Champion of the humiliated and insulted or xenophobic satirist?
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Pieter Boulogne
Abstract
Although Dostoevsky’s name rarely triggers associations with humour among western readers, the writer entertained his Russian contemporaries by making fun of the German minorities. Folklore studies illustrate that the Russian collective consciousness perceived the German nation with mixed feelings. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the German character had become a trustworthy source of literary satire. Dostoevsky, often accused of ‘xenophobia’ as a political thinker, uses an original combination of literary techniques to systematically deride the Germans as a nation. A descriptive translation study, illustrated with examples from The Humiliated and Insulted, shows that this derision was largely and at least partly deliberately softened by his early German and Dutch translators. In so doing, they both supported and completed the systematic depiction of Dostoevsky as a tragic humanist, which dominated the critical dimension of his early European reception.
Abstract
Although Dostoevsky’s name rarely triggers associations with humour among western readers, the writer entertained his Russian contemporaries by making fun of the German minorities. Folklore studies illustrate that the Russian collective consciousness perceived the German nation with mixed feelings. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the German character had become a trustworthy source of literary satire. Dostoevsky, often accused of ‘xenophobia’ as a political thinker, uses an original combination of literary techniques to systematically deride the Germans as a nation. A descriptive translation study, illustrated with examples from The Humiliated and Insulted, shows that this derision was largely and at least partly deliberately softened by his early German and Dutch translators. In so doing, they both supported and completed the systematic depiction of Dostoevsky as a tragic humanist, which dominated the critical dimension of his early European reception.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- On translated images, stereotypes and disciplines 1
-
Translation and historical trajectories of images
- Translating identity 21
- The adventures of a Amsterdam Spaniard 37
- National images in transit 53
- The image of Spain in Flanders as shaped by the translations of Jozef Simons 69
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Translation and the construction of hetero-Images
- Englishness in German translations of Alice in Wonderland 87
- Champion of the humiliated and insulted or xenophobic satirist? 109
- Italians in films 127
-
Translation and the reconstruction of hetero-images
- Comparing national images in translations of popular fiction 145
- Bel Paese or Spaghetti noir ? 163
- How Algeria’s multilingual condition and colonial history is obscured 181
- Translation as blockage, propagation and recreation of ethnic images 201
-
Translation and auto-images
- The construction of national images through news translation 219
- Images of turmoil. Italy portrayed in Britain and re-mirrored in Italy 239
- Images of Italy? 257
- (Trans)forming national images in translation 277
- Nation in translation 299
-
Envoi
- Sundry remarks about a discipline in the making by an eye-witness 317
- Name index 325
- Subject index 329
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- On translated images, stereotypes and disciplines 1
-
Translation and historical trajectories of images
- Translating identity 21
- The adventures of a Amsterdam Spaniard 37
- National images in transit 53
- The image of Spain in Flanders as shaped by the translations of Jozef Simons 69
-
Translation and the construction of hetero-Images
- Englishness in German translations of Alice in Wonderland 87
- Champion of the humiliated and insulted or xenophobic satirist? 109
- Italians in films 127
-
Translation and the reconstruction of hetero-images
- Comparing national images in translations of popular fiction 145
- Bel Paese or Spaghetti noir ? 163
- How Algeria’s multilingual condition and colonial history is obscured 181
- Translation as blockage, propagation and recreation of ethnic images 201
-
Translation and auto-images
- The construction of national images through news translation 219
- Images of turmoil. Italy portrayed in Britain and re-mirrored in Italy 239
- Images of Italy? 257
- (Trans)forming national images in translation 277
- Nation in translation 299
-
Envoi
- Sundry remarks about a discipline in the making by an eye-witness 317
- Name index 325
- Subject index 329
