The Habsburg Monarchy's Many-Languaged Soul

In the years between 1848 and 1918, the Habsburg Empire was an intensely pluricultural space that brought together numerous “nationalities” under constantly changing – and contested – linguistic regimes. The multifaceted forms of translation and interpreting, marked by national struggles and extensive multilingualism, played a crucial role in constructing cultures within the Habsburg space. This book traces translation and interpreting practices in the Empire’s administration, courts and diplomatic service, and takes account of the “habitualized” translation carried out in everyday life. It then details the flows of translation among the Habsburg crownlands and between these and other European languages, with a special focus on Italian–German exchange. Applying a broad concept of “cultural translation” and working with sociological tools, the book addresses the mechanisms by which translation and interpreting constructs cultures, and delineates a model of the Habsburg Monarchy’s “pluricultural space of communication” that is also applicable to other multilingual settings.
Published with the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)

Sherry Simon, Concordia University, in Translation Studies, Vol. 9.3 (2015):
This is a ground-breaking study and a model of scholarship. Wolf’s exploration of translation in the Habsburg monarchy is remarkable not only for its pioneering incursions into unexplored territories, but also for the clarity of the concepts it invents and deploys. And I must add at the outset that the book’s success is enhanced in English by a first-class translation by Kate Sturge, which uses precise and theoretically savvy language throughout. [...] Wolf’s excellent work of scholarship opens the door to a host of new possible areas of study.
There is huge potential for the study of multilingual sites in the Habsburg lands, in particular the fabulously variegated cities, which produced a rich literature of borders and contact. Wolf’s own research has turned rather to further exploration of the area of translation and conflict, testing the limits of translation in new ways, questioning how one can speak of mediation or negotiation in situations of extreme violence. As with the Habsburg research, Wolf’s concern is to engage with activities of translation that have social impact but have not as yet been integrated into translation studies. This is important work and counts among the most stimulating contributions to the field today.