Stanley Kubrick’s film “A Clockwork Orange” (1971) for a person from the Soviet expanse was one of the cultural phenomena that he could only know about indirectly, in the spirit of “I haven’t heard it personally, but my neighbor sang it”. Numerous articles in youth, film studies and cultural print publications with several expressive but uncensored film shots were devoted to “Orange”, so seeing it live became an almost impossible dream for the then advanced individual. The privileged lucky ones could watch it at closed screenings with amateur single-voice dubbing. For example, a few VGIK students attended such events from time to time..
[see_also ids\u003d"
It is noteworthy that, quite in the spirit of Orwellian doublethink, despite the positive reviews of the film in the Soviet press (“clearly demonstrates the ills of capitalist society, the world of cruelty and profit,” etc.. ), there could be no question not only of its demonstration, albeit in a truncated form, on film or television screens, but also of the publication of the original source - the book of the same name by Anthony Burgess (1962). Moreover, in the declassified KGB archives there was also a mention of this cultural product: in the report on the seizure in 1979 in Kyiv of 10 copies of the book in the original language, smuggled from Britain, it is said that this work “contains a malicious satire on communist ideals,” describing a dystopian England in which communism supposedly won: “Cruelty, violence, tyranny reigns everywhere,.
So the Ukrainian reader was lucky enough to read the short novel “The Mechanical Orange” only in 1990, when the famous “Vsesvit” published it in translation by Alexander Butenko.. The magazine was a year ahead of the publication of the Russian translation by Vladimir Boshnyak.
[see_also ids\u003d"
The novel is really about a dystopian Britain, however, without any communism, although with powerful representation of the State in all spheres - with institutions from the Hospital to the State Prison. And while adults living in state apartments (where scenes of factory life are painted in the entrances, creatively modified by young people with rebellious hormones) work at state-owned enterprises, their children rally into gangs, having fun with alcohol, drugs dissolved in milk and “good old ultra-violence”. The latter ultimately leads the main character Alex to a strict state prison with a long sentence for premeditated murder. But soon the punishment can be replaced by participation in a psychiatric experiment, the result of which is a complete breakdown of the personality. Yesterday's thug loses any ability to engage in minimal violence, even for the sake of his own defense (and at the same time, his sex drive completely disappears and a physical aversion to classical music appears, the love of which distinguished Alex from his friends, ordinary bashi-bazouks).
There is no point in introducing readers in more detail to the content of the novel - they either read it, or can read it, and in two different translations. But this nuance is worth stopping at. It’s not for nothing that the KGB memo mentioned the “vulgar semi-Russian language”.
Anthony Burgess (1917–1993), this still underrated English writer, whose very long bibliography is still represented in Ukrainian by only one translated novel, practically predicted the future not far from him with his language “nadsat” (the language of teenagers, the name of which comes from the ordinal suffixes “-eleven”).. In his fantasy, young daredevils communicate in English, peppered with Russian words, ranging from the favorite drinks molokoplus and “moloko with knives” (cocktails made from milk and drugs) to difficult-to-recognize morder (muzzle, or muzzle) or brucco (belly)..
[see_also ids\u003d"
10-15 years later, the advanced youth of the Land of the Soviets will speak argot, to which many English words from the inaccessible West will be mixed - shuz, haer, man... In the original, Burgess does not highlight these words in any way and does not give them explanations - guess for yourself, readers! The Ukrainian translator Butenko, like the Russian Boshnyak, took a different path: they wrote some words, not always originals from the English text, in Latin letters - tsygarka, babusi, kal, brytva... It was in this format that the readers of Vsesvita saw “Mechanical Orange” in 1990 and much later, in 2003, the owners of an already rare collector’s edition with. At the same time, well-wishers scanned the book and uploaded it to the Internet, which greatly angered the publishing house.. And the book pirates went further and also published a batch of paper copies of the book. It’s interesting that the same story repeated itself with the repeatedly re-released “Orange” from “Ridnaya Movi” (2017, 2019...). At the same time, pirated copies without imprints appeared, which, of course, is sad for the publisher, but indicates the popularity of the novel among readers.
Alexander Rudenko took a different path, and in 2025 he translated the novel for the Kharkov Family Leisure Club.. His orange went from mechanical to clockwork (in the original it was A Clockwork Orange, so both options are acceptable). And instead of words written in Latin, many deliberate Russianisms appeared in the text. Thus, the legendary Korova bar became “Buryonka”, narcotic milk is served there “piercing-cutting”, and in the language “nadsat” creep and kringe, which are close to today’s youth, appear... The latest book “A Clockwork Orange”, in addition to the novel itself, also contains a number of articles by Burgess (with two “s” at the end) and a scattering of comments by a British specialist, which should explain to the reader little or completely unknown nuances from the life of the British. Finally, from these articles we learn what a “Clockwork Orange” is: “in 1945, I felt like a seventy-year-old window at a London pub, saying what it was like, “Clockwork Orange.”. “Care” is not in the sense of “homosexual”, but “divine”. … For the past 20 years, I have wanted to live in the same way as I call it, and throughout this time I have felt it more than once... always with the old people, and once again with the young.”.
[see_also ids\u003d"
Obviously, without the phantasmagoric film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick (by the way, not the first - formally the first, much less famous, was the experimental black and white film " The success was also facilitated by the performance of young Malcolm McDowell, for whom this role became his first star.. It’s interesting that at first Kubrick planned to involve The Rolling Stones in the filming: Mick Jagger was supposed to play the role of Alex, and other musicians, respectively, were members of his gang. But due to a busy touring schedule, the group had to give up auditions.. In articles about the film it is easy to learn about a number of its bans in almost all countries (in Britain itself it was allowed on television only in 2001).
As for the author, he himself considered “Orange” his least favorite work - at least that’s what he claims in one of the articles. What books by Burgess need to be translated and published to expand the range? Obviously, you can start with the spy novel " If only because part of its plot takes place in Crimea, in a conventional city called Yarilik, in which Yalta is most likely guessed. Here the author also uses the old technique of transliterating Russian words and expressions in Latin (but in a much smaller quantity), and the secret information traded by one of the heroes of the novel includes the “Kharkov terrorist organization Volrus”, among whose five members one is Ukrainian X. Pan.
Elsewhere in the book, one of the heroes even more so claims that “a Muscovite is not worth the sole of a Ukrainian” - and this is in a parody, but at the same time quite philosophical novel, written back in 1966.
The novel “1985” is also worthy of attention - of course, an allusion to Orwell. Moreover, the first part of the work is actually devoted to the analysis of his dystopia “1984”, while the second is the author’s forecast for the near future (if we count from 1978, when the work was written). Burgess saw the future of Britain in the omnipotence of trade unions and the rapid Islamization of the country. “1985” also develops the themes of street violence and punitive psychiatry touched upon in “The Mechanical Orange.”.
[see_also ids\u003d"
Maybe some publishing house has risked publishing the dystopia “The Seed of Desire” (or “The Crazy Seed”, “The Desiring Seed”), in which the world is divided (like Orwell’s model) into three Unions - English-speaking, Russian-speaking and Chinese-speaking, each of which fights overpopulation in its own way. In the English language, where the book is set, advantage in all areas is given to those who practice homosexuality. Original, as for a novel from 1962, and quite controversial (on the verge of the risk of being kenneled) for our times....
[votes id\u003d"