Natalia Paprocka

This article discusses sex education books for children and young adults published in Poland between 1945 and 2018. After defining the ideological profile of 111 examined publications as either conservative, moderately conservative, neutral, moderately liberal or liberal, the authors compare the whole set of translated books (translations) with the whole set of books by Polish authors (non-translations), taking into account the date of publication and the age of the intended reader. The analysis shows that translations differ from texts written originally in Polish, because they promote other values. Polish books, especially those published before 1989, are usually neutral or moderately conservative, while translations mostly propagate moderately liberal or liberal ideologies. There is also a close correlation between those ideological categories and the age of the reader: books for the youngest audience are ideologically charged to only a small degree, and the ideological content increases with the age of the reader. This seems to be related to the larger number of translations in the older age groups. Translations, which usually reflect a liberal ideology, fill a gap in Polish culture by complementing or replacing the conservative sex education available in Polish schools, and by encouraging Polish authors to write sex education books expressing similar views.

Trans. by Xavier Chantry

* Originally published in Polish in “Przekładaniec” vol. 40/2020. Open access for this publication has been supported by a grant from the Priority Research Area Heritage under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at Jagiellonian University.
See: https://doi.org/10.4467/16891864PC.20.009.13172.

Sex Education and Translations of Books for Children and Young People – Ideologies, Characteristics, Controversies

This article discusses sex education books for children and young people published in Poland in 1945–2018. After defining the ideological profile of 111 examined publications as conservative, moderately conservative, neutral, moderately liberal or liberal, the authors compare the whole set of books translated from other languages with the whole set of books by Polish authors, taking into account the date of publication and the age of the intended reader. The analysis shows that translations differ from texts written originally in Polish, because they promote other values. Polish books, especially those published before 1989, are usually neutral or moderately conservative, while translations mostly propagate moderately liberal or liberal ideologies. There is also a close correlation between those ideological categories and the age of the reader: books for the youngest audience are ideologically charged to the smallest degree, and the ideological content increases with the age of the reader. This seems to be related to the growing percentage of translations in the older age groups. Translations, which usually reflect the liberal ideology, fill a gap in Polish culture by complementing or replacing the conservative sexeducation available at school and by encouraging Polish authors to write sex education books expressing similar views.

Like in a Distorting Mirror. The Image of French Children’s Literature through Translation in Poland after 1918

“Translation is one of the core practices through which any cultural group constructs representations of another” (Baker 2014: 15). The shape of these images is influenced by the selection of translated source culture texts, and by the translation itself, i.e. the way it was achieved. In the case of literature, publishers are responsible for the selection of translated works, and translators for the choice of the solutions implemented in the text. This article focuses on the publishers’ choices and their impact on the image of the source literature given to the target culture readers. I analyzed from this point of view the history of translation of French children’s literature from 1918–2014. The study was carried out using a bibliometric approach. The period under consideration was divided into three shorter ones: the Second Republic (1918–1944), People’s Poland (1945–1989) and the Third Republic (from 1990). For each of them (a) we presented the situation of the publishing market and children’s literature at that time, (b) we defined the place of  ranslated French children’s literature against the background of the entire production available for this group of readers, (c) we presented the choices of the publishers of  Polish translations, paying special attention to “white spots” and deformations in the translation import.
The conclusions show the existing inadequacy between the actual shape and character of French children’s literature in the last century and the image which was given of this literature to its Polish audience due to the choices of the publishers of the translations.

The article is a detailed review of the book by Monika Woźniak, Katarzyna Biernacka- Licznar and Bogumiła Staniów Przekłady w systemie małych literatur. O włosko–polskich i polsko–włoskich tłumaczeniach dla dzieci i młodzieży [Translation within the System of Small Literatures. On Italian-Polish and Polish-Italian Translations for Children and Young Readers], which examines the import of literature for children and young readers from Italy to Poland and from Poland to Italy. The starting point for the research was the drawing up of bibliographies of Italian translations of Polish literature for children and young readers and of Polish translations of Italian literature for young people, published before 2012. The authors analysed the material according to the polysystem theory, thus they understood the translation as a transfer between two literary systems, took into consideration the wider socio-cultural context and invoked the terms of “center” and “periphery”. The authors presented a thematic network containing numerous concepts around which other research on importing and translating literature for children and young readers can be focalised. They compared the two directions of the translation exchange and pointed out their major asymmetry. By focusing their attention on the translation exchange between two peripheral literatures, the researchers have shown that those literatures deserve more attention. The book includes valuable bibliographies that can be used in further research.

The paper discusses Polish publishers referred to as “Lilliputians”, i.e. a group of small independent publishing houses set up after 2000 that publish artistically refined books of high literary quality for children and young adults.

Drawing on Itamar Even-Zohar’s theory of culture repertoire, we posit that in the 1990s, the cultural repertoire of Polish children’s literature was distinctly limited, while the development of the Lilliputian publishers at the onset of the third millennium was a reaction against that limitation. We believe that the role played by the Lilliputian publishers in Polish children’s literature is best captured by the notion of idea-makers, i.e. people who are a driving force of change in culture repertoire.

The aim of this descriptive exploratory paper is to identify and analyse Polish and foreign books released by those publishers and to define distinctive features of those publications with a special focus on literary imports from France and Italy. Our findings imply that the choices made by the Lilliputian publishers have modified the repertoire available to Polish readers of children’s literature at the turn of the millennia.