VIMR Ondrej, «When the Iron Curtain Falls: Scandinavian-Czech Translation
1890-1950», RiLUnE, n. 4, 2006, p. 51-62.
Ondrej Vimr
When the Iron Curtain
Falls: Scandinavian-Czech Translation
1890-1950
N THE CONTEXT OF TRANSLATION of Scandinavian literature into
Czech, Hugo Kosterka (1867-1956) appears to be a translator of
special interest for more than one reason. Firstly, he was one of the
first translators who worked from the original languages directly and
not via German as most other 19th century translators. Secondly, he
translated from all three Scandinavian languages and introduced many
major contemporary Scandinavian authors to Czech readers. Last, but
not least, his activity as a translator covers a period of almost 60 years
(1890-1949), and thus the study of his activities may provide the basic
idea of a «minor-language» literature and culture mediation in the
disturbing decades during which the Bohemian Lands would re-emerge
as a part of several different political units with various international
links. In fact, he appears to be an emblematic as well as unique
translator and culture mediator of the constitutional period of
Scandinavian-Czech translation.
In this paper I shall focus first on the archaeology of translation, on
mapping the basic detailed facts. Only then will I proceed to relating
them to a wider literary, social, as well as political context of the time.
The concept of the history of translation I endorse here, is not that of
studying the history of thinking about translation, as performed by Jiří
Levý, among others (Levý 1956), but that of taking into account the
human translator, as promoted by Anthony Pym (Pym 1998: p. 160-
177). The main subject of our interest is not the idea of translation, nor
the make-up of the translation, but the fact of translation, and its
I
Ondrej Vimr
52
publication or not, under specific historical circumstances, as well as the
role of the translator as an intercultural mediator and a member of an
interculture (Ibid.: p. 178-192). Discussing system and action theories,
Pym complains that «[…] recent theories have had precious little room
for people» (Pym 1998: p. 149). This paper is devoted to a particular
human translator. We shall see, however, that an interplay of
translation, literary, publishing and political «systems» appears to be
ubiquitous in the situation analysed.
Studying his translations from the Scandinavian languages, we need
to keep in mind that Kosterka was a polyglot translating from a number
of European languages including Portuguese, Spanish, French, English
and Serbo-Croatian. He was the first Czech translator of Oscar Wilde1
,
and he translated Cervantes’ Don Quixote. However, Kosterka was not a
professional translator, he was a post-office bureaucrat often travelling
to various European countries. As such he brought European literature
to Czech readership not only metaphorically, via his translations, but
also literally: by train.
Kosterka’s translating activity from Scandinavian languages was
immense. Over a period of 59 years he published over 110 translations
from Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, about thirty of which were
republished. Moreover, he collaborated with a number of literary
magazines, publishing a large number of short stories and novel
extracts, as well as poetry translations. On top of that, Kosterka was
closely connected to Czech literary and cultural life as I shall show later.
Kosterka published his first translation in 1890, when direct
translation from Scandinavian languages to Czech was not an everyday
practice. The Bohemian lands were part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, Prague being a somewhat small provincial town in comparison
to Vienna and Budapest. German was commonly spoken and written
side by side with Czech, resulting in (1) a reduced need of translation
into Czech and (2) numerous second-hand translations using German as
the most common and natural mediating language. The tendency
initiated already in the first half of the 19th century with the beginning
of the National Revival, however, was to stress the importance of
Czech, and by 1890 Czech had gained a strong and indisputable
position. Yet, the influence of German, German culture and German
reception of international culture on Czech intellectuals remained
1 His translation was published in a special issue of the Moderní revue literary journal
dedicated to Oscar Wilde in June 1895, i.e. in an immediate reaction to Wilde being
accused and convicted of homosexuality. At the time, it was a radical contribution
from both a national and a European/international perspective.
When the Iron Curtain Falls: Scandinavian-Czech Translation 1890-1950
53
strong, until the infamous forced transfer of the German population in
the post Second World War period.
In the beginning of the 1890s, Kosterka published his first
translations in various student magazines, where he introduced writers
such as Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Edvard Brandes, Arne Garborg and
others. His true reason for translating from the Scandinavian languages
will always remain unclear. The fact is that with authors such as
Bjørnson, Ibsen and, later, Strindberg, Garborg or Ola Hansson,
Scandinavian literature was a must for every Central European
intellectual of the time. German translations were available and read in
Bohemia too. Kosterka’s selection was based not on his personal
knowledge of the Scandinavian literary context, but on his reading of
the German translations and thus on the German reception. On
translating Arne Garborg’s famous novel Trette Mænd (1891,
Weary/Tired Men), Kosterka inevitably translated the title from the
German Müde Seelen (Weary/Tired Souls, Zemdlené duše).
The 1890s saw an abrupt development in the mediation of young
international literature. Side by side with more established literary
journals, a number of new progressive journals cropped up. Arnošt
Procházka, Jiří Karásek and Hugo Kosterka founded a most vigorous
and distinctive literary journal titled Moderní revue (1894-1925),
focusing on the decadent, and later symbolist, literary movements
across Europe, most notably in France. From the very beginning,
Moderní revue was an art-for-art’s-sake project. The individuality of the
artist and the aesthetic quality of the artwork were highly esteemed,
regardless of any social and other foreseeable impact. The high
authenticity of the artist and of his work equalled high literary quality.
The necessity of unlimited artistic freedom, meant inter alia that
nothing was a priori taboo. The other way round, a work that was taboo
for the majority, gave the impression of a true art-for-art’s-sake.
Therefore it was rather natural that a special issue of Moderní revue was
dedicated to Oscar Wilde (see note 1).
Suddenly, Moderní revue became the platform for a large number of
small publishing houses promoting the new Czech and international
literature. Kosterka’s relationship to Moderní revue was, however, a
loose and non-dogmatic one. He offered translations both to the small
publishers and to the larger ones. As for the choice of writers to
translate, he was rather pragmatic. For instance the most shocking
Norwegian decadent writers, Hans Jæger and Christian Krohg,
remained untranslated, even though they would have matched the
profile of Moderní revue in 1890s. Besides Bjørnson and Kielland,
already «classics» of the time, he translated Hamsun, Strindberg,
Ondrej Vimr
54
Lagerlöf and Kierkegaard. Kosterka’s pre-war portfolio was not void of
purely commercial books either, such as the then very popular novels by
Emilie Flygare-Carlén.
The editorial board of Moderní revue had an intercultural nature,
also due to the fact that Kosterka received many visits from
Scandinavian writers:
In 1897 and 1898 he visited Denmark and Sweden and made contacts with
the translated writers. Since then, every Nordic author travelling through
Prague would not neglect to pay a visit to Kosterka and, thus, also to the
Moderní revue. So there would be plenty of new yet pleasant duties linked
to our task as a host and a Cicero. A number of writers would come here,
including Georg Brandes, Sophus Michaëlis, Aage Mathisson-Hansen and
Sigbjørn Obstfelder! (Karásek 1994: p. 202)2
The Great War hit severely not only people’s lives and thinking, but
also, naturally, the activity of publishing houses. Most of them operated
on a subscription basis, and the subscribers having gone to the front in
1914, many publishing houses, small or large, discontinued their
activities. Many of them got into serious financial trouble, and never
recovered completely from the losses, and finally went bankrupt. At the
same time, the Great War led to the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire and the establishment of Czechoslovakia, Prague becoming its
self-confident political and cultural centre.
Moderní revue could not avoid being affected by the Great War, but
it survived and closed down only when the chief editor Arnošt
Procházka died in 1925. However, the Great War amplified a
paradoxical tendency that had already appeared shortly after the turn
of the century: a collectivistic tendency. In his article on Moderní revue,
Otto M. Urban argues:
It is striking to what extent a number of the modernists – even though
they resisted being ordinary and mass-oriented – under the existing
circumstances, especially the Great War, intentionally or unintentionally
inclined to various modalities of collectivism in their civil and political
standpoints. One particular and rather large group of them would flee
from the bourgeois collectivism, and seek refuge in proletarian collectivism
ascribing to it utterly idealised features of a system that would free the
individual. (Urban 1995: p. 36)
Most of Kosterka’s contributions to Moderní revue and the
respective publishers are from the pre-war period and his choice of texts
is undoubtedly void of any current target-culture ideology.
2 All translations of quotations from Scandinavian languages and Czech are mine.
When the Iron Curtain Falls: Scandinavian-Czech Translation 1890-1950
55
Meanwhile, Kosterka had his first major competitors in the field,
who however represented no real threat (in the sense of competition) or
him; for instance, Hanuš Hackenschmied, another important translator
from Scandinavian languages of the time, was a direct disciple of his.
Among translators from these languages, Kosterka had a prominent
position for a considerable time. He was known to have a large number
of connections making it possible for him to have published projects
that other translators would hardly manage to get through to a
publisher. For instance, Robert Hansen writes to Kosterka on May 6,
1924:
Mrs. Lesná-Krausová [another major Scandinavian-Czech translator] […]
has given me your address […]. The thing is that Mrs. Krausová has not
been able to sign a contract with any publisher she works with to get my
novels published. She thought however, that what she has not succeeded
with, might be possible for someone else who has better connections in the
purely entertaining literary field – and she gave me your address3
.
However, no novels by Robert Hansen were ever published in
Czech. Kosterka could no longer reckon that he could translate any
novel/author he would choose to. For instance, he was interested in
translating Sigrid Undset, but the letter she wrote to him on December
12, 1925 says clearly he was late: «[...] I regret to say that I have
commenced negotiations with another translator of my works into
Czech.»
The interwar period saw significant changes in publishing and
translation practices. With the leading shift being professionalisation of
publishing, the rather small amateur publishing houses, run by
enthusiasts and based on the subscription system, would gradually
disappear. For the most part, only the larger publishing houses
survived. The newly established ones were more professional from the
start and demanded higher discipline from their translators. The shift is
quite evident in the ever more carefully formulated contracts that were
now stipulated between translators and publishers. In the 1890s, the
hand-written contracts between Kosterka and the publisher would
consist of a couple of sentences on a sheet of paper stating the basics
facts and requirements. In the 1920s and 1930s, the pre-printed, severalpages-long
contracts included details concerning the use of language and
the make-up of the text. A contract between Kosterka and the
3 All quotations from letters and contracts can be found in The Museum of Czech
Literature, Literary Archive, Hugo Kosterka fund, received correspondence.
Translations are mine.
Ondrej Vimr
56
Družstevní práce (DP) publishing house dated after 1930 defines the
obligatory use of normative philology:
The manuscript shall be handed in to the editor of DP without any
philological mistakes and shall require no further corrections. If in doubt,
the author-translator will check the latest edition of Pravidla českého
pravopisu [Czech Orthography Rules] published by Státní nakladatelství,
and Naše řeč [Our Language] journal. In the case of necessary corrections,
these shall be made by a language expert at the author-translator’s
expense.
In one respect however, the situation had not changed
substantially. The authority of the German translations and German
reception of the Scandinavian literature remained high. Foreign
literature would come to the Bohemian Lands via Germany until the
Second World War. Czech readers would first learn about a particular
book from its German translation and only then, in some cases, from the
Czech translation, be it a first or second-hand translation. Although
second hand translations were very rare in the inter-war period, the
prior knowledge of the German text made it necessary to translate and
publish books bearing the expectation of the target-language reader in
mind. This publishing practice, embracing not just book titles but also
the organization of the text is, in Kosterka’s case, documented as late as
in 1927. In the translation assignment of August Strindberg’s Kniha
lásky (A Book of Love) from July 13, 1927, the publisher Alois Srdce
writes: «[...] please finish the translation by September 1, this year. The
translation must not exceed the extent of the German translation of A
Book of Love. You may change the chapters to the benefit of the Czech
readership». In a letter from October 11, the publisher gives further
instructions: «The organization of the book must follow exactly the
German edition of Das Buch der Liebe published by G. Müller,
München». The German edition, and later also the Czech one, was a
selection from Strindberg’s En blå bok. In fact it was not a translation of
the Swedish text that the publisher expected, but a translation of the
German one.
Another significant change involved the selection procedure. No
longer was it the translator who chose the books for translation. It was
the publisher and his specialised editors. This is evident from the
aforementioned assignment by Alois Srdce and even more so from the
example of the Czech translation of Olav Duun’s monumental six
volume novel Juvikfolket. Josef Knap, an editor of the well established
Topičovo nakladatelství publishing house, wrote to Hugo Kosterka on
June 26, 1932:
When the Iron Curtain Falls: Scandinavian-Czech Translation 1890-1950
57
Mr. Topič has written to you that he has decided to publish Duun’s The
People of Juvik and he asked you to do the translation, but he has not
received your answer yet. We would be very pleased if you could manage
this. It would be a rather tedious and exhausting job as it would be
published part by part in rapid succession, but this should not be a
problem for you, as you are so industrious. Moreover, you would not need
to translate in detail and the translation could progress swiftly, as Dr.
Walter agreed to review and prepare it for print. And you do not need to
bother to proof read the Uppdal novel, as he promised to do it; you do not
need to worry about mistakes in print (especially in proper names or
foreign words and phrases).
Besides the fact that the idea of a translation comes from the
publisher, and not from the translator, we learn two other things. The
translator had little time for his job (the contracts show that he had
about two months for each of the 250 page volumes of the novel). The
translator was expected to make just a «rough» translation,
subsequently fine-tuned by the editor. Knap writes about the novel
Stigeren by Kristoffer Uppdal (published in Czech in 1932) and about
proofreading by the Czech Nordic scholar Emil Walter. Further
correspondence gives evidence that a similar practice was widely used
for urgent commissions. Publisher Ladislav Kuncíř sends a letter to
Kosterka on February 23, 1933, enclosing an original copy of Sigrid
Undset’s novel Jenny and writes: «[...] you shall hand in the complete
translation on April 15, 1933 at the latest […]. We shall proof read it on
our own, not to hinder you in translating.» Kosterka had less than 2
months for the translation.
Let us look at the writer Josef Knap (1900-1973), who worked as an
editor in chief of the Topičovo nakladatelství publishing house from the
1930s, and who played a major role in promoting Scandinavian
literature in the then Czechoslovakia. He was a member of the Czech
ruralist movement – in its early apolitical flavour – and he regarded the
inclination to the North as a necessary «corrective» (Knap 1916: p. 15;
see also Putna 2004, Kalista 1997). The deflection from the West, from
the inorganically imported Romance avant-garde experiments, was also
a deflection from Prague, «the formal one with its clubs and cafés»
(Knap 1926: p. 17). The nations of the North and East, «which are not
granted much sunshine, and therefore glitter, grace, ardour, fever»
(Ibid.: p. 15) were – according to Knap – more familiar to us. In
cooperation with Milada Topičová, wife of the publisher Jaroslav Topič,
who – as stated by Knap – had a major impact on the profile of the
publishing house and on the launch of a special contemporary foreign
literature series (Knap 1997: p. 238), Knap introduced a number of
Ondrej Vimr
58
Scandinavian authors, some of whom were translated by Hugo
Kosterka.
Knap and Topičová focused exclusively on authors whom they
thought represented a traditional realistic writing in modern times, such
as Sigrid Undset, Olav Duun and Johan Falkberget. Topičovo
nakladatelství being the main publisher of Scandinavian literature in
Czech, the modernist authors and their works were translated very
rarely, predetermining a stereotypical perception of Scandinavian
literature as traditional and realistic.
Gradually, the normative requirements the translator had to satisfy
grew. The draft of a contract between publisher Josef R. Vilímek and
Kosterka from March 1937 concerning the translation of the book of
travels Från Pol till Pol (From Pole to Pole) by the famous Swedish
traveller Sven Hedin, gives evidence that the requirements involved not
only normative grammar, but also the style of the language employed.
Moreover, potential sanctions are included now:
[...] the manuscript shall follow the language rules as given in Pravidla
českého pravopisu published by Státní nakladatelství and the latest issue of
the Naše řeč journal. Similarly, the work will be correctly expressed in the
style of the language. The manuscript will be legible, all final corrections
applied. The text having been given to the typesetters, all further changes
of the original formulation will be, in accordance with the statement and
bills from the printer, subtracted from the royalty on payment […]
The translation of Hedin’s book is remarkable for another reason as
well. It shows the way apolitical translators, whom Kosterka
undoubtedly appears to have been, would become embroiled in ever
more serious political issues with ever wider impact. We read in a letter
from J. R. Vilímek’s publishing house, written on October 22, 1937:
«Due to the recent strife between the Third Reich and Sven Hedin, we
have decided to publish his book of travels immediately after the New
Year […]». The publisher tries to speed up the publishing, the reason
being a sudden disagreement between the Third Reich and Sven Hedin.
It appears to be a sort of political protest acceleration. A protest which
the translator inevitably becomes part of. In the end, the work was
never published in Czech.
The Second World War halted most publishing activities.
Immediately after the war, Kosterka, now almost 80 years old, came up
with new translations. Publishers offered him more or less specific
commissions. Kosterka, for instance, offered some novels to the Tisk
publishing house and received a positive answer (February 18, 1946):
When the Iron Curtain Falls: Scandinavian-Czech Translation 1890-1950
59
We are interested in the Nordic novels you are writing about, and if these
are valuable works, that are interesting and remarkable from today’s point
of view, the size is insignificant. However, we regard social novels without
any interest in what is happening in society as too luxurious for the time
being. Quality youth literature, travel books and other valuable literary
works are welcome.
As early as April 9, 1946, the publisher agreed to publish two of
Kosterka’s translations. It was due to the 1948 Communist putsch, as we
shall see later, that none of these were published.
Once again, the collaboration between Knap and Kosterka proved
fruitful. Before the war, Knap was «a kind of “official” culture
representative in the Agrarian Party and as such, he automatically,
without any effort, became one of the key representatives of the Culture
Front» (Kalista 1997: p. 278). The right-wing Agrarian Party and its
Culture Front were gradually perceived (though unjustly) as a
movement with an affinity to the Nazi Blut und Boden and thus as a
threat to freedom, as understood by the upcoming regime. After the
1946 election, which the Agrarian Party was excluded from, and the
victory of the Communist Party, Knap left Prague4
(Ibid.: p. 278-285).
One of his employers was the Brno publisher Moravská kola to whom he
recommended Kosterka as a translator from Scandinavian languages.
They worked together on the Czech edition of Hjalmar Söderberg’s Den
allvarsamma leken (Czech edition 1948). It is striking that in comparison
to the pre-war 6 months, it took two years now to prepare and publish a
translation. Editors’ undiscussed corrections are an ongoing practice at
this point: an unsigned letter dated April 19, 1946 reads: «Regarding the
language and style we shall have the manuscript reviewed, which we
hope you kindly agree with […]», while a letter dated May 3, 1946
(signed Václav Renč) reads: «I have reviewed the manuscript as to the
use and style of language, and I am glad you approved – in advance –
the changes I made on behalf of the cause.» It is important however to
bear in mind that Kosterka was almost 80 years old at that time, and
that the language of his translations was somewhat outdated. On the
other hand, this was not the reason to discontinue the publication of his
translations.
On September 24, 1948, Gustav Pallas, a famous Czech Nordic
scholar, wrote to Kosterka:
4 At a political trial in 1951, Knap was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment. For
health reasons, he was released from prison in 1955. He was rehabilitated in 1967.
Ondrej Vimr
60
[...] yesterday I discussed further steps in publishing the complete works
by Sigrid Undset with the director of Vyšehrad publishing house, Dr.
Fučík. I told him you intended to translate some of her older works, such
as Fru M. Oulie, Fru Waage, and some stories. Dr. Fučík asked me to
convey that he cannot guarantee he will publish these works in Czech
translation. If yes, then only much later, taking into account the existing
tension between a number of Scandinavian writers and us. I ask you,
therefore, not to commence the work, and if you have already begun,
please do not continue. The next volume will be the children’s series
Lykkelige dager, then perhaps Vige-Ljot og Vigdis and maybe Vidmund
Vidutan. My daughter would translate these, but it is not certain at all,
whether this will happen5
.
The letter from the Mladá fronta publishing house dated August 9,
1949 conveys a clear message:
Dear Sir, we regret to say that we cannot publish your translation of Ellen
Duurloo’s novel Man kaller det kærlighet. Shortage of paper, and ever
higher quality requirements for our publishing scheme, compel us to
choose works which not only meet certain artistic quality criteria, but
which at the same time furnish the young with a positive attitude to work
and the situation of today.
In both cases, the political reasons underlying their refusal are more
than obvious. The tension between the Scandinavian authors and
Czechs mentioned by Pallas concerned the February 1948 Communist
putsch. Both in the Nordic countries and in Czechoslovakia, the leftwing
parties had an evident majority. In the North, however, it was the
Social Democrats that made it impossible for the Communist Party to
come to power. And the Nordic writers openly supported the strict
Scandinavian attitude. In Czechoslovakia, the Social Democrats helped
the onset of totalitarian Communism, denied vehemently by the
Norwegians immediately after the first Moscow Trial. The strict Nordic
attitude and their criticism of the regime installed in Czechoslovakia
stopped the translation and publication of Scandinavian literature in
Czech. For the reasons above, the last of Kosterka’s translations was
published in 1949, not because he had ceased translating. The obituary
published in the Literární noviny newspaper on June 9, 1956 reads: «[...]
Kosterka was active almost until the very last moment. His
unpublished works include five novels ready for publishing.» Ironically,
one of these unpublished translations from this period is a novel by
Jonas Lie written in 1901 (a novel without any political overtones)
called Naar jærnteppet falder, When the Iron Curtain Falls.
5 None of these works were published.
When the Iron Curtain Falls: Scandinavian-Czech Translation 1890-1950
61
Summing up this study, it is possible to formulate some hypotheses
concerning the history of Scandinavian-Czech translation. These will be
based on this case study focusing on a single translator who appears to
permit a synecdochic view of the historical period and language area
concerned, and therefore one must bear in mind that they have limited
validity.
The basic shift in the period 1890-1950 involves professionalisation,
normativisation and politicisation of translation, regarding both
language and style, choice of text, mediation and publication channels.
In the 1890s, Scandinavian literature was mediated through a sort of
organic system, an interculture whose members were numerous, both
indigenous and international men of letters, publishers and translators.
This, to a certain extent, amateur system, based on idealism and
personal enthusiasm was, in accordance with the social changes speeded
up by the Great War, being professionalized in the interwar era. The
roles of the participants became even more precisely defined, the
translator lost the possibility to affect the choice of text and the final
make-up of his or her translation. Now conducted by the publishers and
their specialized editors, the choice was biased in favour of distinct
political and/or ideological criteria. On the eve of the Second World
War, the translator became embroiled in ever more serious political
issues. Publishing activities being substantially suppressed during
WWII, a renewed and vivid translating and publishing activity is
witnessed from 1945. The establishment of the totalitarian Communist
regime in 1948, however, put an end to these activities. It brought a
consolidation of political and ideological reasons of the choice of both
individual works and geographical/political areas from which one was
allowed to translate. The translator became part of a system on which
he could hardly have any bearing.
Vimr, Ondrej (Charles University, Prague)6
6 Ondrej Vimr is a student of Translation Studies at Charles University (Prague) and
translator of drama and fiction from Scandinavian languages and English into Czech
(among translated authors appear S. Hoel, J. Fosse, D. Solstad, T. Stoppard, O.
Wilde).
Ondrej Vimr
62
Bibliography:
KALISTA, Z., «Josef Knap», in J. Knap, Bez poslední kapitoly [Without
the Last Chapter], Praha: Torst, 1997, p. 245-302.
KARÁSEK, J., Vzpomínky [Memoirs], Praha: Thysrus, 1994.
KNAP, J., «K severovýchodu» [To the North-East], in Cesty a vůdcové,
edice Sever a východ II [Journeys and Leaders, North and East II],
Turnov: Müller a spol, 1926.
LEVÝ, J., České teorie překladu (1957) [Czech Theories of Translation],
Praha: Ivo Železný, 1996.
PUTNA, M. C., «Směřování českého ruralismu» [The Directions of Czech
Ruralism], in Cesty. Pojem – Metafora – Žánr. Studie z komparatistiky
IV [Journeys. Notion – Metaphor – Genre. Studies in Comparative
Literature IV], Praha: Centrum komparatistiky, Univerzita Karlova
v Praze, Filozofická fakulta, 2004, p. 127-136.
PYM, A., Method in Translation History, Manchester: St. Jerome
Publishing, 1998.
URBAN, O.M., «Modernizace a moderna na konci století» [Modernisation
and Modernism in the fin de siècle], in O.M. Urban and L. Merhaut
(eds.), Moderní revue 1894-1925, Praha: Torst, 1995.