Translating news on the war in Ukraine: Crimea and the “imagined community” of Greater Russia

The ongoing war in Ukraine, and more specifically the annexation of Crimea in 2014, has triggered conflicting narratives in different parts of the world. While North-American and European newspapers denounced Russia’s military intervention on the peninsula and declared the March 16 referendum illegal, president Putin seized the event to promote the idea of a “Greater Russia” before a domestic audience. During a speech at the State Duma on March 18, Putin justified Crimea’s entry into the Federation as a “historical rectification,” claiming that “in their hearts and minds,” people have always known that Crimea is Russian land. My paper will demonstrate how a similar narrative is pushed on the Russian news translation website InoSMI (http://inosmi.ru/), a media project affiliated with RIA Novosti news agency that monitors and translates foreign press into Russian. Through selective appropriation of source material, and subtle yet effective translation shifts, the website reframes original news stories on Crimea to interpret the peninsula’s “homecoming” through the “Greater Russia” lens. An analysis of the translation process reveals a clear focus on the idea of “one people divided by borders”, with blood ties emphasized both on a literal (presence of ethnic Russians in Crimea) and figurative level (family metaphors). Furthermore, the 1954 transfer of Crimea to Ukraine is repeatedly described as an anomaly, while popular nostalgia for the lost glory of the Soviet and Russian Empire is brought to the fore. My paper thus illustrates how the Crimean episode is used to redefine the geographical and political concept of “Russia” by including “historic Russian lands” now outside its borders and capitalizing on the place Crimea holds in Russian imagination. I will particularly draw attention to the role of translation in the global circulation of news, and to its capacity to reframe war narratives