We
Мы
A great book. First published AD 1924, written in Russian
We is a dystopian novel by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin that was written in 1920–1921. It was first published as an English translation by Gregory Zilboorg in 1924 by E. P. Dutton in New York. The original Russian text was first published in 1952; the novel was not published in Soviet Russia until 1988. The novel describes a world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarian state, against which the protagonist, D-503, rebels.
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What it draws on
Notes from UndergroundGreat book
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, AD 1864
Zamyatin's diarist, D-503, begins as a contented part of the One State's equation and rediscovers the irrational in himself. The Underground Man had said it first: two times two makes four is not life, and a man would rather suffer than be a piano key.
Source: Wikipedia, We (novel)
“Zamyatin, influenced by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground and The Brothers Karamazov, made the novel a criticism of the excesses of a militantly atheistic society.” Read it there
The Brothers KaramazovGreat book
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, AD 1880
The One State's bargain, happiness in exchange for freedom, is the Grand Inquisitor's from The Brothers Karamazov: people want bread, miracles and a master, and are grateful to be relieved of their liberty.
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Its heirs
Later works that draw on We.
Brave New WorldGreat book
Aldous Huxley, AD 1932
Zamyatin's We imagined a glass city of numbered citizens, ruled by a Benefactor, where happiness is engineered and love is rationed. Orwell was sure Brave New World had borrowed from it; Huxley said he had never read it.
Source: Wikipedia, Brave New World
“George Orwell believed that Brave New World must have been partly derived from the 1921 novel We by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin.” Read it there
Nineteen Eighty-FourGreat book
George Orwell, AD 1949
Orwell reviewed We in 1946 and wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four soon after. The debt shows in the plot: a citizen of a perfect state falls in love, joins a rebellion, and is caught and broken by the state.
Source: Wikipedia, We (novel)
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