Maksym Strikha. Ukrainian Translation and Translators: Between Literature and Nation-Making

The book illustrates the development of Ukrainian translation from the times of Kyivan Rus to modernity. Special attention is paid to the 19th- and 20th-century translation and translators, whose activity, aside from its literary nature, had a distinct nation-making direction, helping draw a precise line separating Ukrainians from the dominant nations of the empires, to which Ukrainian lands belonged. Such a role of Ukrainian translation was not unique. German translation performed a similar role in the second half of the 18th century, when the French language and culture dominated the higher strata of divided Germany, and Catalan translation did so in the 20th century during the forced “Castiliasation” of Catalonia under the Franko regime. Nevertheless, it is the history of Ukrainian translations that contains the greatest number of dramatic narratives, and the fates of the most remarkable Ukrainian writers were considerably more tragic than those of their counterparts from the other countries that also suffered from foreign political and cultural oppression.

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