“… and he flew out of the window on a wooden spoon”

Translation may be viewed in part as a transfer of cultural elements from one text to another and, under certain circumstances, this may occur between texts written in the same language. This is indeed the situation researchers find when analysing the early East German versions of the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales and comparing them with their (same language) originals. East Germany was a country with a mission to overcome capitalist thinking and to create a new kind of society. Motivated by this, the establishment permitted only certain kinds of texts to reach their audiences. One of the genres vehemently debated in the early days was fairy tales and particularly so the Grimms’ tales due to their high standing in the Third Reich. This article explores the first ‘translations’ of the Grimms’ fairy tales in East Germany, investigating elements that were regarded as ideologically valuable and hence emphasized in the texts and those that were deemed harmful to a socialist education and hence modified.La traduction peut être vue en partie comme un transfert d’éléments culturels d’un texte à l’autre et, dans certaines circonstances, cela peut se produire entre des textes rédigés dans la même langue. Il s’agit en effet de la situation à laquelle les chercheurs font face lorsqu’ils analysent des versions anciennes est-allemandes des contes des frères Grimm et lorsqu’ils les comparent avec leurs originaux (dans la même langue). L’Allemagne de l’Est avait comme mission de venir à bout de la pensée capitaliste et de créer une nouvelle sorte de société. Le pouvoir permettait la transmission de quelques textes à leur public. Les contes étaient un des genres débattus avec véhémence, et plus particulièrement les contes des frères Grimm, en raison de leur position élevée dans le Troisième Reich. Cet article explore les premières traductions des contes des frères Grimm en Allemagne de l’Est, en examinant des éléments qui étaient considérés comme importants d’un point de vue idéologique, soulignés dans les textes, et ceux qui étaient jugés nuisibles à une éducation socialiste et désormais modifiés

Translation under state control : the production and rewriting of books for young people in the German Democratic Republic (1961-1989)

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Translation Under State Control: The Production and Rewriting of Books for Young People in the German Democratic Republic (1961-1989).

All societies apply some form of selection to their literary production, none more so than totalitarian states. This thesis explores the effects of ideology in the particular instance of the translation of children’s literature from English into German under the socialist regime of the former German Democratic Republic. The main premise is that only by a broader study of the full sociological context in which the production of literature takes place will a comprehensive picture of translational processes and strategies become apparent. The procedure of appropriating texts to become compatible with the prevalent ideology is evidence of a climate hostile to any notion of Otherness. Literature for young readers during the German Democratic Republic was considered to be a vehicle for the promotion of socialist culture, creating in them a love for socialist beliefs and shaping them to be loyal citizens of the future. Precisely because of this high pedagogical value of books, a literature came to the fore that had a high status in society and that found itself at the centre of attention. The fact that the study gives prominence to extra-textual factors makes possible a close investigation of the East German censorship machinery. Indeed, one of the key findings has revealed that censorship of translated books for a younger audience was not mainly centred on text manipulation. Whereas it is true that expressions not convergent with the state ideology were removed from texts, the predominant part of the censorship process had already taken place during the earlier stages of book production. Drawing on Lefevere’s theory (see e.g. 1982, 1985 or 1992) of patronage, poetics and rewriting, it is demonstrated that all book production was subjected to the ideological and poetological norms prevalent in East German society. The thesis comprises two parts. The first part provides a cultural political background and sheds light on the institutional apparatus. It gives evidence that there was a multi-level censorship at work and that it was, in fact, the Party as the patron which propagated certain cultural and literary policies and monitored closely their execution. It is further shown that it was publishers who, in the process of self-censorship, selected suitable texts for translation and publication, texts which in their opinion would not cause problems and could be guided smoothly through the procedure of obtaining a print permit. In view of this selection process, the second part of the thesis analyses the contents of the print permit files, in which publishers justified their choice of book to the censors, and the afterwords found in a significant proportion of books. It is shown that there was a close correlation between the socialist ideology propagated by the regime and the selection process itself. While, however, the literature was rewritten in the print permit files in a way only intended to be seen by the censorship authority, ideology leaks into the printed word in the form of afterwords, addressing the readers directly