A Utopian journey in Turkish: from non-translation to retranslation

Abstract

This study explores the role of translation in the evolution of new contexts for foreign works. It classifies non-translation, initial translation and retranslation as the three existential forms in which translation appears and proposes that each of these forms attributes the foreign work a different translational context. Benefiting from the favorable grounds provided by the journey of Thomas More’s Utopia in the Turkish literary system, this diachronic study embraces the pre- and post-translation periods synchronously with the period in which the translation first appeared.The study firstly investigates Utopia in the Turkish literary system as a work that appeared in the form of non-translation in the period between the Tanzimat and 1964 and questions what type of a culture repertoire this non-translation contributed to. Then, it focuses on the initial translation and seeks a position for this first translation in the context of the 1960s, referring to the social dynamics of the period in which the translation first appeared after a long phase of resistance. Here, the study touches on the agency factor and explores the historical significance of the first translation in relation to the external factors that concern the agents of the translation. Following the initial translation, which is still in print today, Utopia has been introduced to the Turkish literary system sixteen times and has met the expectations of various reader groups. Focusing on two of these representations of the work, the study explores the contexts drawn for Utopia by the retranslations within a framework that includes ideology, agency and readership. Through the analysis of this long translational journey which started in the Tanzimat Period and is still in progress, the study reveals that a number of contexts for a single literary work might appear via translation, which helps the work serve different -even opposing- ideological purposes, and that these contexts simultaneously sustain their existence in the receiving literary repertoire.