''1985'' is a sequel to George Orwell's novel ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...

''. Written by Hungarian author

György Dalos György Dalos (born 23 September 1943) is a Hungarian Jewish writer and historian. He is best known for his novel '' 1985'', and ''The Guest from the Future: Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin''. Life Dalos was born in Budapest and spent his child ...

, originally published in 1983, this novel begins with the death of Big Brother and reflects an intermediate period between 1984 and a more optimistic future characterized with a decline in orthodoxy of the totalitarian system, struggles of the ensuing powers and the near destruction of the

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...

air force by

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...

Significance

Critic Pat Harrington found the novel's emphasis on the Thought Police embracing a kind of "openness" and pressuring Party cliques through public opinion to be a prescient look at what

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

was to attempt in the former Soviet Union with ''

glasnost ''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...

'' and ''

perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...

''. Rather than ruling by fear, the secret police would attempt to control "the public sphere," bringing people to their cause of their own free will.

In other languages

In other languages the book is named * 1985: un recit historique, hong kong, 2036 * 1985: A Historical Report (Hongkong 2036) * 1985: történelmi jelentés

References

1983 science fiction novels Dystopian novels Hungarian science fiction novels Works based on Nineteen Eighty-Four Sequel novels Fiction set in 1985 {{Europe-novel-stub