Abstract
Among the many world-famous literary works written for children and also rendered into innumerable languages world-wide are translations that, over the years, have received a canonical position in their target cultures. Their translators, however, are not always recognised and honoured by name and their work sometimes undergoes inexplicable rewritings. The Polish word that accompanies these reworkings or revisions is the extremely vague word opracowanie. It has a multitude of meanings and can be used in any number of circumstances, not always according to morally accepted standards.
The trend of revising, rewriting or even repackaging canonical translations, often without appropriate acknowledgement, and not producing what we would call retranslations of the original works, was especially evident in Poland in the 1990s. It is this issue, which attracts attention not only to the actual process of revising or editing a previously published translation, but also to the ethical aspect of the whole publishing venture. The two case studies discussed in the following article are Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol from 1843 and Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper (1882), with special emphasis on revised/rewritten versions of previously acknowledged translations into Polish.
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Notes
- 1.
All the English translations of quotations from Berman’s text are taken from Sharon Deane-Cox (2014).
- 2.
The plural form for opracowanie.
- 3.
Here I do not have in mind abridged versions, which is another subject that deserves a separate discussion.
- 4.
She is primarily known as a translator of American literature into Polish who worked for “Czytelnik” for many years.
- 5.
In the original, we obviously just have Camden Town (cf. Twain 2011: 19).
- 6.
It also points very clearly towards the visibility of the person responsible for this version of Dickens’s tale in Polish. For more on this subject, see my article from 2014: “A Christmas Carol and Its (In)visible Polish Translators” in Ewa Kujawska-Lis & Anna Krawczyk-Łaskarzewska (eds), Reflections on/of Dickens, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 195–206.
- 7.
We have to remember here that this was at the height of the Stalinist period, during which all publishing-houses were government-controlled and everything printed was subject to censorship. There was no such thing as freedom of speech and for both original works and translations to see the light of day they had to conform to the all-pervading ideology of promoting the proletariat in absolutely every sphere of life.
- 8.
It was founded in Warsaw in 1857 and was amazingly successful in promoting Polish and foreign literature not only through its publishing enterprise, but also thanks to its periodicals, bookshops in different Polish cities, and generally through promoting the written word. It was closed down by the Polish communist authorities in 1950. The sad remains of this highly successful business was their second-hand bookshop which unfortunately met the same fate in 1961.
- 9.
Danuta Nikiel-Wroczyńska.
- 10.
See, for example, Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper, London: Collins Classics (2011). The same can be said about a much earlier American publication from Airmont Publishing Company, Inc. (New York, 1964). The New American Library (New York & Toronto, 1964), however, dutifully included this subtitle.
- 11.
Researching the issue further, one can, however, find information concerning a second edition of the same work published by Beskidzka Oficyna Wydawnicza in the same year of 1999, in which the names of two other translators are given beside that of Jan Biliński. They are Katarzyna Bydlińska and Damian Bydliński (see: http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3ABydlin%CC%81ska%2C+Katarzyna.&qt=hot_author, accessed 11 July 2018).
- 12.
The first Polish version was published in 1901, but like with many works from that period, the translator’s name is not included anywhere in the publication.
- 13.
Jan Biliński was born in 1879 and died in 1939.
- 14.
Of interest here may be the fact that Tarnowski’s translation was the fourth Polish rendering to appear. The first was actually a highly developed adaptation, conforming to an amazing degree to the cultural and pedagogical norms of Poland at the turn of the century. On the cover we can read: Królewicz – żebrak. Opowiadanie historyczne według Twaina [Prince – Pauper. A Historical Tale According to Twain]. It came out in Warsaw in 1902 (to be re-issued in 1922 and 1924). As with the first Polish translator of Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the name of the translator/rewriter is not included anywhere in the publication. In 1908 a second rendering, with the slightly different title of Książę i biedak, appeared (translator anonymous), and then, in 1918, yet another translation entitled Królewicz i żebrak, where we learn the translator’s initials, i.e. L.P. This retranslation appeared once again in 1994.
- 15.
For example, on paratexts in the Polish translations of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, see Joanna Dybiec-Gajer’s article from 2011: “Parateksty w polskich przekładach powieści Marka Twaina The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – między pomijaniem a dopisywaniem”.
- 16.
See: http://www.worldcat.org/title/ksiaze-i-zebrak/oclc/233479975?referer=di&ht=edition. Accessed 11 July 2018. Also see my endnote no. 14.
- 17.
Pseudonym often used by Maria Feldmanowa (1874–1953), one of the better known Polish translators of Anglo-American and German literature of the first half of the twentieth century.
- 18.
In Polish: spolszczyła Maria Kreczowska.
- 19.
An interesting and somewhat humorous example of a footnote from this anonymous translator is the reference to the song quoted by Twain from “The English Rogue”, London 1665 (2011: 107): “W oryginale przytoczono w tym miejscu strofkę angielskiej piosenki złodziejskiej, nie nadającej się do przekładu i zaczerpniętej, jak podaje autor w przypisku, z dzieła “Włóczęga angielski” (“The English Rogue”, Londyn. 1665 (przyp. tłum.) (2002: 126). [“Here there was a verse taken from an English song sung by thieves that is unfit for translation and, as the author wrote in his footnote, taken from ‘The English Rogue’, London, 1665 – trans. A.K.]. The only translation or revised translation that I have come across where this song has been dutifully translated is Krzysztof Tropiło’s rendering from 1998 (107). Although not attempting any archaisation, he was amazingly source-text oriented in his adopted translation strategy.
- 20.
Cf. Itamar Even-Zohar (1997) “The Making of Culture Repertoire and the Role of Transfer”, Target 9: 2, 355–63.
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http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3ABydlin%CC%81ska%2C+Katarzyna.&qt=hot_author. Accessed 11 July 2018.
http://www.worldcat.org/title/ksiaze-i-zebrak/oclc/233479975?referer=di&ht=edition. Accessed 11 July 2018.
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Korzeniowska, A. (2020). On the Morally Dubious Custom of Rewriting Canonical Translations of Children’s Literature. In: Dybiec-Gajer, J., Oittinen, R., Kodura, M. (eds) Negotiating Translation and Transcreation of Children's Literature. New Frontiers in Translation Studies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2433-2_5
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