LITERARY TRANSLATION, REWRITING, RECEPTION

Abstract

Ivo Andrić has a significant place in Hungarian literary thinking. His works have continually been subject of various studies, and there are references to his Nobel Prize-winning novel, The Bridge over the Drina in the titles of several feuilletons. His poetics has met the literary affinity of today’s middle generation, and consequently, we find the influence of Andrić’s textual world in the form of slogans and intertextual references. While registering the phenomena concerning reception, we must not lose sight of the fact that Ivo Andrić’s oeuvre does not exert its influence through reading the original Serbian texts, but through their translations. His works have been translated into Hungarian right from the very beginning of his career. His most important and large-scale works were translated by Zoltán Csuka, and so the establishment of Andrić’s Hungarian identity is also linked to him. The translations were rarely dealt with from the aspect of textual criticism. 

Csuka’s impressive oeuvre as a translator, politics and ideology diverted discussions from the translations. Apart from these, the study of translation strategies seemed secondary to the aim of   spreading and familiarizing with the values of other cultures. And so, the assessment of translations shows an ambiguous picture, and opinions vary on whether the translations are good or bad. It is interesting to mention the experience of the translators who translated the Bridge over the Drina into different languages, who were familiar with the Hungarian language. They considered Zoltán Csuka’s translation as a point of reference, because in their opinion it was as good as if Ivo Andrić himself had done it. In addition, the impact of the translation is also significant. It is a well-known assumption in Hungarian circles that the book became a Nobel Prize-winner thanks to the fact that the Hungarian translation by Zoltán Csuka caught the attention of a German publisher, launching the book into world-wide fame.

The study follows the view-points of André Lefevere’s theory, who defines translation – together with other forms of manipulation of an original text – as rewriting. His conclusion is that when trying to decide whether a literary translation is good or bad, one also has to consider the strategies of rewriting. The indicator of a translation’s success is not primarily faithfulness to the original, but the ability to fit in with the tradition of the target language and  the values of the host culture. Considering the huge impact of Andrić’s works on Hungarian literature, the rewritings of Zoltán Csuka can be regarded successful.