Our Notes & References

The important first printing of the Ukrainian translation of Orwell’s Animal Farm, prepared at his own urging and containing the only preface written by Orwell for his novella, an important essay which describes the text’s genesis, discussing the author’s experiences during the Spanish Civil War and his belief in “the negative influence of the Soviet myth upon the Western Socialist movement.”

The translation is due to the poet Ihor Shevchenko under the pseudonym Ivan Chernyatynskyi. A Displaced Person (DP) in post-war Germany, Shevchenko managed to find a copy of the recently published novella and contacted Orwell about a possible Ukrainian translation: “In April 1946, Shevchenko wrote to Orwell, now a mourning widower and single parent of an adopted baby, requesting authorisation to publish his Ukrainian translation. He described to Orwell how he had translated the book out loud to a transfixed audience of Ukrainian DPs and they had always been puzzled how the West could be so naïve about the Soviet Union and wondered if anyone ‘knew the truth.’ He concluded: ‘Your book has solved that problem […] Refugees reacted to the underlying values of the book, to the tale ‘types,’ to the underlying convictions of the author and so on. Besides, the mood of the book seems to correspond with their own actual state of mind.’ While Animal Farm had been a message of hope to the Ukrainian DPs, Shevchenko’s letter was a message of hope to Orwell, who enthusiastically agreed to a Ukrainian translation” (Halyna Tatara, review of a talk by Andrea Chalupa, accessed online).

The overall print run of the book, produced in the difficult conditions of DP publishing, with constant paper shortages and other logistical hurdles, is unknown. It has been suggested, however, that only approximately 2,000 copies were distributed among Ukrainian DPs, with another 1,500 to 5,000 copies confiscated by the American Military Command in Munich and turned over to Soviet authorities, who would have destroyed them as anti-Soviet propaganda.

Shevchenko later co-founded the Harvard Ukrainian Institute, and a copy of Kolhosp Tvaryn with Shevchenko’s own marginalia is held by the Houghton Library.

Provenance

Library & Museum of Ukrainian Cultural & Educational Centre, Winnipeg. Man. Canada (stamp to half-title and title; founded in 1944 by the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada, the centre, also known as “Oseredok”, is one of the largest Ukrainian cultural institutions in Canada and “one of the oldest collections of Ukrainian books and printed materials in Canada” (Th. Prymak, “A Visit to Oseredok. The Ukrainian Museum and Library in Winnipeg”, Oseredok website, 2018). Duplicates and other works were auctioned after February 2022 to support Ukrainian refugees).