Journalist Masha Karp speaks with REEESNe’s Tamizdat Student Working Group about her new book, George Orwell and Russia (Bloomsbury 2023). This webinar is co-sponsored by Tamizdat Project, a public scholarship initiative and a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization devoted to the study of banned books from the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. It is convened by Yasha Klots, Assistant Professor of Russian at Hunter College, and is comprised of student volunteers from across the northeast and beyond.

“For those living in the Soviet Union, Orwell’s masterpieces, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, were not dystopias, but accurate depictions of reality. Here, the Orwell scholar and expert on Russian politics, Masha Karp – Russian Features Editor at the BBC World Service for over a decade – explores how Orwell’s work was received in Russia, when it percolated into the country even under censorship […]. As Vladimir Putin’s actions continue to shock the West, it is clear we are witnessing the next transformation of totalitarianism, as predicted and described by Orwell.”