Iurii Ganushchak
Przekładaniec, Numer 33 – (Post)kolonializm w przekładzie , 2016, pp. 127 - 139
https://doi.org/10.4467/16891864PC.16.026.7349Polish translator Wladyslaw Orkan was one of the greatest popularizers of Ukrainian literature in Poland at the turn of the 19th century. He translated and edited the selection of Ukrainian novellas Mloda Ukraina, published in 1908. Ukrainian motives also constituted a significant element of his own texts (Kostka Napierski 1925).
The paper discusses translations and metatexts (prefaces, introductions) by Władysław Orkan in the context of postcolonial criticism. Numerous texts describing Polish-Ukrainian relations have shown essential post-colonial legacy recognizable in Polish literature taking up topics related to Ukraine (see. esp. Skórczewski 2013, Bakuła 2014). The use of that theory in analysis of Orkan’s translations, therefore, seems justified.
Orkan’s strategies in translation were influenced his personality and the need to “defend” Ukrainian literature in Poland. In his original work, Orkan felt a bit lonely because he was one of the first Polish writers of peasant origin who wrote about rural life and presented values hitherto absent from Polish literature.
By raising Ukrainian literature to the status of national literature, Orkan proved that there was separate national Ukrainian culture. Accordingly, he may be said to have de-colonized Ukraine for the Polish reader.