Bridging the mental Iron Curtain, or, re-exploring the “old” in new contexts
Bridging the mental Iron Curtain, or, re-exploring the “old” in new contexts

Summary/Abstract: Translation studies has experienced several paradigmatic turns since James Holmes presented his seminal paper in 1972. Each turn has provided the field with new insights. However, it has often seemed that each turn has somehow forgotten the legacy of its predecessors. Moreover, after Popovič and Levý’ s untimely departure from the translation community, memories and references to their work started to fade away and were usually reduced to a footnote, as if their ideas were no longer valid and had nothing to offer the field today. However, we have seen an unprecedented boom in international interest in “Eastern” translation studies/translatology, and various conferences were organized dedicated to their legacy (Prague, Bologna, Leuven, Vienna etc.), suggesting that their ideas are worthy of further exploration, reinvestigation and testing against the new environment. Therefore, the paper suggests naming this new phenomenon relating to “Slavic” TS as the “re-turn”, which has been enabled by the development of the cultural and social situation in the post-socialist world in which we saw the mental Iron Curtain enduring much longer than the actual, physical one.

• Details
• Contents