The Freelance International of Communist Literature: Translating for 'La Littérature Internationale' in Early Stalinism

• In Event: Periodicals Unbound I: Communities across Borders

Abstract

In this talk, I will discuss the peculiarities of the work of French and Soviet translators recruited for the French edition of a Soviet journal, "International Literature," the multilingual organ of the International Union of Revolutionary Writers and later the Union of Soviet Writers, published in Moscow from 1933 to 1945. With the aim of realizing the idea of world literature, the journal was based on the principle of translations so that readers in Europe, the United States, and South America could keep abreast of contemporary revolutionary and communist literature by a wide range of authors. Translation work was thus essential for a publication that was intended to be a principal intermediary of the communist literary international at a time when official Soviet propaganda was making Moscow the center of world culture. Translators were often relegated to the background in relation to the contributors of the journal, yet their work made the project possible. I will attempt to answer the following questions: Can we speak of social networks of translators? Did they contribute to or bypass censorship in the 1930s, and how? Why did their names rarely appear in the journal?

Author

• Evgeniia Belskaia, U Paris Cité (France)