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Translation and Taboo |
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Eva Maliti |
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In the study which has the character of essay questions of tabooisation in the field of literary translation are brooded. The works of Zora Jesenská, the key personality of the Slovak school of translation, were put on the index after the author in her individual criticism of the CSCP policy, in the time of violent interruption of the renewal process in the society, exceeded all the tolerated limits. The translator was a persona non grata, and her translations lay in the library safes. Because of the taboo of Jesenská and her works it was not until 1991 that, with the publication of the translation by Ján Ferenčík, the Slovak version of Dostoevsky's Karamazov Brothers was introduced. The second wave of Slovak translations from the Russian classics in the period of the normalization 70s was as well caused chiefly by her prohibition. Without Jesenská's translations, who translated a lot of titles from the Russian classical literature, among others Lermontov, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Chekhov, Tolstoy etc., no Russian classics even existed in Slovak. Translation is connected with taboo in the time of non-human regimes when the measure of tension between it and ideology in benefit of ideology. Then the task of translation is not the one of being art and fulfilling the function of a bridge between nations but being the "bearer of ideas" -- while its importance is raised as well. In such times translation is a political tool and as an important component of the whole system it is subordinated to the aims of the ruling elite. Jesenská in translation drew upon the periods which were accepted by the new regime with stipulations – romanticism, modernity accentuating peculiarity, individuality, uniqueness, not the required collectivism of the mass. Individuality – of the author, her creative gesture, her mother tongue, authorship language and the translator and his/her way of interpretation -- remained the obligatory base for her. On the turn of the 40s and 50s she did not identified with the conception of translation used for political goals and this fact was reflected in her translation of Sholokhov's And Quiet Flows the Don and in the polemic this translation induced. The study also uncovers the creative relation of Jesenská to another tabooed personality and translator Mikuláš Gacek. Tabooing fundamentally marked the development of Slovak literary translation in the second half of the 20th century -- because of the forbiddance of particular translators repeated translations and translation sequels were made that created the real history of translating. |
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Keywords: Taboo. Literary translation. Zora Jesenská. Slovak School of Translation. Ideology. Mikuláš Gacek. Individuality. |
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