Pointing to manifold and long-lasting connections between feminism and translation, the article first presents a selection of multilingual writers (Narcyza Żmichowska and Deborah Vogel), translators (Zofi a Żeleńska and Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna) and translation commentators (Joanna Lisek and Karolina Szymaniak) to ask why the work of early Polish feminists is neglected. It seems that one of the causes might be the current colonization of Polish feminist discourse by English. For ethical reasons it would be advisable to recommend a certain sensitivity to locality in feminist translation studies and a recognition of regionalism in cultural studies. The theoretical considerations include two issues: the potential hermaphroditism of the Polish language when its users are women and the “scandal of ‘another’s speech’,” a polyphony and a constitutive lack of autonomy (a feminist discussion of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory). From this vantage point it becomes clear that linguistic choices made by the translator are always individual one-off solutions which resist homogenization, paradigms or (theoretical) generalizations.

Translatory achievements of medieval women are rarely discussed. In antiquity, Greek and Roman writings were practically all composed in either of the two languages. Greek dominated, since Latin women’s writing did not reach sophistication, or at least we do not possess proof of it. In the early Middle Ages the situation changed: Latin became dominant, and writing in the vernacular, which included women’s writing, started to be recognized. While scholarly research tended to focus on high-brow, original literature, female literary endeavours were largely disregarded. Translation, a low-brow activity, was not considered original. Comments about it are rather infrequent in early compendia of medieval literature. This absence may be partly explained by the fact that originality itself was not held in high regard in the Middle Ages. Only recently has the growing research into social and legal conditions of early women as well as into their varied cultural and literary expressions brought them a deserved recognition.

Translatory achievements of medieval women are rarely discussed. In antiquity, Greek and Roman writings were practically all composed in either of the two languages. Greek dominated, since Latin women’s writing did not reach sophistication, or at least we do not possess proof of it. In the early Middle Ages the situation changed: Latin became dominant, and writing in the vernacular, which included women’s writing, started to be recognized. While scholarly research tended to focus on high-brow, original literature, female literary endeavours were largely disregarded. Translation, a low-brow activity, was not considered original. Comments about it are rather infrequent in early compendia of medieval literature. This absence may be partly explained by the fact that originality itself was not held in high regard in the Middle Ages. Only recently has the growing research into social and legal conditions of early women as well as into their varied cultural and literary expressions brought them a deserved recognition.

The article is about the friendship and social activity of two important female representatives of the Polish emancipation movement at the turn of the 19th century: Aleksandra Bąkowska, aristocrat and owner of the Gołotczyzna estate as well as translator of early American anthropological works, and Paulina Kuczalska- Reinschmit, impoverished noblewoman, leader of the suffragist movement in the Polish Kingdom. Both women were inspired by the ideas of Lewis Henry Morgan, the researcher of the Iroquois culture and the author of, among others, Ancient Society (1877), in which he described and compared different systems of kinship in pre- and non-Christian cultures. Bąkowska translated this book into Polish in 1887, which triggered a discussion among early Polish sociologists, anthropologists and cultural philosophers, most importantly about the issue of the historicity of the institution of monogamian marriage and patriarchal family. Bąkowska turned a part of the Gołotczyzna estate into a school for country girls founded on the principles resembling the communist community of rights and obligations as described by L.H. Morgan based on the observation of Indian tribes. Kuczalska-Reinschmit, on the other hand, established the Polish Women Emancipation Association in Warsaw, whose seat – with a reading room, a lending library, a lecture hall – was also organized as a community, mainly for women. Both initiatives led to the dissemination of emancipation ideas in the Polish Kingdom before WWI and contributed to the principle of equality of rights for men and women inscribed in the new Polish constitution of 1918.

Jeremiah Curtin translated most works by Poland’s first literary Nobel Prize winner, Henryk Sienkiewicz. He was helped in this life-long task by his wife Alma Cardell Curtin. It was Alma who, after her husband’s death, produced the lengthy Memoirs she steadfastly ascribed to her husband for his, rather than hers, greater glory. This paper investigates the possible textual influences Alma might have had on other works by her husband, including his travelogues, ethnographic and mythological studies, and the translations themselves. Lacking traditional authorial evidence, this study relies on stylometric methods comparing most frequent word usage by means of cluster analysis of z-scores. There is much in this statistics-based authorial attribution to show how Alma Cardell Curtin affected at least two other original works of her husband and, possibly, at least two of his translations as well..

Maria Konopnicka’s translation of Ada Negri’s two early poetry volumes, Fatalità and Tempeste, was published in Warsaw in 1901. The article examines Konopnicka’s translation in its historical and comparative context and presents her principal translation strategies. Since her début in 1890s, Negri’s originals and Konopnicka’s writings have been considered similar because of their social engag ement and sensibility. Konopnicka’s decision to translate Fatalità and Tempeste is usually seen as a result of her social interests. On the basis of Konopnicka’s and Negri’s letters and metaliterary enunciations, it can be assumed that Negri’s vision of creative act as a sudden and unstoppable inspiration of the inner spirit was also highly appreciated by the Polish poet. In her translation Konopnicka tends to naturalize the Italian originals on all the levels of expression, deploying her own favourite rhythmic patterns and figures of speech.

The article examines Polish translations of the Derridian term différance. Polish philosophical discourse uses the following renditions of différance: róż(ni(c) oś)ć by Bogdan Banasiak, różNICa by Tadeusz Sławek, gra-na-zwłokę-o-różnicę by Stanisław Cichowicz and the most popular: różnia by Joanna Skoczylas. Should a mistake be deliberately committed in Polish, as it was done in the original? Or should it be corrected, and if so – how to explain the correction? The suggestion to translate the controversial concept by means of a Polish neologism, the neographism rórznica, may be productive and such a solution may be open to a number of interpretations. Thanks to its ambivalence, rórznica introduces a majority of Derridian motifs and may generate new ideas and concepts. Moreover, it allows a successful critique of logocentrism and phonocentrism of Western philosophy as well as a subversion of binary oppositions, a fixed and solid subject and desire for self-presence. Finally, the misspelled difference may be viewed as an example of grammatical alterity.

The essay outlines a “critical genealogy” of the notion of resemblance which structures the hierarchical relationship between the impeccable Original (Man, the source text) and its ultimately imperfect, failed copy (woman, translation). I examine the analogy between translation and the female that has prevailed in modern scholarship, and reveal its other, subversive side. The displacement of meanings in this repetitive analogy clarifies the relationship between the source and the target text in the light of the Butlerian notion of “critical mimesis”: a subversive play of meanings that takes place in the performative continuum of cultural translation.

Despite the growing interest in women’s writing, women translators and their achievements are rarely discussed. The article focuses on mechanisms behind the exclusion of women’s writing from literary history. It examines the social status of three women translators and demonstrates how their social position contributed to their invisibility. Dora Gabe, Slava Shtiplieva and Anastasia Gancheva were co-workers at The Polish-Bulgarian Review. Each developed a different strategy to cope with the unfavourable intellectual climate of interwar Bulgaria. Their biographies show an interdependence between the marital and social status of a woman writer and the esteem of her literary output. They also confi rm the claim that translating was thought to be a more appropriate artistic occupation for women because of its lower status than that of writing

In 1928, two translations of Dostoevsky’s The Devils were published: one by Tadeusz Zagórski, another by an unknown woman signed as J.B. This article analyses both translations to understand why Zagórski’s version has become canonical. It seems that the main reasons for the privileged status of Zagórski’s translation are, on the one hand, its publisher’s strong position, and on the other – the visual aspect of the J.B. version. The J.B. edition was illustrated: the drawings depict the female characters of the novel. The illustrated plates present also excerpts selected from the novel, which are frequently amorous in tone. Most probably because of its distinctly feminine look, the J.B. translation of The Devils was superseded by Zagórski’s version.

The article outlines the challenges for literatures created in ”small” languages. The only chance for such cultures to emerge from literary obscurity is to be translated into a ”big” language, a lingua franca of an international influence. This phenomenon is well illustrated by the spectacular Bibliography of Books by Female Authors in Yugoslavia, published by the Federation of Women with University Education in 1936 in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The book, a unique and remarkable feminist project of interwar Yugoslavia, was conceived to defy the Slavica non leguntur statement (the Slavic languages are not read [world-wide]). It features the intellectual achievement of women from South-Eastern Europe. This first discussion of Bibliography, which was composed in four languages: Serbian, Slovene, Croatian and French, presents its structure, aims and premises in a wider feminist context of interwar Yugoslavia.
 

The Bible, considered by many a normative and patriarchal text, poses a serious challenge to feminism. Feminist theology offers alternative interpretation and aims to restore female dignity and social prestige to the biblical text through its translation. This article presents selected examples of the feminist interpretation of the Bible. It also analyses English and German translations to comment on inclusive language as the principle of feminist translation, now part of the mainstream biblical studies. Moreover, non-feminist inclusive translations into English and Polish are discussed.

The Lord’s Prayer played an important role in the formation of early Anglo-Saxon Church. The signifi cance of Oratio Dominica was raised in ecclesiastical epistles and refl ected in state charts and laws issued at the time. Poetical paraphrases of the prayer formed part of contemporary religious literature. Their authors continued the long-standing Cædmonian tradition and used the ancient Germanic poetic diction to express Christian values. Translation of these poems requires close reading of the manuscript or its facsimile and working with reliable editions. Scholarly commentary and editorial guidance help to analyse the poems’ thought and grammar. Therefore, the selection of a dependable critical edition is the prerequisite to the esthetically satisfying and adequate translation of these extraordinary Anglo-Latin poetical masterpieces

In the period under consideration 265 Polish titles (poetry, drama, prose fiction, reportage and memoirs) were published in English. Their publishers were mostly academic presses and small independent publishers, often subsidised by the EU or the Polish Book Institute. The analysis of the titles leads to several conclusions. First, the image of Polish literature construed on the basis of the available translations did not reflect the situation on the Polish book market. The percentage of translated poetry volumes and memoirs devoted to the Holocaust and the Second World War was much higher than the percentage of such titles published in Poland. Second, the beginning of the decade concentrated on classics and memoirs, whereas towards the end of the period more and more contemporary prose titles were being published. Third, the increased interest in Polish prose among the British publishers was not reflected among their American counterparts. The article is accompanied by a bibliography of English translations of Polish literature published in the years 1999–2009.