History of Russian Translations of G. Orwell's Novel "1984" and its Reception

Student: Fomenko Evgeniia

Supervisor: Elena Zemskova

Educational Programme: Philology (Bachelor)

Year of Graduation: 2019

This study is focused on the Russian translations of George Orwell’s novel "Nineteen Eighty-four". Its aim is to complete the history of the Russian readings of the novel based on the differences in translations, on critics’ reactions and on analysis of Orwell’s place in English literary canon as studied in the Russian language academia. The study covers the novel’s track in Russia, namely, its editions both published by legal publishing houses in the USSR and abroad and distributed via samizdat. Lingual analysis and comparison of the five Russian translations shows the translators’ strategies regarding the portrayal of a totalitarian state; for the first time the 1959 translations is analyzed in detail. The study of articles in periodicals uncovers patterns in portraying Orwell as an anticommunist author and the imposition of this point of view in university textbooks.

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