THE IMAGE OF REVOLUTIONARY CATALONIA IN THE PUBLICISM OF GEORGE ORWELL (3d article)

Abstract

In this article, the author continues the analysis of the image of revolutionary Catalonia created by J. Orwell, a direct participant in the events of 1936-1937, in his journalistic works devoted to the struggle against the forces of francoism and for the social transformation (the book "Homage to Catalonia "(1938), as well as the essays "Spilling the Spanish Beans" (1937) and "Looking back on the Spanish War’ (1942) etc. The article reproduces and analyzes Orwell's imaginative publicistic pictures of the situation in Barcelona during the Stalinist suppression of political "fellow travelers" during the May 1937 clashes in Barcelona. and the subsequent events that led to the fall of the Republic. The dominant characteristics of the Orwellian image of revolutionary Catalonia at a historical turning point are revealed. The comparative approach helped to determine the differences between the journalistic picture of Catalan events and their interpretations in the works of Orwell's contemporaries and subsequent researchers. It is concluded that Orwell's journalism made an invaluable contribution to overcoming the historical mythology of the Spanish civil war. Against the background of current attempts to justify the "new socialism of the XXI century", his works contribute to the development of a discussion about the essence of the socialist social ideal, its reinterpretation and liberation from the numerous ideological layers generated at the time by dogmatic "Marxism-Leninism" of the Stalinist model and other left-wing theories that are very far from the ideal of socialism.