This book examines the history of translation under European communism, bringing together studies on the Soviet Union, including Russia and Ukraine, Yugoslavia, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Poland. In any totalitarian regime maintaining control over cultural exchange is strategically important, so studying these regimes from the perspective of translation can provide a unique insight into their history and into the nature of their power. This book is intended as a sister volume to Translation Under Fascism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and adopts a similar approach of using translation as a lens through which to examine history. With a strong interdisciplinary focus, it will appeal to students and scholars of translation studies, translation history, censorship, translation and ideology, and public policy, as well as cultural and literary historians of Eastern Europe, Soviet communism, and the Cold War period.
Author(s): Christopher Rundle, Anne Lange, Daniele Monticelli
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 502
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Tables
Part I Introduction
1 Introduction
The Focus on European Communism
The Focus on Books
The Studies in This Volume
References
2 Translation and the History of European Communism
The Centrality of Cultural Policies in Socialist Countries
The Role of Translators and Editors
United in Difference? Times and Local Cultures of the European Communist Regimes
Communism Through the Lens of Translation
References
Part II The Soviet Union
3 Translation and the Formation of the Soviet Canon of World Literature
Introduction
From 1917 to the Late 1920s: From Enlightenment to Exclusion
The 1930s: (Re)Shaping the World Literature Canon
1941–45: ‘Everything for the Front, Everything for Victory’
1946–53: The Illusion of Inclusion
1953–85: After Stalin
1985–89: Perestroika
The Canon and the Curriculum
Conclusion
Note on Translation and Transliteration
References
4 Censorship, Permitted Dissent, and Translation Theory in the USSR: The Case of Kornei Chukovsky
Chukovsky’s Pre-revolutionary Writings on Translation: From Anecdote to Abstraction
Principles of Literary Translation (1919, 1920): The Translator’s Lichnost’
Chukovsky’s Iskusstvo Perevoda (1930): Submission and Resistance
Iskusstvo Perevoda (1936) and Vysokoe Iskusstvo (1941): The Friendship of Peoples
The Post-Stalinist Editions of Vysokoe Iskusstvo: The Return of Lichnost’
Conclusion
Appendix
References
5 Translating Inferno: Mikhail Lozinskii, Dante and the Soviet Myth of the Translator
Introduction
Translation in the Soviet Context
The Translator and His Context
The Translation
The Workings of Myth and the Stalin Prize
Conclusion
Archival Sources
References
6 Translation in Ukraine During the Stalinist Period: Literary Translation Policies and Practices
Introduction
Can Translation Change History?
A Brief Flourishing of the Ukrainian Language and Culture: Why Translations Became an Urgent Task After the Collapse of the Russian Empire
From the Ukrainian War of Independence to the Early Stalinist Era: Translation in the Period of Active Ukrainization in the UkrSSR
The CP(B)U Nationalities Policy Refracted in Translation Practices6
Translations of Russian Belles-Lettres as a Sign of the Rising Prestige of the Ukrainian Language
Different Strategies for Translating from Russian and from Other Languages
From the Cultural Renaissance in Ukraine to the Great Purge: Translation as Ideological Battlefield
The CP(b)U Propaganda Objectives and Priority Books for Translation
Justification of the Struggle Against ‘Nationalistic Wreckers’ in Translation: A Drive Towards De-Ukrainization and Strengthening the Agency of the Russian Language
Translation in the Late Stalinism Period: Consequences of Total Governmental Regulation and Political Censorship
Russifying Retranslations of the Classics
Obligatory Literalism in Translations from Russian Versus the Declared Zero Tolerance of Literalism
Conclusion
References
Part III Communist Europe
7 The Politics of Translation in Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1952
Translating a Political Programme
Translation as Political Programme
Translation: A Third Way
Conclusion
Archival Sources
8 Ideological Control in a Slovene Socialist State Publishing House: Conformity and Dissent
Introduction
The Main Concepts
Methodological Approach and Extra-Textual Sources
The Cultural Struggle in the Socialist Federal Republic of Slovenia
Publishing Policy
Maintaining Control Over Publishing in Socialist Slovenia
Maintaining Control Over Publishing at Mladinska Knjiga
Interviews
The Possibility of Dissent
Conclusions
Archival Sources
9 ‘Anyone Who Isn’t Against Us Is for Us’: Science Fiction Translated from English During the Kádár Era in Hungary (1956–89)
Science Fiction as an Example
‘Engineers of Human Souls’: Attitudes Towards Literature, Publishing, and Literary Translation in the Kádár Era (1956–89)
The Position of Translators
The Infamous 3 Ps: Promotion, Permission, and Prohibition in Science Fiction and Its Translation
Book Translations
Galaktika
Other Science Fiction Magazines
Fanzines
Characteristics of the Translations
Conclusion
References
10 The Impact of Cultural Policy in the GDR on the Work of Translators
Introduction
Cultural Policy of the GDR
Phase of Renewal (1945–49)
Setting up Socialism (1949–61)
Achieving Socialism (1961–71)
Constant Shifts Between Liberalization and Repression (1971–89)
Censorship of Artistic Work in the GDR
The Role of Translations in the GDR
Being a Translator in the GDR
Training Situation
Financial Situation and Social Status
Writers Union of the GDR
Protocols of Translator Meetings Within the Writers Union
The Role of Translation and Translators
Translation Practice
Problems for Translators
Conclusion
Institutional Names and Abbreviations
Archived Documents of the East German Writers Union at the Archiv der Künste, Berlin
Primary Sources
11 The Allen Ginsberg ‘Case’ and Translation (in) History: How Czechoslovakia Elected and Then Expelled the King of May
An Interstitial Period: The Regime vs. Writers and the Youth
Ginsberg and Beat Literature in Czechoslovakia Before 1965
Allen Ginsberg in Czechoslovakia: The First Visit and ‘Not Getting into Trouble’
Translation in the Hands of the Regime
The Expulsion of the King of May (and His Works)
The Return of the King of May (in Translation)
Conclusion
References
12 Literary Translation in Communist Bulgaria (1944–89)
Cultural Contacts and Transmitted Images of Russian and French Cultures
The Normative Organization of the Translation Process
Negotiating/renegotiating the Canon. The Translator and the Boundaries of the Canon.
The Figure of the Translator
The Evolving Canon
Conclusion
References
13 Underground Fiction Translation in People’s Poland, 1976–89
Spoiled for Choice
From Samizdat to Industry
Output
Politics and Policy
Selection
Crisis
Practice
Conclusion
References
Part IV Response
14 A Battle for Translation
References
Index
