RUSS 38.21 Topics in the History of Translation and Censorship: Ukraine in Western European National Contexts
Translation in Ukraine has been inseparable from the formation of modern Ukrainian language and from the national identity of the Ukrainian people as a European nation. For this reason, translation has been a target of censorship and control, both in the Russian empire and later in the Soviet Union. In this course, we will use Ukraine as a case study to trace and discuss the relationship between translation and censorship over several centuries. We will begin with the appearance of Ivan Kotliarevsky’s travesty of the Aeneid in the late 18th century, continue on to the 19th-century national Romanticism and the tumultuous 20th century, with such landmark events as the Ukrainian War of Independence, the rise and collapse of the Soviet Union, and the foundation of Independent Ukraine in 1991. This long view is crucial to understanding the current moment. In the 30 years of Independence Ukrainian translation of the literary, religious, and media discourses has played key roles on the battlefield between reactionary colonial mentality and nation-building postcolonial revision of Ukrainian identity. As a former colony of the Tsarist Russian Empire and the Bolsheviks’ Soviet neo-empire, Ukraine remains of primary significance for Russia’s Eurasian project today, and translations appear to be a mighty weapon in the present-day information wars.
Instructor
Kolomiyets
Cross Listed Courses
COLT 19.03