I urval från Stockholms universitets publikationsdatabas

• Arts of Accommodation

  2013. Susanna Witt. The Art of Accommodation, 141-184

  Kapitel

  The chapter provides a microhistory of the little known First All-union Conference of Translators held in January 1936 — at a watershed in Soviet culture of the 1930s, marked by the establishment of the Committte on Arts Affairs  in December 1935  and the subsequent  campaign against “formalism in the arts”  on the eve of the Great Terror. Focus is on the  formation of Soviet translation ideology as it emerges from the archival material of the conference. Special attention is paid to the operational value and varying content of such concepts as “literalist” vs. “free” translation and the role of translations in forming the “national cultures” as an ambivalent project  situated in a field of tension between Stalinist nationalities discourse and “bourgeois nationalism” (as a latent threat). The chapter includes a publication of archival material: the draft resolution of the conference.

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• The Shorthand of Empire

  2013. Susanna Witt. Ab imperio: Studies of New Imperial History and Nationalism in the post-Soviet Space 14 (3), 155-190

  Artikel

  In the construction of a Soviet literary canon, various forms of indirect translation played a significant role. The process of making mutually accessible the desired literary output of the peoples of the Soviet Union was often hampered by lack of language competence among translators. The use of intermediary texts, especially podstrochniki (interlinear trots) was ubiquitous. Deemed unsatisfactory “in principle,” it was tolerated as a “temporary means,” but surfaced regularly on the agenda of the concerned bodies of the Writers’ Union. Drawing on archival material, this article provides a microhistory of the podstrochnik through an analysis of discourses on the topic from the 1930s up to the 1960s. As an appendix, the chapter includes a 1940 draft resolution on the regulation of translations from the literatures of the peoples of the USSR.

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• Totalitarizm i perevod

  2013. Susanna Witt. Dzhambul Dzhabaev , 267-286

  Kapitel

  The chapter demonstrates the relevance of literary translation as an object of research within the broader context of Soviet culture. With a focus on the Stalin period, it draws attention to translation as a pragmatic “no man’s land,” open to initiatves on the part of different agents. Drawing on Bakhtin’s analysis of the utterance and on Toury’s (2005) application of the concept of “culture planning,” the chapter pays special attention to the use of interlinear trots, or podstrochniki, as an institutionalized “creative space” between source and target texts.

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• Between the Lines

  2011. Susanna Witt. Contexts, Subtexts and Pretexts, 149-170

  Kapitel

  Literary translation in the Soviet Union may well be the largest more or less coherent project of translation the world has seen to this date — largest in terms of geographical range, number of languages involved and timespan; coherent in the sense of ideological framework (allowing for fluctuations over time) and centralized planning. The chapter demonstrates the relevance of literary translation as an object of research within the broader context of Soviet culture. With a focus on the Stalin period, it draws attention to translation as a pragmatic "no man's land," open to initiatives on the part of different agents. Drawing on Toury's (2005) application of the concept of "culture planning," the chapter pays special attention to the use of interlinear trots, or podstrochniki, as an institutionalized "creative space" between source and target texts. Soviet practices, it is argued, may prompt a reconsideration of common concepts such as source language, target language and translational agency.

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• Translatio imperii

  2011. Susanna Witt. Litteratur i gränszonen, 35-52

  Kapitel

  Studien belyser nationalitetslitteraturernas framväxt i form av översättningar och dessas  funktion  i det sovjetiska litterära systemet 1934-1936, d.v.s. under tiden mellan Första författarkongressen och  Första allunionella översättarkonferensen. Fokus ligger på översättningarnas synliggörande i det offentliga rummet. Det empiriska materialet utgörs av dagstidningen Pravda för perioden samt dokumentation ur ryska arkiv.

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• Institutionalized intermediates

  2017. Susanna Witt. Translation Studies 10 (2), 1-17

  Artikel

  In the Soviet Union, practices of indirect literary translation,particularly the use of interlinear intermediates, wereinstitutionalized in the early 1930s through special terminology,specific administrative treatment within the literary apparatus, andeducational efforts. Such practices continued until the end of theSoviet era, but were intensely debated and criticized, renderingproblems of indirect translation both visible and articulated in aunique way. Drawing on archival sources, this article presents anoverview of such issues, taking into consideration the heretoforescant attention given the subject in both Western and Russianscholarship. Conceptualizing the massive Soviet experience in thefield, it aims at providing new perspectives on the phenomenonof indirect translation.

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• Translation in Russian contexts

  2017. Brian James Baer, Susanna Witt.

  Bok (red)

  This volume represents the first large-scale effort to address topics of translation in Russian contexts across the disciplinary boundaries of Slavic Studies and Translation Studies, thus opening up new perspectives for both fields. Leading scholars from Eastern and Western Europe offer a comprehensive overview of Russian translation history examining a variety of domains, including literature, philosophy and religion. Divided into three parts, this book highlights Russian contributions to translation theory and demonstrates how theoretical perspectives developed within the field help conceptualize relevant problems in cultural context in pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia. This transdisciplinary volume is a valuable addition to an under-researched area of translation studies and will appeal to a broad audience of scholars and students across the fields of Translation Studies, Slavic Studies, and Russian and Soviet history.

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• The Translator as Trickster

  2019. Susanna Witt. Words, Bodies, Memory, 191-209

  Kapitel

  This article presents the career of the Russian poet-translator Mark Tarlovskii (1902–1952) through the prism of the trickster archetype as applied to Soviet culture by Mark Lipovetsky (2011). Drawing on both published and archival material, the article traces Tarlovskii’s navigations through “cynical culture” in the Soviet 1930s and 1940s. While these were arguably survival strategies on the part of the translator, they had as yet unrecognized implications for the field of literary translation and Soviet “nationalities culture” at the time. Furthermore, these navigations help to unearth a “southern subjectivity” whose significance for Russian culture of the epoch is still understudied.

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• Kontsept ‘sovetskoi shkoly perevoda’ — ditia pozdnego stalinizma

  2018. Susanna Witt. Vtoroj vsesojuznji s’ezd sovetskich pisatelej

  Kapitel

  Настоящая статья посвящена русской истории перевода периода 1945–1953 гг. В позднем сталинизме становится акутальным ряд проблем, которые подспудно существовали в контексте советского перевода и раньше, но стали приобретать все более острый характер в ходе послевоенных идеологических кампаний. Новые культурно-политические ориентиры, связанные со ждановщиной, борьбой против «низкопоклонства перед Западом» и «космополитизма» ставили переводчиков, которые по самой своей профессии были вынуждены каждодневно иметь дело с «чужим», в особое положение.                                                                             

  В переводческой корпорации это время отмечено особо резкими столкновениями, чем отчасти определялись те рамки, в которых тема перевода, несмотря на перемены общего культурного климата, будет обсуждаться в последующие десятилетия. Именно в этот период начинает формироваться концепт «советской школы художественного перевода», ставшей в последствии предметом официальной гордости и едва ли не символом советской культуры. Настоящая статья основана на архивных  и журнальных материалах и посвящена выявлению тех дискурсов, в терминах которых артикулировались те или иные позиции по отношению к художественному переводу в 1947–1954 гг., то есть с момента послевоенного восстановления Секции переводчиков ССП и вплоть до II Съезда советских писателей в 1954 г.

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• En maître reviderar sin meter

  2019. Susanna Witt. Slavica antiqua et hodierna, 167-177

  Kapitel

  This article presents an archival finding — the first parts of Byron’s Don Juan translated by Georgii Shengeli in 1953 in iambic pentameter instead of the hexameter he used for his 1947 edition of the work. The fragment is discussed against the background of the critical campaign that was launched against Shengeli in the early 1950s. It is compared with the published version  as well as with Tatiana Gnedich’s 1959 translation with particular  attention to disputed features.

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