Commercially or ideologically motivated? Literary translation in Russian émigré journals in the Interwar period (1919-1939).

A society-in-exile settled in different host countries around the world, the Russian First Wave Emigration (1919-1939) was diverse in terms of ethnicity, class, ideology and political beliefs. Having to navigate between their own culture and that of their hosts, they had to rely on different types of cultural mediation, with constant negotiation between different spheres of influence (pre-revolutionary Russia, the host country, the Soviet Union and the emigration community). Turning to the migrant periodical as a site where such mediation becomes visible, my project will examine the role and function of literary translation in illustrated literary journals, composed, edited and read by Russian emigrants in the Interwar period. Which foreign literature was published? Does the selection of specific authors or genres reflect ideological motives? How are other nations and cultures presented in the selected literary works? Taking into account Roig-Sanz & Meylaerts’s (2018) concept of translators as ‘cultural mediators’, the actors involved will be analysed in terms of ideological and sociological positioning as well. Preliminary research indicates a preference for popular fiction, in particular short stories and serialised novels, which gives rise to questions on commerciality and how it relates to ideology. For this paper, I will offer a taxonomy of literary translations from different source languages (English, French, German, Spanish, …), published in illustrated journals Illyustrirovannaya Rossiya (Illustrated Russia; 1924-1939, Paris) and Rubezh (Frontier; 1926-1945, Harbin). The main points of focus will be the translators, selection mechanisms and content