Swastika Night is a futuristic novel by British writer Katharine Burdekin, writing under the pseudonym Murray Constantine. First published in 1937 and subsequently as a Left Book Club selection in 1940, the novel depicts a world where Adolf Hitler's claim that Nazism would create a "Thousand Year Reich" is realised. Forgotten for many years, until republication in 1985 in England and the United States,[1] literary historian Andy Croft has described Swastika Night as "the most original of all the many anti-fascist dystopias of the late 1930s."[2]
Set hundreds of years in the future, this dystopia envisions a sterile, dying Nazi Reich in which Jews have long since been eradicated, Christians are marginalised, and Hitler is venerated as a God.[3] A "cult of masculinity" prevails, homosexuality has become the norm, and a "reduction of women" has occurred: deprived of all rights, women are kept in concentration camps, their sole value residing in their reproductive roles.
The novel bears striking similarities to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, published more than a decade later: the past has been destroyed and history is rewritten, language is distorted, few books exist apart from propaganda, and a secret book is the only witness to the past.[4]
^Clute, John (1995). Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia. Dorling Kindersley. pp. 121, 215. ISBN 0751302023.
^Hopkins, Chris (2006). English Fiction in the 1930s: Language, Genre, History. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 138. ISBN 0826489389.
^D. Shaw (19 September 2000). Women, Science and Fiction: The Frankenstein Inheritance. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 42–. ISBN 978-0-230-28734-1.
^For a comparative reading of these elements of the two dystopias, see George McKay (1994). 'Metapropaganda - self-reading dystopian fiction: Katharine Burdekin's Swastika Night and George Orwell's 1984. Science-Fiction Studies 21(3): November.
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Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. The first work of the genre was SwastikaNight (1937), by Katherine Burdekin, a British novel published before Nazi...
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Here (1935) by Sinclair Lewis War with the Newts (1936) by Karel Čapek SwastikaNight (1937) by Katharine Burdekin Anthem (1938) by Ayn Rand Invitation to...
novel, SwastikaNight (1937), as Murray Constantine. Reflecting Burdekin's analysis of the masculine element in fascist ideology, SwastikaNight depicts...
made extensive use of graphic symbols, especially the swastika, notably in the form of the swastika flag, which became the co-national flag of Nazi Germany...
officially the flag of the German Reich, featured a red background with a black swastika on a white disc. This flag came into use initially as the banner of the...
978-1-4732-0580-2 A Deepness in the Sky Vernor Vinge 978-1-4732-1196-4 SwastikaNight Murray Constantine 11 August 2016 978-1-4732-1466-8 China Mountain Zhang...
the armrests of chairs found in synagogues, in addition to an ornamental swastika. The reaction of non-Jewish Germans to Kristallnacht was varied. Many spectators...
Was Murdered: The Life Story of Jarrow. Constantine, Murray (1940). SwastikaNight. Strachey, John (1940). Federalism or Socialism?. Strachey, John (1940)...
uk. Retrieved 12 March 2021. Constantine, Murray (11 August 2016). SwastikaNight. Orion. ISBN 978-1-4732-1467-5. "Rowena Cade – Creator of the Minack...
followers in the film make use of imagery associated with Nazism, including swastika-like symbols and torchlit nighttime rallies. Peter O'Toole as Prophet Samuel...
Smith. SwastikaNight by Katharine Burdekin. Travel by Wire!, Arthur C. Clarke's first published story (in French) Futuropolis, by René Pellos. Night Key...
the week. After a procession of flag bearers to a stage decorated with swastika-adorned pennants, U.S. flags, and a portrait of George Washington, a German-accented...
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novel presents a post-apocalyptic adventure tale entitled Lord of the Swastika, written by an alternate-history Adolf Hitler shortly before his death...
Worker's Party) re-established these colours along with the party's own swastika flag in 1933. After World War II, black-white-red was still used by some...
symbolised by the adoption as the party emblem of the swastika. In German nationalist circles, the swastika was considered a symbol of an "Aryan race" and it...
credited with discovering who wrote the notable feminist dystopian novel SwastikaNight and other feminist speculative fiction in the 1930s. They were published...
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