It became a great commercial success when it did appear partly because international relations were transformed as the wartime alliance gave way to the Cold War. The manuscript was initially rejected by a number of British and American publishers, including one of Orwell's own, Victor Gollancz, which delayed its publication. Orwell wrote the book between November 1943 and February 1944, when the United Kingdom was in its wartime alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and the British intelligentsia held Stalin in high esteem, a phenomenon Orwell hated. It also played on the French name of the Soviet Union, Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques. Orwell suggested the title Union des républiques socialistes animales for the French translation, which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin word for 'bear', a symbol of Russia. Other titular variations include subtitles like 'A Satire' and 'A Contemporary Satire'. The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, but US publishers dropped the subtitle when it was published in 1946, and only one of the translations during Orwell's lifetime, the Telugu version, kept it. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin (' un conte satirique contre Staline'), and in his essay ' Why I Write' (1946), wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, 'to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole'. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the May Days conflicts between the POUM and Stalinist forces during the Spanish Civil War.

Ultimately, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.Īccording to Orwell, Animal Farm reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. It tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Animal Farm is a beast fable, in the form of satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945.

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