The Translingual Trajectory of Elena Lacková’s Memoir of Eastern Slovak Romani Life

• In Event: Prešov as Peripheral Metropolis: Memory and Transcultural Identity

Abstract

Despite being one of Slovakia’s largest minority groups, the Roma remain underrepresented in Slovak literature, especially by Romani authors. Milena Hübschmannová, founder of Romani studies at Charles University, helped bring visibility to writers like Ilona (Elena) Lacková (1921-2003). Hübschmannová tape-recorded and transcribed Lacková’s reminiscences of her childhood in the Prešov region, and published them in Czech as Narodila jsem se pod šťastnou hvězdou [I Was Born Under a Lucky Star] (1997). To present an 'undistorted' image of Lacková’s experience, Hübschmannová translated her oral narrative from Romani into Czech rather than transcribing it in Slovak, explaining that Lacková’s Slovak was ‘too rich, too expressive,’ while her Romani was 'saturated with the reality of which she told.’ Though among the first Central European Romani texts translated into English, the work was not translated into Slovak until 2022, nearly two decades after Lacková’s death, despite her education, lifelong ties to Prešov, and early writing in Slovak. The delayed reception of this crucial Slovak Romani work reflects longstanding power dynamics between the Czech and Slovak languages, as well as both nations’ paternalistic attitudes toward their most marginalized minority.

Author

• Charles Sabatos, Yeditepe U (Turkey)