Karolinum Press, Charles University
Translation as Resistance
Czech and Ukrainian Historical Perspectives
9788024661209
Distributed for Karolinum Press, Charles University
Translation as Resistance
Czech and Ukrainian Historical Perspectives
A groundbreaking scholarly account of translation as a form of resistance in Ukrainian and Czech history, from imperial oppression to Soviet censorship and beyond.
In cultures and communities under pressure, whether from a powerful neighbor or a hegemonic ideology, translation becomes a political act. Shaped by the constraints of the moment, both translations and their paratexts are subject to forces that compromise quality or restrict freedom of expression, even as translators seek to bring home the quality and expressive freedom of their originals. In Translation as Resistance, the role translation has played and continues to play in reframing language and power in Czech and Ukrainian cultures is presented and interrogated by Czech and Ukrainian translators.
In cultures and communities under pressure, whether from a powerful neighbor or a hegemonic ideology, translation becomes a political act. Shaped by the constraints of the moment, both translations and their paratexts are subject to forces that compromise quality or restrict freedom of expression, even as translators seek to bring home the quality and expressive freedom of their originals. In Translation as Resistance, the role translation has played and continues to play in reframing language and power in Czech and Ukrainian cultures is presented and interrogated by Czech and Ukrainian translators.
400 pages | 3 halftones, 4 tables | 5.67 x 8.07 | © 2026
Language and Linguistics: Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics
Literature and Literary Criticism: Slavic Languages
Reviews
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Ukrainian Bible Translation as an Act of Resistance and National Identity Making (Oksana Dzera)
2. Exterminated Renaissance and the Foundations of Ukrainian Translation Studies (Oryslava Bryska)
3. Hryhoriy Kochur: A Silenced Leader of the 20th-Century Ukrainian Literary Translation Movement (Halyna Pekhnyk)
4. Cultural Resistance through Translation in Post-Stalinist Soviet Ukraine (Valentyna Savchyn)
5. Redressive Translation: Avantgarde Translatorial Practices in Ukrainian Diaspora and Their Catalytic Force in the Newly Independent Ukraine (Iryna Odrekhivska)
6. Unveiling Ukraine’s Political and Cultural Metamorphosis through Theatre Translation (1991-2022) (Anna Halas)
7. Translation and War in Ukraine (Yuliia Naniak)
8. In Praise of Translation: Language as Defiance in the Czech National Revival and Czech Nineteenth-Century Culture (Šárka Tobrmanová)
9. Constraints versus Freedom: Translations into Czech in the First Half of the Twentieth Century – the War and the Interwar Periods (Šárka Tobrmanová)
10. Anglophone Literature in Czech Translation: The Stalinist Years and After (Zuzana Štastná)
11. Svetová literatura 1956–1971: Perfecting the art of the possible (Zuzana Štastná)
12. Texts That Lived Their Own Lives – Samizdat Translations in Former Czechoslovakia (Tomáš Svoboda – Tereza Musilová)
13. “O cursed spite!” Translating Hamlet as a Political Stand (Stanislav Rubáš)
Summary
Notes on Contributors
Index
1. Ukrainian Bible Translation as an Act of Resistance and National Identity Making (Oksana Dzera)
2. Exterminated Renaissance and the Foundations of Ukrainian Translation Studies (Oryslava Bryska)
3. Hryhoriy Kochur: A Silenced Leader of the 20th-Century Ukrainian Literary Translation Movement (Halyna Pekhnyk)
4. Cultural Resistance through Translation in Post-Stalinist Soviet Ukraine (Valentyna Savchyn)
5. Redressive Translation: Avantgarde Translatorial Practices in Ukrainian Diaspora and Their Catalytic Force in the Newly Independent Ukraine (Iryna Odrekhivska)
6. Unveiling Ukraine’s Political and Cultural Metamorphosis through Theatre Translation (1991-2022) (Anna Halas)
7. Translation and War in Ukraine (Yuliia Naniak)
8. In Praise of Translation: Language as Defiance in the Czech National Revival and Czech Nineteenth-Century Culture (Šárka Tobrmanová)
9. Constraints versus Freedom: Translations into Czech in the First Half of the Twentieth Century – the War and the Interwar Periods (Šárka Tobrmanová)
10. Anglophone Literature in Czech Translation: The Stalinist Years and After (Zuzana Štastná)
11. Svetová literatura 1956–1971: Perfecting the art of the possible (Zuzana Štastná)
12. Texts That Lived Their Own Lives – Samizdat Translations in Former Czechoslovakia (Tomáš Svoboda – Tereza Musilová)
13. “O cursed spite!” Translating Hamlet as a Political Stand (Stanislav Rubáš)
Summary
Notes on Contributors
Index