The collocation in the title captures the thoroughgoing exploration of the topic in a phrase: George Orwell and Russia. Masha Karp is not the first to ponder George Orwell’s relationship to Stalinist Russia—and the relationship of both Stalinist and post-communist Russia to Orwell—but she is the first to frame a comprehensive, well-researched study around them. Even more important, she is the first Russian-born author to address these matters in a book-length work of scholarship that draws judiciously on Russian sources as well as on the wealth of English-language criticism now available.
These facts alone make George Orwell and Russia a notable study worthy of attention. Readers who suspect that nothing new can be said about Orwell, the most cited literary figure of the 20th century—the author of endlessly quoted catchwords and coinages ranging from Big Brother, thoughtcrime, and Newspeak to doublethink, memory hole, and Room 101—will be pleasantly surprised that George Orwell and Russia is studded with observations both fresh and arresting.
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