George Orwell: Visions of Truth

George Orwell – A Warning to Mankind is more than a documentary. It’s a mirror held up to the present, showing how eerily accurate Orwell was about power, control, and the erosion of truth.

1984(original title:Nineteen Eighty-Four), written from 1946 to 1948and published in June 1949, is adystopiannovelbyGeorge Orwell(actuallyEric Arthur Blair), in which atotalitariansurveillance stateis depicted in the year 1984.The main characterof the plot is Winston Smith, a simple member of thedictatorial,fictionalstate partySocialist Party of England, on which the ruling politicalideologyIngsoc (English Socialism, originalIngsoc) is based.Despite the omnipresentsurveillance , Smith wants to protect hisprivacyand learn something about the real events of the past, which are concealed by the party through extensivehistorical falsification . As a result, he comes into conflict with the system, which imprisons,torturesandbrainwasheshim.  First edition in dust jacket, Secker & Warburg, London 1949 Orwell began writing the book in 1946 while on the island ofJuraoff the coast ofScotlandand finished it in late 1948.The title contains thetranspositionof the year 1948 to 1984 as an allusion to a future that seemed distant at the time but (like Orwell's previous novelAnimal Farm) was closely linked to the present. The first edition of the book wenton sale inLondon on 8 June 1949. The novel, which was written "under the influence ofNazism,Stalinismand the economic policies of the industrialized countries during theSecond World War" (Kindler's Literature Encyclopedia), is often cited, or its title or the nameOrwellis mentioned, when it comes to critically commenting on state surveillance measures or pointing out tendencies towards asurveillance state.

Animal Farm is a fable by George Orwell , published in 1945. The story is about the animals on an English farm rising up against the rule of their human owner, who neglects and exploits them. After initial successes and the beginning of prosperity, the pigs increasingly take over and finally establish a tyranny that is worse than the one the animals wanted to shake off. The novel is considered a parable of the history of the Soviet Union , in which the February Revolution supported by the people was ultimately followed by the dictatorial rule of Stalin . In the GDR, the book, like all other works by Orwell, was not allowed to be published and its possession could have criminal consequences.