his reception within the state apparatus. Finally, Orwell’s works became underground presses’ bestsellers, while diaries and letters show passionate clandestine responses already under Stalinism. The volume draws on sources in foreign languages and unseen material, including Orwell’s ‘lost’ letters to the Polish translator of Animal Farm, Teresa Jeleńska. The book significantly broadens our understanding of Orwell’s life, work and legacy and intervenes in discussions on the politics of literary exchanges, English literature, comparative literature, translation, reception, censorship and East European studies.
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
Orwell’s Texts
Foreign Sources on Orwell
Traces of Presence in Homegrown Books
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
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
Orwell Good for All
Notes
Selected Thematic Bibliography
Letters, Diaries and Memoirs
Letters: Orwell and Jeleńska; Giedroyc and Mieroszewski, Świderska and Weintraub
Other Letters, Diaries and Memoirs
Unpublished
Published
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
Archives Consulted
Appendices
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 chronology
Biography
Krystyna Wieszczek holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Southampton, UK. She is currently an English tutor at the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Bologna, Italy, and Assistant Professor in English at the Ignatianum Academy in Krakow, Poland. She has just been awarded the Horizon Europe’s Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA) to research the potential effects of literary reading on empowerment at Columbia University, New York, and the University of Verona.
"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
