My Catalonia
My Catalonia (English: Homage to Catalonia ) is a book by George Orwell about his experiences during the Spanish Civil War , published by Secker & Warburg in London in 1938 . The German first edition appeared in 1964.
content
Fight against the coup plotters
At the end of 1936 George Orwell came to Barcelona as a newspaper reporter to cover the Spanish Civil War. He shared the office with Leopold Kohr , Ernest Hemingway and Andre Malraux. Carried away by the revolution, he joined the militia of the small Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista ('Workers Party of Marxist Unification', POUM for short) and fought against the putschists . The situation on the Catalan front, however, was bad: the biggest opponents were - even more than the actual enemy - cold, hunger, lice and, above all, their own bad weapons, most of which came from the time of the First World War , in some cases already 20 Years or older and hardly usable anymore. Despite inadequate equipment, the will of the Spanish anti-fascists , mostly workers and young people, was unbroken. Orwell describes with fascination the struggle of units that stand up to General Franco's camp on a completely voluntary basis without a clear hierarchy under unfavorable conditions .
The division of the republican forces
Returning from the fight on the front, Orwell had to watch a little later how Stalinist forces act against the revolution and eliminate other left forces - including his militia - with armed force and black propaganda . While his POUM were still fighting against Franquism together with the anarchists of the CNT and communists of the PSUC , comrades of the POUM and CNT were arrested in the hinterland by the central government under communist influence and some were killed. Orwell himself only saved himself by going into hiding and fleeing.
meaning
Orwell's experiences in the war made him a staunch opponent of Stalinism . During the civil war he sympathized with the anarchist and the revolutionary communist groups (POUM) within the socialist movement that were not loyal to Stalin, who advocated the social revolution and fought against the bourgeoisisation of the revolution, and later turned into a democratic socialist. One of the foundations of Orwell's later criticism of totalitarianism , which culminated in his masterpieces Animal Farm and 1984 , lies in his memories of Spain .
On his return to England, Orwell also had problems within the left movement due to the harsh criticism of Stalin and the Spanish communists contained in his story. Intellectuals uncritical to Stalin saw him as a traitor to the leftist cause, so that it became more difficult for him to find publishers for his subsequent works.
See also
- Whom the hour strikes (by Ernest Hemingway )
- Land and Freedom (feature film by Ken Loach , the plot of which shows clear parallels to My Catalonia )
output
- George Orwell: My Catalonia: Report on the Spanish Civil War . Diogenes, Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-257-20214-8 (English: Homage to Catalonia . Translated by Wolfgang Rieger).