Ein Hermannstädter Hexenprozess aus dem Jahr 1697 : kulturhistorische und translatologische Betrachtungen

The analyzed and translated text represents a judicial protocol of a witch trial from 1697. After a brief description of the general phenomenon of the witch hunt and it’s characteristics in 17th century Transylvania the text is discussed from a point of view of its translation. The most problematic aspects are found in the depositions of the witnesses, which abound in linguistic peculiarities, ranging from archaic structures to dialect. The translator faces a dilemma when having to decide whether to translate the archaic structures into archaic ones, thus preserving the stylistic personality of the text, or into modern Romanian, which would mean creating an “open translation”. In any case the translation should not neglect the informative and oral character of the source text