Wstęp

Aesthetic-Mental Adventure of Translation

Translation is an adventure. The desire to experience it exceeds all other translation motives. It is a desire of a rational, pragmatic, emotional and physical nature. Therefore, full normalisation of the principles of artistic translation constantly encounters difficulties. Outside the borders of the scheme there is something called talent and empathy, understood as a cognitive-affective phenomenon.

The paradigm of desire is defined by: individual weaknesses, ambition, desire to communicate, to know and experience something so far unknown, and the interaction between them in the form of surprise, dazzlement, and even shock.

KEY WORDS: translation, adventure, empathy, intercultural communication, creativity of the interpreter — Tone Pretnar

The Pleasure of Translating

In his Dire quasi la stessa cosa. Esperienze di traduzione (2003) Umberto Eco discusses and comments on important dynamics of translation, its strategies and gestures, using examples drawn from his own literary works rendered in different languages. Thus, the answer to the question of the reasons we translate is formulated in relation to some subjective experiences of literary translation from and into Italian exercised by the author of the essay. The category of pleasure is presented as a significative factor that prompts us to translate.

KEY WORDS: translator’s and reader’s pleasure, translation, adequacy, rational and irrational reasons of translation

Translator’s Double Life

The manner of functioning of South Slavic literature translators in the social field is presented in the article as a case of “multiplied social participation”, participation in the “game”, which they treat as an incentive for cultural, intellectual and moral development in the individual and social dimension. Methodological considerations on the translation presented in the article are based on the concepts of Barnard Lahire, Pierre Bourdieu, and Roger Caillois.

KEY WORDS: Bernard Lahire, Pierre Bourdieu, literary field, game, Roger Caillois, literary translation

The Art of Post-translation

This article addresses meta-theoretical issues. Its core concern is to find a coherent conceptual language and an integrated research perspective which would allow to describe various experimental forms of artistic expression claiming the name of “translation”. Particular attention is paid to those literary and non-literary artistic experiments which obligatorily activate the interpretive context of translation proper and therefore require translational analytical tools. The methodological framework for research is provided by the ongoing “outward turn” in western European “post-translation studies”.

KEY WORDS: experimental translation, post-translation, outward turn, translation studies

Translation of Conceptual Literature. A Case Study of the Localization of Paint the Rock by Shiv Kotecha into the Polish Namaluj Popka

The article presents case study of a creative practice-based project in which the experimental conceptual book Paint the Rock by Shiv Kotecha was translated into Polish using a conceptual translation strategy. The original is an unconventional “coloring book” that invites the reader to paint American male celebrities from memory. The Polish translation, Namaluj Popka by Aleksandra Małecka and Piotr Marecki, remakes the original experiment, replacing these global household names with figures from the Polish local popular imaginary in a ludic localization. The authors describe the context of the original literary work, the translation process, the new context for reception in Poland, with a special focus on the role of the translator as the ambassador of new trends in literature and the creative and critical potential of conceptual writing and translation strategies.

KEY WORDS: ambient literature, experimental literature, conceptual translation, experimental translation, conceptual literature

Pinocchio in Emojitaliano. The Experimental Translation in the Culture of Visual and Performative Turn

The article discusses the experimental translation of the classic of children’s literature — Pinocchio (La storia di un burattino) by Carlo Collodi — from Italian into an artificially created language of the emoji signs. The translation was dicussed in the context of other translations of literature into emoji sings and experimental translation in general. This originally new-media translation illustrates the cultural transformations of modernity and can be understood as an expression of the iconic (visual) and performative turn in the humanities.

KEY WORDS: Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi, experimental translation, intersemiotic translation, iconic turn, performative turn

Author and Translator: Two Full-Fledged Characters? On the Feminist Translation in Canada Based on the Example of Lettres d’une autre by Lise Gauvin and “Feminine Translation” by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood

Among many translation activities characteristic for Canada, a “feminine translation”, meaning an act of re-creation, is particularly worth mentioning. One of its representatives is Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, a translator of the texts of Quebec feminists, including Lise Gauvin’s Lettres d’une autre (1984) translated into English in 1989 (Letters from an Other). De Lotbinière-Harwood’s translation caused controversy, as — according to the critics — she explained to much to a reader, inserted too many footnotes and feminized the text more than the original. The translation activity of de Lotbnière-Harwood proves how, by using the creative approach to translation, the act of translation itself becomes visible, and the feminization of the target text creates a space for female expression also in a real world.

KEY WORDS: feminist translation, Canada, Quebec, re-creation, Lise Gauvin

In-between Translation, Commentary and Interpretation — Remarks on the Margins of an English Language History of Polish Literature

The paper is devoted to the reciprocal connections among three “metatexts”: translation, commentary, and interpretation. On the basis of Antoine Berman’s theoretical assumptions I demonstrate how these three “reformulations” are intertwined in order to analyze chosen pieces of Polish poetry in English translation. My aim is to explore various roles which translation, commentary and interpretation can play in presenting Polish literature to foreign readers.

KEY WORDS: translation, commentary, interpretation, intertextuality, Polish literature

About the Oldest Polish Translations of Slovak Literature

Based on J. Jarniewicz’s concept of two types of translator’s attitude: legislator and ambassador, the article concentrates on the reasons behind the oldest Polish translations of Slovak literature: a folk song, part of J. Rostworowski’s novel Zamek na Czorsztynie, a novel by J. Kalinčiak Reštavrácia translated by P. Stalmach and a drama Matka by J. Gregor Tajovský translated by F. Gwiżdż, showing the circumstances of their appearance and the attitudes of their translators.

KEY WORDS: translation, history, Slovak literature, Polish literature, translator

Slovak Naturalist Prose in Polish Translations — Strategies for Selection and Translation in the Changing Cultural Perspective of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

The author of the article analyses Polish translations of the Slovak naturalist prose which is a very interesting phenomenon at the primary horizon and appears to be the most frequently translated into Polish. The author concentrates on the representative translations, strategies for selection and strategies for translation of the naturalism in the changing cultural perspective of the second half of the twentieth century. Historical and cultural situation, historical distance between the originals and their translations has the biggest influence for the selection of the texts but also for the strategies the translators choose during the process of translation. In the perspective of cultural and literature turn in Poland in 1956, the Slovak naturalist prose had the chance to appear in the second horizon but it did not affect recipients and did not have the possibility to impact the development of the receiving literature. The author of the article tries to answer the question why it did not happen.

KEY WORDS: literary translation, Slovak prose of naturizmus, Slovak literature in Polish translation, Margita Figuli, Ľudo Ondrejov, Dobroslav Chrobák, František Švanter

Polish Choices of Czech Female Prose in Translations after 1989

In the article we pay special attention to the presence of Czech female writing in Poland after 1989. In the latest Czech literature, women are becoming more and more significant. In recent years, books by Czech female writers, particularly of a young generation, have been translated. Based on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of field, capital and habitus, the article is concerned with the role of a translator as an active agent in literary communication.

KEY WORDS: Polish choices, Czech female prose, Pierre Bourdieu’s theory, translation, a translator

Literary-Historic Modus Procedendi of Julije Benešić in the Collection Polish Lyricism

During his entire work in philology Julije Benešić had systematically translated two types of texts: masterpieces of canonical Polish authors, which he considered to be his most important work as an author and as a cultural mediator, however he also translated a series of shorter works of authors who were not famous in Croatia, which he undertook out of his polonophilic tendencies. In his work as a translator, Polish Lyricism, a chrestomathy spanning five centuries of Polish literature, holds a special place. In the article we will try to come to a conclusion to what extent were Benešić’s choice as a translator and his work as a historian successful, i.e. did they correspond with topics important to the entire Croatian literary and social environment of his, interwar, period, as well as our own period.

KEY WORDS: Julije Benešić, Poljska lirika, Današnja Poljska, Croatian-Polish Literary Relations

Why Do New Translations Come into Being? Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita in a New Polish Translation

Literary works tend to be amongst the most often translated texts. A perfect example is Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita: over the previous two years (2016—2017) three new translations thereof into Polish appeared, one of them being a translation by Leokadia, Grzegorz, and Igor Przebinda. In this paper, the main reasons for the publication of this new, “family” translation were discussed. The question about the need for makeing new translations was accompanied by other questions: how are such texts translated what strategies are used by the translator?, to what extent does he or she take account of the assumed expectations of contemporary readers? In the presentation, two research perspectives were proposed. The first of them is the translator’s viewpoint, for whom the newly done translation is a domesticated translation. The other perspective, the researcher’s one, consist in analyzing the translated text itself, in particular with regard to the applied translation strategies (exoticization vs. adaptation), indicating the differences between the latest translation and the previous ones (first by Irena Lewandowska and Witold Dąbrowski, and second by Andrzej Drawicz). The analysis of the translated text along with the accompanying paratexts in the form of numerous footnotes leads one to a conclusion that exoticization is a dominant strategy.

KEY WORDS: domestication, exoticization, Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

Why to Retranslate: New Ukrainian Renderings of Polish Prose

The paper focuses on the issue of retranslation perceived as a significant aspect of contemporary practice of literary translation into Ukrainian, exemplified by the cases of the retranslation of short stories by Bruno Schulz and Tadeusz Konwicki’s Minor Apocalypse. The emergence of new translations within a short time encourages questions about the ambitions that drove translators and publishers to present new translations of the previously translated literary works, as well as about the strategies used by translators.

KEY WORDS: retranslation, Bruno Schulz, Tadeusz Konwicki, critical reception of translation, Ukrainian literary culture

Translation as an Act of Subversion: About one of the Polish Translations of Historical Tragedy Zriny by Theodor Körner

The object of the analysis in this article is one of the Polish translations of historical tragedy of Theodor Körner entitled Zriny. The German author’s piece has been at least six times translated into Polish language and was — especially in the second part of the 19th century, after the collapse of January Uprising — very popular. The reason of the popularity was his subversion. Through Zriny it was possible to talk about a struggle for freedom — the theme forbidden by Russian censorship. Historical piece written by a foreign author, which talks about the struggle for freedom and for defence of the homeland, the struggle lead by someone else, in other time and place, became a medium for manifesting of patriotic feelings. This function of Polish Zriny confirms his interpretation in critics and one of the translations which was written by Ludwik Jenike in Russian occupation zone with all subversive translation shifts made by the translator.

KEY WORDS: subversion, Theodor Körner, Ludwik Jenike, translation, patriotism