George Orwell was born in the family of an official from the Opium Department of British India, worked in the police of colonial Burma, fought on the side of the militia in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II he hosted anti-fascist programs on the BBC. Today Orwell is best known as the author of the words "thoughtcrime" and "newspeak", the dystopia "1984" and the parable "Animal Farm" - an allegory of the 1917 revolution in Russia. We are publishing Orwell's essay on how a living word naturally dies under totalitarian regimes.
Literature and totalitarianism
Starting my first speech, I said that our time cannot be called a century of criticism. This is an era of involvement, not detachment, and that's why it has become so difficult to acknowledge the literary merit behind a book containing thoughts you disagree with. Politics in the broadest sense of the word has poured into literature, it has taken over literature in a way that does not happen under normal conditions - this is why we now so sharply feel the discord between the individual and the general, although it has always been observed. One has only to think about how difficult it is for today's critic to maintain honest impartiality, and it will become clear exactly what dangers await literature in the very near future.
The times in which we live threaten to do away with the independent person, or rather, with the illusion that she is independent. Meanwhile, when talking about literature, and even more so about criticism, we, without hesitation, proceed from the fact that the individual is completely independent.
This applies even more to criticism than directly to literature, where some posturing, deceit, even outright slyness is not so annoying, unless the writer is lying in the most important thing. By its very essence, contemporary literature is a creation of the individual. Either it truly conveys the thoughts and feelings of the individual, or it costs nothing.
As I said, this goes without saying to us, but as soon as we say it, you realize what a threat looms over literature. After all, we live in an era of totalitarian states, which do not provide, and possibly are not able to provide the individual with any freedom. When they mention totalitarianism, they immediately recall Germany, Russia, Italy, but I think one must be prepared for this phenomenon to become global. It is obvious that the days of free capitalism are coming to an end, and now in one country, now in another, it is replaced by a centralized economy, which can be characterized as socialism or as state capitalism - the choice is yours. This means that the economic freedom of the individual also dries up, that is, her freedom to do as she wants is undermined to a large extent, freely choosing her profession,freely moving in any direction throughout the planet. Until recently, we did not yet foresee the consequences of such changes. Nobody understood properly that the disappearance of economic freedom would affect intellectual freedom. Socialism was usually imagined as a kind of liberal system inspired by high morality. The state will take care of your economic well-being, freeing you from the fear of poverty, unemployment, etc., but there will be no need for it to interfere with your private intellectual life. Art will flourish in the same way as it did in the era of liberal capitalism, and even more clearly, since the artist will no longer experience economic coercion.that the disappearance of economic freedom will affect intellectual freedom. Socialism was usually imagined as a kind of liberal system inspired by high morality. The state will take care of your economic well-being, freeing you from the fear of poverty, unemployment, etc., but there will be no need for it to interfere with your private intellectual life. Art will flourish in the same way as it did in the era of liberal capitalism, and even more clearly, since the artist will no longer experience economic coercion.that the disappearance of economic freedom will affect intellectual freedom. Socialism was usually imagined as a kind of liberal system inspired by high morality. The state will take care of your economic well-being, freeing you from the fear of poverty, unemployment, etc., but there will be no need for it to interfere with your private intellectual life. Art will flourish in the same way as it did in the era of liberal capitalism, and even more clearly, since the artist will no longer experience economic coercion.but there will be no need for him to interfere with your private intellectual life. Art will flourish in the same way as it did in the era of liberal capitalism, and even more clearly, since the artist will no longer experience economic coercion.but there will be no need for him to interfere with your private intellectual life. Art will flourish in the same way it did in the era of liberal capitalism, and even more clearly, since the artist will no longer experience economic constraints.
Promotional video:
Experience forces us to admit that these ideas have gone to waste. Totalitarianism has infringed on freedom of thought in a way never before imagined. It is important to realize that his control over thought pursues not only prohibitive goals, but also constructive ones. Not only is it forbidden to express - even admit - certain thoughts, but it is dictated what exactly is to be thought; an ideology is created that must be accepted by the individual, they strive to control her emotions and impose a way of behavior on her. It is isolated, as far as possible, from the outside world in order to close it in an artificial environment, depriving it of the possibility of comparisons. A totalitarian state necessarily tries to control the thoughts and feelings of its subjects at least as effectively as it controls their actions.
An important question for us is whether literature can survive in such an atmosphere. I think the answer should be short and precise: no. If totalitarianism becomes a worldwide and permanent phenomenon, literature as we knew it will cease to exist. And it is not necessary (although at first it seems permissible) to assert that only literature of a certain kind, the one created by Europe after the Renaissance, will end.
There are several fundamental differences between totalitarianism and all orthodox systems of the past, European as well as Eastern. The main one is that these systems did not change, and if they did, then slowly.
And today the situation is the same for the adherent of any Orthodox church: Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Mohammedan. In some respects, the circle of his thoughts is deliberately limited, but he keeps this circle all his life. And nobody encroaches on his feelings.
Totalitarianism means just the opposite. The peculiarity of the totalitarian state is that, while controlling thought, it does not fix it on one thing. Dogmas are put forward that are not subject to discussion, but change from day to day. Dogmas are needed, since absolute obedience of the subjects is needed, but it is impossible to do without adjustments dictated by the needs of the politicians in power.
There is hardly any need to indicate what this is fraught with for literature. After all, creativity is primarily a feeling, and feelings cannot be controlled from the outside forever. It is easy to define attitudes that correspond to a given moment, but literature that has at least some value is possible only if the writer feels the truth of what he is writing; if this is not the case, the creative instinct will disappear. All the accumulated experience testifies that the sharp emotional reevaluations that totalitarianism requires of its adherents are psychologically impossible, and for this reason, first of all, I believe that the end of literature as we knew it is inevitable if totalitarianism is established everywhere in the world. So after all, so far it has happened where it prevailed. In Italy literature is mutilated, but in Germany it is almost nonexistent. The main literary occupation of the Nazis was the burning of books. Even in Russia, the revival of literature that we expected at one time did not take place, prominent Russian writers commit suicide, disappear in prisons - this tendency has become very clear.
I said that liberal capitalism is obviously going to its end, and from this they can conclude that, in my opinion, freedom of thought is also doomed. But I don’t think this is really so, and in conclusion I just want to express my belief in the ability of literature to stand where the roots of liberal thinking are especially strong - in non-militarist states, in Western Europe, North and South America, India, China. I believe - let it be a blind faith, no more - that such states, also inevitably arriving at a socialized economy, will be able to create socialism in a non-totalitarian form that allows the individual to preserve freedom of thought even with the disappearance of economic freedom. No matter how you turn, this is the only hope left to those who cherish the fate of literature. Everyone who understands its meaning, everyoneanyone who clearly sees the leading role that belongs to it in the history of mankind must also be aware of the vital necessity of opposing totalitarianism, whether it is imposed on us from outside or from within.
1941 g.