TRANSLATION AND MANIPULATION

The article investigates the Ukrainian-German literary translation of the 1950s from the viewpoint of the sociology of translation (P. Bourdieu, S. Bassnett, N. Bachleitner) and the theory of rewriting and manipulation by A. Lefevere. Therefore, the emphasis is placed on the factors affecting approaches to translation, particularly ideology, patronage, poetics. Translation as rewriting is analysed based on short stories from the anthology “Aus dem Buch des Lebens. Ukrainische und estnische Novellen”, published in the GDR in 1951. Rewriting strategies are classified into two groups: a) strategies used in paratexts (foreword, comments, explanatory notes, information about the author, history of the Ukrainian culture and literature); b) strategies used by a translator in the main text: 1) simplification, 2) neutralization of regional and national flavour, 3) substitution of the Ukrainian flavour with the Russian one (russification of the work). As a result of the analysis, it can be concluded that the most frequent translation transformation encountered in the text is replacement of realia words, dialecticisms and colloquialisms with neutral lexemes (often hyperonyms), which is defined as neutralization strategy. It correlates with the simplification strategy, based on the omission of sentences and paragraphs, which are not desirable for translation, particularly textual elements with religious themes and Ukrainian realia. Substitution of the Ukrainian national flavour with the Russian one is mostly represented with the rendering of onyms (anthroponyms and toponyms) according to the norms of Russian phonetics, which marked the Ukrainian literature as part of the Russian cultural space. This kind of rewriting had the effect of German-speaking readers forming a corresponding impression of the Ukrainian culture.