How George Orwell’s Animal Farm is helping Ukraine 76 years on

A first edition Ukrainian language copy of George Orwell’s Animal Farm is set to go on sale to raise money for a charity supporting refugees who fled the Russian invasion.

The Ukrainian translation of the seminal satire of the Russian revolution was the only one to feature a foreword from Orwell – written at the behest of his publisher, who felt the author should introduce himself to the edition’s intended audience of Ukrainians displaced by the Second World War.

Ihor Sevcenko, who translated the book, told Orwell that these “poor people with strained nerves” could be “extremely self-conscious and sensitive, especially as far as contacts with the West or Westerners are concerned”.

The 1947 copy of the book, also dubbed the “refugee camp edition”, is now set to be sold by London antique bookshop Jarndyce for £1,850 on 20 January on a first come, first serve basis.

Orwell avoided discussing his work in the introduction, writing “if it does not speak for itself, it is a failure”, and instead covered “how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries” and “the negative influence of the Soviet myth upon the western Socialist movement”.

The author was very wary of those who admired Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union despite the hardships the state forced on its people.

open image in gallery

Reflecting on his career in the essay Why I Write, Orwell said: “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”

Sevcenko chose to render the book’s condemnation of Stalin still more explicit by eschewing a direct translation of the title “Animal Farm” in favour of “A Collective of Farm Animals”, in reference to the Soviet Union’s collective farms that had the previous decade caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians through famine.

The translator obtained a copy of the English edition of Animal Farm when he was twenty-four and wrote to Orwell to ask for permission for a Ukrainian edition, as he had been giving readings in the language.

“Soviet refugees were my listeners. The effect was striking. They approved of almost all of your interpretations. They were profoundly affected by such scenes as that of animals singing ‘Beasts of England’ on the hill,” he wrote.

The copy to be sold by Jarndyce was donated by a customer. The entire sale price will be donated to Families 4 Peace.