Wstęp

Paratexts as an Expression of the Concept of Translation

There is a connection between paratexts and the translators’ strategy, between the attitude towards strangeness and the concept of translation from the perspective of the hosting culture, represented by translators, critics and researchers. They always define the literary and cultural awareness of individuals and of the epoch. In relation to the main text, they create a new literary and mental reality basing on specific translational solutions at the level of language and culture.
In the translators’ afterword to Slovenian translations of Polish literature in the years 1987—2014, the concept of translation was formulated both directly and indirectly, which places the original in the center of both the process of translation and of research in translation. They are the result of the interaction between the translator and the original, and between the translator and the reader of the translation. The concluded (and continued) transaction between the translator and the reader includes a promise of taking the latter into a fascinating, unknown world and assuring him of his role as an expert. The afterword has a cognitive and mediating function.

Keywords: translation, paratext, afterword, Polish literature, Slovenian translators

Discussed Translation: On the Status and Function of Paratext in the series Library of European Spirituality

The article discusses the status and function of paratext based on theseries of trans lations titled Biblioteka Duchowości Europejskiej (Library of European Spirituality). The series itself has been initiated by the Polish Paleo-Slavic community and was published more than ten years ago. The article’s authoress refers to the definition and classification of paratext elaborated on by Gérard Genette, which has been applied to considerations over translation studies for a long time and served as the basis for distinguishing strategies selected by translators as well as identifying the reception space. In the discussion on paratext, the role of the author of a translation is also taken into account, especially the issue of his or her presence, namely: the translator’s visibility, intentionality, and subjectivity revealed by his or her choices. The reflection made on paratexts, which regards only one series, does not exploit the complicated matter of the problem — it rather inscribes itself into the broader discussion which seems neither to exhaust the subject nor to provide satisfaction, since it forces the researcher to face the field demanding other explorations and contemplations. Yet even this general or superficial outline of the problem exposes or confirms the academic arrangements concerning usefulness and functionality of paratext in the process of translating literary works from one system to another. The article also postulates that translation should be incorporated in the space of destination culture, which may assure the translator (the secondary author) full reception of their text, thus allowing the translator’s work to come nearer to the primary reception namely, to assimilate to the process occurring in the realm of departure culture.

Keywords: translation, paratext, reception space, translator, series, Library of European Spirituality, Slaviae Orthodoxae

The Value of Comment in Translation: the Example of Slovenian Literature

The article deals with the role of comment (as a kind of paratext), which gains a particular status in translation, becoming an additional medium between the author/translator/editor and the primary text and the secondary recipient as well as their cultural universe. This seems important because the translated text is to function in a new environment, a new cultural space; it is supposed to find its way to a new audience, and thus this type of expressions “support” translation in its most important role of a link in cross-cultural communication. The role, nature, and importance of paratext-comments (introductions, prefaces, postscripts) have been examined in the context of translations of Slovenian literature in Poland basing on selected examples. Both the comments of experts-researchers, as well as interpreters themselves, have been taken into consideration. The author notes that, from the ethical point of view, a commentary becomes contributive to the slow process of the recipient realizing the presence of an interpreter and inter-subjective nature of translation, extracts the unfamiliar categories of perception and understanding of the world, brings them closer, making the gesture of seeking “imagined communities”.

Keywords: paratext, comment, translation, Slovenian literature, cross-cultural communication

Writing to Understand: Sarajevo and Chicago in English, Bosnian and Polish

The paper discusses Aleksandar Hemon's literary oeuvre through the prism of reception of The Book of My Lives in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Poland. In the present paper, we analyse the function of paratextual elements on the basis of the translations of the Bosnian-American author from English into Bosnian and Polish taking into consideration the fact that the author wrote in English, but reflecting on his Bosnian childhood, his youth, and the period after he moved to the United States of America. The present paper recognizes and emphasizes that Hemon, who writes in English without forgetting his mother tongue, is using subtle emphasis to describe the world and his place in it by means of calm but self-confident expression. The paratextual elements are used to direct and decompress, which enhances the experience of living and writing at two different places and in two languages so that once the experience has been transferred, its language is comprehensible, inspirational, and familiar to the reader. The paper analyses the title, biographical notes and other paratextual elements the editors and publishers selected to present the cultural aspects, the relevance, the quality of artistic persuasion and accomplishment, and the overall literary value as the truly essential value of this and all other literary works the role of which is to illuminate relations through experiences and contribute to understanding but also changing the human and the world.

Keywords: English language, Bosnian language, Polish language, paratextual elements, publishers, reception, Aleksandar Hemon

Paratext in a Series of Translations: Polish Translations of Two Poems by Milivoj Slaviček

Paratext has a considerable impact on the shaping of the way in which a literary work is open to each translation, as well as the dynamics of this openness. Critical paratexts that refer to an existing translation prove that new attempts arise from the readers’ unfulfilled expectations. Peritexts, where the poetics of a given author is discussed, point out that the aesthetic value of a given work corresponds to the number of readings of that work (including translations). They also provide a justification (albeit not an indirect one) for individual translation solutions, similarly to paratexts, where the translator provides reflections on his or her own translation. On the other hand, elements of critical epitexts (i.e. reviews) oftentimes become an integral part of a new translated text in a series.

Keywords: paratext, translation series, Milivoj Slaviček

Paratexts in Polish Translations of Miloš Crnjanski’s Literary Works

The article discusses paratexts in Polish translations of M. Crnjanski’s poetry and prose. The corpus of the article includes the Polish translations, which were published in six volumes. Various types of paratexts of the translations have been analyzed here: the translator’s paratexts and the editor’s paratexts, verbal and non-verbal paratexts, introductions and notes included in the Polish versions of M. Crnjanski’s works. The authors of the Polish paratexts — Danuta Cirlić-Straszyńska, Branislav Ćirlić, and Grzegorz Łatuszyński are also translators of Crnjanski’s works from Serbian into Polish.

Keywords: literary work, translation, verbal and non-verbal paratexts

The Role of Afterword in the Czech Translation of Herta Müller’s Herztier

This article deals with the relevance of paratexts in translation based on the example of the afterword in the Czech translation of Herta Müller’s novel Herztier [The Land of Green Plums], titled Srdce bestie and written by Radka Denemarková, a writer and translator famous not only in her homeland.

Firstly, the elucidation analyses the essentials of paratext as such, pointing out that translation is a specific type of paratext itself, not to mention the translator’s afterword which, in turn, constitutes — from the point of view of translation — another paratext. Furthermore, the attention of the reader is directed to the different functions of the afterword, especially as a commentary on the translator’s choices and, consequently, as an insight into the worldview inscribed into the original language. Thereby, a particular interest is paid to the translator who, in view of her literary predispositions that are clearly visible not only in the afterword, could be described as the “second author”. Finally, one of the most important issues is the very specific language used by the writer Herta Müller as she describes trivial things in an extraordinary way, using words in completely unexpected meanings and contexts.

Keywords: paratexts, afterword, translation, Herta Müller, Radka Denemarková

The Intensity in Paratexts of Pavol Rankov’s Prose

The article concerns the issue of intensification in Polish and Slovakreviews of Pavo l Rankov’s prose. The review, as a form accompanying the main text, is treated as paratext. The linguistic category of intensification can be expressed in the text by the variety of linguistic means: derivational, morphological, lexical, and stylistic. These structures, with the collateral “intensifiers”, were cited and analysed in this study.

The main role of intensification is to attract the language users’ attention to the part of a phrase. It can be obtained by a variety of linguistic means. There should be a distinction between exponents of intensity (in context) and the function of intensifiers (in narrow view). That is why there is an important methodological new proposal to isolate intensifiers as the other part of speech in the contemporary Polish. Intensifier is a modifier, which converts the meaning of another lexical unit by giving it more power, force, in contrast to the (wider) exponent of intensity, which can be a derivational, morphological, lexical, phraseological or syntactic and stylistic phenomenon. In the Slovak linguistics, the intensification of properties (for adjectives) is next to deminutiveness, one of the clearest and most diversified, according to expressiveness, onomasiological categories.

Keywords: intensity, review, intensifiers, adverbs, modifiers, gradation, Slovak language

Paratext Serving Propaganda in the Introductions to Literary Translations to Polish and Czech in the 1950’s

The article describes the role of propaganda and aims of the introductions to Polish and Czech literary translations in the 1950’s. It discusses the influence of the contemporary cultural politics on the selection of literary works that were translation-worthy, and that were provided with mandatory introduction. The article presents the dominant strategies of biographical and literary manipulation in the works of such writers as Bozena Nemcova, Jan Neruda, Alojs Jirasek and Adam Mickiewicz.

Keywords: cultural politics, realism, Romanticism, paratext, propaganda

At the Foot of the Page? Non-linguistic Translators’ Notes in Selected Translations of The Ballad of the Trumpet and the Cloud by Ciril Kosmač

The translator’s notes in the Serbian, Russian, Polish, and German translations of the novella Balada o trobenti in oblaku (The Ballad of the Trumpet and the Cloud), written by a Slovenian writer, Ciril Kosmač, differ with regard to their formal and content features: the Serbian, Russian, and Polish translations contain footnotes; the German translation, on the other hand, has endnotes; content-wise, among the analysed texts, the Serbian translation occupies a special position, being the only one without the non-linguistic notes. The number of all the non-linguistic notes, explaining historical, mythological, geographical elements and everyday items, is relatively low — the Polish translation has eight such explicative notes, the Russian translation six and the German one has four; their absence in the Serbian translation may be a result of a higher socio-cultural proximity between Serbia and Slovenia in the 20th century. Despite their low number, the non-linguistic translator’s notes appear to be a very complex translation technique in the analysed translations ot Kosmač’s novella: on the one hand, they represent explanatory paratexts, added to facilitate the target reader’s comprehension of different text elements (even with a low narrative importance); on the other hand, however, they also enable the preservation of the source-text elements, contributing in such a way to the source-text orientation; translator’s notes are also a channel through which the translator and his wider socio-cultural background enter the target text in a more explicit way. The analysis of particular translations and their comparison has revealed also an intricate competition between translator’s notes and other translation techniques.

Keywords: translator’s note, explicitation, translation technique, non-linguistic reality, Ciril Kosmač

Translator`s Footnotes in the Chosen Translations of Polish Literature

Inspired by the theories of such well recognized scholars as G. Genette ,J. Derrida and E. Skibińska the authors of this paper took a closer look into translators’ comments in Slovene translations of three Polish novels. The analytical part of the paper has been divided into two sections. The first one described the formal characteristics of footnotes. The second one illustrated different cultural, social, and historical contexts of using additional translators` comments.

Keywords: Polish literature, Slovenian literature, translator`s footnotes, Translation Studies, peritexts

Translator’s Footnotes in the Polish Translation of Drago Jančar’s essays Terra incognita

The author has analyzed the translator’s footnotes in the Polish translation of Terra Incognita. The footnotes are problematic, because some people consider them a discredit to the translator, while others think them a sign of erudition. There is also a group of people, who say they are a solution to untranslatability, which is a result of the differences between the languages and cultures. They help to deliver the meaning. The author of the article searches and analyses if the translator was consistent while creating footnotes and if the information important provided in the process is essential and helpful for the reader to understand Slovenian culture. In other words, if the footnotes are a solution to the problems with the untranslatability.

Keywords: footnotes, paratexts in translation, essays, Drago Jančar, Slovenian literature

Biography with a Translation: Croatian Illyrian Medo Pucić
on Adam Mickiewicz

This paper deals with and comments on the biography and description of the literary work of the Croatian author of the Romantic period, Medo Pucić, with a special review of the biography of Adam Mickiewicz which he wrote in Italian, along with translations of excerpts from Forefathers’ Eve. The objective of the paper is twofold: to establish a parallel between the two contemporaries in the context of wider Croatian-Polish literary connections of the 1830s and 1840s as well as to establish the value of biography as a literary-historic genre, especially when it is written in temporal synchrony with an intent to establish cultural reciprocity. In that light Pucić’s text on Mickiewicz, originally written in a non-Slavic language for an Italian audience, is not read simply as a Croatian version of the impact of Mickiewicz’s work among the Southern Slavs, but as an ambitious implementation of the Pan-Slavic idea.

Keywords: Medo Pucić, Adam Mickiewicz, biography, La Favilla, Croatian-Polish literary connections of the 19th century

Tłumaczenie z języka chorwackiego Barbara Rzeźniczak
Redakcja tłumaczenia Katarzyna Majdzik i Leszek Małczak

Theology of Conspiracy: Small Pleasure in the Play of Sovereignty

The conspiracy mission of Marin Držić is being analysed in the context of sovereignty and political state of exception, from Schmitt to Agamben, as well as in the light of recent historical interpretations, from Jeličić and Pupačić to Tatarin and Kunčević. Držić’s letters to Cosimo I. and Francesco Medici are thus situated in the context of renaissance diplomatic thought. Based on some possibilities in their Croatian stylizations (Čale vs. Batistić), their political and theological semantics is revised.

Keywords: conspiracy, sovereignty, political correspondence, exception