Totalitarian (Quasi-)Translatability: The Case of Bulgaria in the 1970s and 80s (Institutions, Mechanisms, Consequences)
Totalitarian (Quasi-)Translatability: The Case of Bulgaria in the 1970s and 80s (Institutions, Mechanisms, Consequences)

Summary/Abstract: The concepts of translation and totalitarianism are not related in any way. Translation presupposes openness between languages and cultures; it is only possible when certain visible and invisible borders can be overcome. And totalitarian societies are principally closed, their permeability limited in both directions – it is difficult to go into them, and even more difficult to go out. The iron curtain limits not only the circulation of the physical bodies of their inhabitants, but also that of ideas, texts, voices. And yet, we know this curtain was not absolutely solid. In the Eastern European countries, and particularly in Bulgaria, many foreign authors were translated, including contemporary Western authors, especially in the 1970s–1980s. Of course, their works were carefully selected, they were subjected to both hidden and overt censorship, and their print runs were limited. And still they reached readers. But what happened in the opposite direction? What were the politics of literary translation from Bulgarian into foreign languages? And could we speak of ‘totalitarian translation’ in this case?

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