The place and power of translation during Communism

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

Translation Under Communism makes a strong case that the history of translation is a vital part of the history of Communism; one that helps us to understand the political and cultural life of those living under a Communist regime. As the editors, Christopher Rundle, Anne Lange, and Daniele Monticelli, state: “Research on translation thus helps to add nuance to our understanding of the political and social opinions that were available under communist rule, allowing us to avoid the inadequate dichotomies that are often employed to describe this period: compliance vs resistance, censorship vs freedom and officialdom vs dissidence.” (p. 30) As this quote suggests, Translation Under Communism does not shy away from but, rather, it confronts the ambiguities that can aid our understanding of translated literature between 1945 and 1991 in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. An example of this resistance to clear-cut notions of free and repressed literary voices is in evidence when a case is made for both the suppression of translators whose work was published as samizdat literature and for the relatively good social status of official translators in socialist societies.
In its focus on the policies and practices of translation regarding specific texts, literary genres, authors, publishers, and countries, Translation Under Communism proves to be highly engaging. Discussions of the Slovenian translation of George Orwell’s 1984 published in 1967, the rise of Péter Kuczka’s translations of science fiction novels during Hungary’s late Kádár era, the popularity of Mikhail Lozinskii’s translation of Dante’s La Divinia Commedia in the USSR, Allen Ginsberg’s popularity in Czechoslovakia during his visit to and expulsion from Prague in 1965, the dominance of Nowa as the biggest underground publisher in Poland, and the rise of “relay translations” in Ukraine due to Russian dominance over literature and ideology, for example, illustrate the book’s attentiveness to historical context and considered use of translation theory. As this illustrative list suggests, the book’s focus is European (not global) Communism and, as such, it contains chapters on Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Soviet Union (specifically Russia and Ukraine), and Yugoslavia (including a chapter solely on Slovenia). It does not, however, contain chapters on Albania or Romania as the editors “were not able to find contributors” (p. 6) to write on these countries.
Each chapter offers a distinct perspective on a country’s translation history to demonstrate, usually through case studies, how translated literature reflects the political climate of that country during the Communist era. The chapters are united by a thematic focus on the impact of censorship on which literary works were translated, as well as how and why these translations took place. Chapters provide interesting discussions of samizdat activities and underground presses, along with evaluations of authorized translations. This is especially the case for Anikó Sohár’s chapter on Hungary (pp. 241-79) and Robert Looby’s chapter on Poland (pp. 379-407).
Translation Under Communism does not shy away from but, rather, it confronts the ambiguities that can aid our understanding of translated literature between 1945 and 1991 in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
The book is divided into four parts: Introduction (chapters 1 and 2); The Soviet Union (chapters 3 to 6); Communist Europe (chapters 7 to 13); and Response (chapter 14). This structure works well thematically. In acknowledging Antoine Chalvin et. al. (2019), the editors maintain that “even for post-war communism, it is far too exaggerated to speak of the “same constraints” and “identical conditions” for all the communist regimes of Eastern Europe” (p. 25) and they do well to ensure equal attention is paid to each country throughout the book. There is, however, some repetition. The two introductory chapters and Vitaly Chernetsky’s “Response” each contain short summaries of the chapters, which prove unnecessary for an attentive reader. Despite this, both the introductory and concluding sections of the book frame the contributors’ discussions by highlighting the interconnectedness of censorship and translation.
Translation Under Communism explains this interconnectedness in specific ways. Factors that shape the connections between censorship and translation include cultural specificity, regime changes, attitudes towards Western literature, and linguistic heritage. As the editors state in chapter 2: “Publishers and translators, like every other citizen living behind the Iron Curtain, learned to discern what was plausible and possible under party regulations and mastered the art of self-censorship in their public conduct.” (p. 18) They add that “censorship wasn’t limited to all-powerful institutions, it was diffuse and capillary reaching the microlevel of apparently insignificant everyday decisions through the actions of the ‘good communists’ who were in charge of cultural activity, and through the self-censorship of cultural workers.” (p. 21) These points are elucidated particularly well in the context of the USSR (pages 114-5 in Susanna Witt’s chapter), Slovenia (pages 222 and 233 in Nike K. Pokorn’s chapter), Hungary (pages 246-8 in Sohár’s chapter), East Germany (pages 291-2 in Hanna Blum’s chapter), and Bulgaria (pages 360-1 in Krasimira Ivleva’s chapter).
As Chernetsky suggests in his “Response”, which consolidates and responds to the preceding chapters, the censorship system that was in place in these Communist-ruled countries was based on the following two premises: (1) belief in the edificatory and morally stirring effect of literature on the individual; and (2) distrust of literature that criticized the Soviet Union and one-party system (see p. 430). The translator therefore had to carefully navigate between conveying the content of the original text and, if that text was critical of Communism or promoted Western ideologies, understanding that the political climate required careful editing of the original content to meet the demands of the censor or editor who was controlling the official narrative. Unofficial translators working for underground publishers, especially common in Poland’s drugi obieg (see Looby’s chapter) had a far greater degree of freedom, but, because of this freedom, ironically, they risked imprisonment. In its exploration of both the works and lived experiences of translators under surveillance, each chapter adds colour to our picture of the Communist era, particularly in terms of the cultural milieu across Eastern Europe and the USSR.
Translation Under Communism builds on existing scholarship by the editors themselves and by scholars including Gaby Thomson-Wohlgemuth (2009), Brian James Baer (2011), Samantha Sherry (2015), and Baer and Witt (2018) to name a few. Its unique contribution is in its questioning of where censorship ends and self-censorship begins for translators working for and/or against official publishers. It asks in what ways translations that meet the state’s needs (i.e. to promote the Party ideology of the time) differ from those produced for underground presses. In answering this question, Translation Under Communism provides country-specific analyses of translation cultures behind the Iron Curtain. For those interested in further contributions to this field, Routledge have just published (with a 2025 release date) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Censorship edited by Denise Merkle and one of the contributors to the volume reviewed here, Brian James Baer. Indeed, not just Baer, but several contributors to Translation Under Communism have chapters published in this volume, including Monticelli, Pokorn (two chapters), Oleksandr Kalnychenko and Lada Kolomiyets (two chapters), Blum, and Rundle. In many ways, therefore, the Routledge Handbook can be read as a continuation of the ideas presented in Translation Under Communism regarding the impact of censorship on translation. Overall, the book reviewed here constitutes an important contribution to the fields of translation, Slavonic, and Eastern European and studies as it investigates what translation tells us about the history of communism in the twentieth century.
Lucy Jeffery is Co-Founder of the “Replaying Communism” research project which received AHRC funding in 2023. She has published widely on twentieth-century literature, theatre, and culture. Her monograph, Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process was published in 2021, and she co-edited the “A New Poetics of Space” special issue of Green Letters in 2022. She has also published research on the political context of the mid-twentieth century faced by authors such as Magda Szabó. In 2024 she won the Visegrad Fellowship, and she is currently co-editing the forthcoming collection: Replaying Communism: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Media and Culture.