Translation: A Literary-History Constant and Variable

Abstract

Three decades ago, Darko Dolinar drew attention in several of his papers to the discrepancy between the strong presence of translation in Slovenian culture and its weaker and especially inconsistent regard in literary history: in older periods, translation had to take on the role of the original’s substitute due to a shortage of original literature, whereas in more recent times it has been considered a mere copy of the original, which is why it has been denied originality and thus any kind of value. – In his innovative Primerjalna zgodovina slovenske literature (Comparative History of Slovenian Literature; 1987, 2001), Janko Kos mentioned translations, but he avoided the principled definition of their role in the national literature and decided to use the method of directly comparing Slovenian literary works with their influential role models from other literatures without considering any intermediaries. In his unconventional review titled Tisoč let slovenske literature (A Thousand Years of Slovenian Literature, 2003), Matjaž Kmecl did not discuss translations, but in principle he allowed artistic translations to be taken into account. With a side note that the quality of a translation also depends on the translator, he avoided equating translations with mere copies of originals. – The originality of a translation is specific; the source text neither denies nor provides originality to the translated one, but it does make it possible and at the same time also demands it to an individually determined extent. All generations of Slovenian translators deal with this challenge, and there are always prominent poets and writers among them. Literature translated into Slovenian thus lives in a constant, albeit changeable symbiosis with the primary, i.e. untranslated literary production. Literary history could cover it to its benefit because it is its specific complementary part, being created within the context of national history and literature, and also contributing to the creation of this context.