A sociological view of the role of literary translators – Wanda Kragen and the reception of the literatures of the German-speaking countries in Poland after 1945r.

Abstract

The article describes the role of the translator as an active agent in literary communication on the basis of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of field, capital and habitus. This is exemplified by translations as well as critical and literary works of the well-known Polish translator, Wanda Kragen, that were written in the 1950s. First, the author shows how Kragen tried in her journalist work to elevate the symbolic social capital of translators in Poland in that period and directed her activities so that the reception of the West-German literature in Poland could be unbiased. This is related to her understanding of the translator’s tasks, with the translator being an active creator of intercultural relations. This aspect is illustrated on the example of Kragen’s translation of Heinrich Böll’s novel Wo warst du, Adam?, where slight semantic shifts applied by the translator suggest a certain way to read and perceive the novel. In the second part of the article, the translator’s habitus and the question how it affects translations themselves are subject to analysis. The example that is used to discuss this issue is the novel entitled Pamiętnik Marji, written by Wanda Kragen in 1932, and her translation of Stefan Zweig’s autobiography Die Welt von Gestern from 1957. Although it is not possible to explain some solutions that Kragen used in accordance with the “cause and effect” principle, one can notice that a personal attitude, e. g. towards certain historical events, created by Kragen in her novel, is at the same time the contextual background, in view of which she translated the autobiography of Zweig.