Censorship in Translation in the Soviet Union in the Stalin and Khrushchev Eras Samantha Sherry
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Censorship in Translation in the Soviet Union in the Stalin and Khrushchev Eras Samantha Sherry This thesis examines the censorship of translated literature in the Soviet Union between the 1930s and the 1960s. It has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh in 2012. From the archives of the website The Master and Margarita http://www.masterandmargarita.eu Webmaster Jan Vanhellemont B-3000 Leuven +32475260793 This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Censorship in Translation in the Soviet Union in the Stalin and Khrushchev Eras Samantha Sherry Doctor of Philosophy The University of Edinburgh 2012 Abstract This thesis examines the censorship of translated literature in the Soviet Union between the 1930s and the 1960s. Reconsidering traditional understandings of censorship, I employ a theoretical approach influenced by Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu in order to understand censorship as a set of inter-related practices enacted by multiple agents, occupying points on a continuum of censorship that ranges from external authoritarian intervention to internalised, unconscious norms. An analysis of literary texts translated from English into Russian in the literary journals Internatsional’naia literatura and Inostrannaia literatura is supplemented by examination of archival material from these journals and the censorship agency, Glavlit; I aim to reconstruct the various layers of censorship carried out by translator, editor or external agents. My analysis begins with a study of the publications patterns of the journals, examining the inclusion and exclusion of texts as an attempt to impose a canon of foreign literature. Employing internal reviews and records of editorial meetings, I demonstrate that ideological control of foreign literature was not completely repressive, and that a number of texts not conforming to Soviet standards found their way onto the pages of the journal. The next chapters study censorship on the textual level. A chapter on puritanical censorship discusses how sexual and vulgar language was removed from the texts, noting the relative easing of censorship in the post-Stalin era. Puritanical censorship was often incomplete, inviting the reader to reconstruct the original meaning. The chapter on political censorship shows how taboo topics were removed or entirely misrepresented in the Stalin era, but modified less drastically in the post-Stalin texts. The following study of the censorship of ideologically marked language examines how censorship aimed to erase unorthodox uses of certain terms, imposing an authoritative meaning on these texts, and ensuring the continued circulation of canonical symbols in a limited discursive framework. Ideological censorship also created intertextuality between the English texts and the Soviet context, attempting to make those texts a part of Soviet discourse. Through an examination of these intersecting censorship practices I problematise the phenomenon, highlighting ways in which the regulation of foreign texts could be incomplete, and ways in which censorial agents often sought to undermine censorship, even as they acted as censors. i Declaration I declare that this thesis is entirely of my own composition, and all work contained herein is my own. It has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. ii Note Transliteration of Russian names adheres to the Library of Congress system without diacritics, except in direct quotations. Translations into English in quotations from secondary sources are my own unless otherwise indicated. All back-translations from Russian to English of citations from primary sources are my own. iii Acknowledgments There have been many people who have provided me with all kinds of help throughout the writing of this thesis. Firstly, I am hugely indebted to my supervisors, Doctor Lara Ryazanova-Clarke of the University of Edinburgh and Doctor Andrei Rogatchevski of the University of Glasgow for their careful, insightful reading and constant encouragement. The Centre for Russian Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow awarded my PhD scholarship, and I am grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council not only for the initial funding but also for funding my field trip to Moscow in early 2010; the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies also provided valuable assistance for further archival research in 2011. In this vein, I thank Doctor Polly Jones and Doctor Alex Titov for organising the 2009 Russian Archival Training Scheme trip to Moscow, which not only introduced me to the archives, but was also the spur for many continuing collaborations and friendships. I am indebted to the archivists at the Rossiiskii gosudarsvtennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva and the Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi federatsii, as well the librarians at the Vse-rossiiskii gosudarstvennyaia biblioteka inostrannoi literatury in Moscow, who provided me with many trolleys full of issues of Internatsional’naia literatura. On a personal level, I must mention some of my fellow travellers, Rhona Gordon, JJ Gurga, Victoria Irvine and Lucy Weir, who all understand the great importance of coffee and cake to the PhD process. Of course, particular gratitude goes to my parents, Anne and Colin Sherry, and my brother, Colin, who always have been unfailing in their love and support. Finally, I thank Ashley Good who, since I began work on my PhD, has been boyfriend, fiancé and husband. This thesis is dedicated to Jenny Malone and Jean Sherry, who would both, I am sure, have enjoyed boasting about it, and also to Frank Malone, from Doc. iv Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 Research Aims and Questions -------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 Structure of the Thesis ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 Translated Literature in the Soviet Union --------------------------------------------------- 10 Introduction to the Comparative Analysis --------------------------------------------------- 16 Earlier Journals -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17 Internatsional’naia literatura --------------------------------------------------------------- 18 Inostrannaia literatura ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Literature Review -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23 Censorship and Translation ----------------------------------------------------------------- 23 Censorship of Translation in Russia and the Soviet Union ---------------------------- 30 Chapter 2: Censorship and the Censor ---------------------------------------------- 38 Theorising Censorship -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38 Censorship Practices ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 47 Who was the Censor? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 50 Glavlit and the Soviet Censorship Apparatus -------------------------------------------- 50 The Editor as Censor ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 57 The Translator as Censor -------------------------------------------------------------------- 67 Chapter 3: The Choice of Texts as Censorship------------------------------------- 77 Inclusion and Exclusion: Creating a Text of Texts ------------------------------------------ 81 Internatsional’naia literatura ------------------------------------------------------------------ 84 Inostrannaia literatura ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 100 v Criteria for Inclusion: Editorial Reviews ------------------------------------------------- 107 Conclusion: The Performative Dimension -------------------------------------------------- 119 Chapter 4: Puritanical Censorship ------------------------------------------------- 122 Excision ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 125 Euphemism --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 132 Ambiguity in Puritanical Censorship -------------------------------------------------------- 140 Structural Censorship: Deficiencies of the Soviet Language ------------------------- 145 Signalling Censorial Intervention --------------------------------------------------------- 153 Conclusion: The Role(s) of the Censor ------------------------------------------------------ 157 Chapter 5: Political Censorship -----------------------------------------------------