Translating Hemispheres: Eastern Europe and the Global South Connection through Translationscapes of Poverty

Abstract

This article illustrates through a data analysis of “the archive” and of what Jordan A. Y. Smith has recently defined as translationscapes, the way in which “the planetary world-as-world” emerged in Romania through translation only as late as 1948. Since translations of literature, as defined by the polysystem theory, are “a most active system within a polysytem,” one can assume that local production in certain cultures is strongly dependent on imports.

Quantitative translationscapes and chronological constellations: French, Soviet, and American novels in communist Romania

“…During the second phase (from 1948 to 1964), the Romanian translation program witnessed a radical change. This is also when the first Global South translations emerged in Romania (Baghiu 2019b). In short, prior to 1948, in Romania there were no translations of novels originating in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.…”

“…Although I have previously discussed the utility of quantitative translationscapes (Baghiu 2019a;2019b) for the French novel and also for Latin American, Southeast Asian, and African literatures in translation, I have never before conducted a comparative analysis of given translationscapes within a given literary culture. My aim here is to show the utility of such an approach by visualizing translations of novels in Romania between 1944 and1989, between the conclusion of World War II and the fall of communism.…”