The Translator
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Translation, Presumed Innocent
Translation and Ideology in Turkey
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
To cite this article: Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar (2009) Translation, Presumed Innocent, The
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The Translator. Volume 15, Number 1 (2009), 37-64
ISBN 978-1-905763-13-9
Translation, Presumed Innocent
Translation and Ideology in Turkey
ŞEHNAZ TAHIR GÜRÇAĞLAR
Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey
Abstract. In late Ottoman society, in the 19th century, translation
was instrumental in the emergence of new literary genres such as
the novel and western-style drama. It maintained its significance
and influence in the early Republican period, starting in 1923. Apart
from its literary significance, an interesting aspect of the trajectory
followed by translation in Turkey concerns the way it has conspicuously allied itself with political and ideological agendas, such as
westernization, Marxism and Islamism, to mention a few. This paper
explores the ideological entanglements of translation in Turkey in
the 20th century. It examines the discourse that emerged around
translation at certain moments during that period and argues that
translation served as a mirror, reflecting the literary and cultural
‘lacks’ of the target system, as much as it was meant to import new
forms and ideas which would eventually help Turkish society overcome its perceived deficiencies. The study also problematizes the
ways in which the translator’s subject position has been suppressed,
especially in the discourse of translators reflecting upon their own
work, and concludes that this self-effacing attitude seems to have
become part of the professional identity of the Turkish translator.
Keywords. Humanism, Islamizing translations, Nationalism, Prosecution of
translators, Translator’s invisibility, Turkish.
Ideology, as an inherent component of any translation, is a multifarious and
often multi-layered phenomenon. The ideological complexities surrounding
translation, as product and process, are discussed by Maria Tymoczko, who
The ideological implications of translation are not a new subject in translation studies.
During the past two or three decades, there have been numerous studies, brief and extended, detailed and general, local and global, demonstrating the political and ideological
entanglements of translation from various perspectives; see, for example, Simms (1997),
Fawcett (1998), Bowker et al. (1998), von Flotow (2000), Calzada Pérez (2003), Cunico
and Munday (2007).
ISSN 1355-6509
© St Jerome Publishing Manchester
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Translation, Presumed Innocent
writes that “even in a simplified model, the ideology of a translation will be an
amalgam of the content of the source text and the various speech acts instantiated in the source text relevant to the source context, layered together with the
representation of the content, its relevance to the receptor audience, and the
various speech acts of the translation itself addressing the target context, as well
as resonances and discrepancies between these two ‘utterances’” (2003:182).
The ‘amalgam’ of ideology may not always be obvious to the recipients of a
target text, while there are also cases where the ideological implications are
all too clear. Modern Turkish history is rich in a multitude of examples that
fall under both categories. In fact, it can be safely suggested that the history
of translation from Western languages into Turkish can be traced along a political axis, and that literary translation and translation of the social sciences
continue to raise ideological issues to this day.
In this paper, I will argue that ideology operates on two different levels in
translated texts and in the broader act of translation. I shall refer to the surface
ideologies traceable in translations (in the content of the source and/or target
texts or in the socio-political context within which translations are carried
out) as ‘explicit’ ideology, and to the awareness (or lack of awareness) of
translation as a decision-making process and of the translator as an agent
equipped with his or her own worldview, hence producing a representation
of the source text rather than a reproduction of it, as ‘implicit’ ideology.
Translation is a major channel of encounter with foreign cultures and texts,
and implicit ideologies define both the substance and the conditions of this
encounter. Implicit ideologies are closely linked with translation strategies,
which have been traditionally conceptualized across an axis of faithful versus
free translation. The notion of fidelity has been subject to varying views and
definitions throughout history, and its nature remains ambiguous. As I will
argue in the following sections, fidelity can involve more than one aspect of
the source text and may require different strategies that go beyond the wordfor-word and sense-for-sense dichotomy. At the same time, fidelity remains
a major expectation in the context of translation, especially in the field of
canonical literature, and free translation is often evaluated negatively. In its
most extreme form, free translation involves such strategies as abridgement,
summary, adaptation, imitation, vulgarization and retelling, among others. Yet
in many cases, the exact demarcation between faithful and free translation is
not so easy to draw.
Implicit ideologies are not limited to the textual strategies adopted by
translators. These ideologies define a whole range of translational practices,
No research has been carried out on translations from non-Western languages into Turkish so far, a situation which limits the validity of this claim to translations from Western
languages.
In this paper, I use the term ‘ideology’ in its broadest sense, as defined by Terry Eagleton:
“the process of production of meanings, signs and value in social life” (1991:1).
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
39
such as the selection or rejection of source texts, the use of specific registers
or lexical items to site the translation within a particular tradition in the home
system and the use of various paratextual elements such as illustrations, prefaces and notes which all enable the translator to present the translation to the
readers in specific ways. The Turkish translation tradition is rich in examples
that demonstrate the licence taken by translators to represent their source texts
in a wide variety of ways. However, this wealth, indicative of the implicit
ideologies adopted by translators, is seldom explored or questioned, even
by translators themselves. Implicit ideologies relate to explicit ideologies in
more than one way and at times serve to reinforce them. Nevertheless, the
link between implicit and explicit ideologies is not always evident and can
only be revealed if translators, translated texts and translation activity are
properly positioned within the broader socio-cultural and political context. In
the rest of this paper, I set out to discuss and problematize the ways in which
implicit and explicit ideologies have operated together in setting the course
of translation activities in Turkey. It will become evident that the ideological
framework in which translation has been embedded in Turkey engages with
explicit ideologies, while implicit ideologies, the second and equally strong
force shaping translations, have been largely ignored in the discourse of writers and translators themselves.
In recent decades, the links between Turkish westernization and literary
translation have been explored by a number of researchers who have shown
that starting with the Tanzimat, the Ottoman reforms of 1839, translation of
western classics into Turkish has been regarded as a prerequisite for modernization in literature and culture. By focusing on different periods in recent
Turkish history, these researchers have shown how translation was used as
a tool for culture planning (Even-Zohar 1994) by (a) state institutions such
as the Translation Bureau (Tahir Gürçağlar 2008, Berk 2004), private
publishers such as Remzi Publishing House (Bozkurt 2007), and various
publishers active in the field of publications for and about women (Işıklar
Koçak 2007), (b) intellectuals, as exemplified by the Classics Debate (Paker
The examples are too numerous to mention individually, but even a general review of
translations of a popular classic like Gulliver’s Travels, targeting both the adult and child
readerships, is enough to reveal versions carefully observing the textual integrity and
philosophical references in the source text, others changing the narrative plot at the cost
of creating a simple action-oriented adventure story, instances of omission of political
references to England, censorship of scatological details, insertion of nationalist statements and bringing in contemporary concerns in children’s schooling into the story (Tahir
Gürçağlar, forthcoming).
Westernization and modernization are often used synonymously by writers who refer to
reforms carried out in Turkey in the 19th and 20th centuries (Deren 2002:382). Westernization can be considered a part and a phase in the ongoing modernization project in Turkey. It
especially denotes the technological and cultural modernization efforts in the 19th century
and in the 1930s and 1940s.
40
Translation, Presumed Innocent
2006, Demircioğlu 2005), and (c) popular writers and translators such as Ali
Rıza Seyfi (Tahir Gürçağlar 2001) and Ahmed Midhat Efendi (Demircioğlu
2005, 2009). This paper will venture into a different type of problematic and
question the extent to which the all-too-obvious ideological associations of
translation find a reflection in the public eye. It will provide a brief overview
of the political conundrums of translation in Turkey during the 20th century by
concentrating on four important themes and moments: the Translation Bureau,
Marxist translations, Islamist translations and the prosecution of translators by
criminal courts, all of which have brought translation(s) to public attention and
have triggered extensive debate on translation and translators. At the same time,
the paper will problematize the current discourse on translation and translators
in Turkey, which remains surprisingly (or perhaps not so surprisingly) naive
and bound by the concept of ‘fidelity’.
1.
Politics of the political
As a multi-ethnic, overwhelmingly Muslim society, Turkey has been characterized by an identity problematic since at least the 19th century, and it has had
to deal with an abundance of cultural and socio-political issues throughout
its recent history. Many of these issues continue to haunt the country, with
various degrees of visibility.
Following the promulgation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, a new identity
building process started in Turkey. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s this process was defined by painstaking and systematic efforts that covered not only
administrative and political institutions but that also expanded into a variety
of fields, with repercussions for the daily lives of citizens, not to mention an
overall re-organization of the cultural and social practices of the country. Carried out under a range of ‘reforms’, these efforts included, among others, the
abolishment of the Caliphate (1924), the Romanization of the alphabet (1928),
an imposed change in the dress code (1925), various changes in the educational system, and the establishment of a Turkish Historical Society (1931)
and a Turkish Linguistic Society (1932), both of which worked to establish a
national identity based on the idea of a common language and history as the
building blocks of the young Republic. The Ottoman idea of unity based on
the religious concept of the ummah was abolished – for a general overview
of the early Republican context in Turkey, see Lewis (1961), Akşin (1997),
Zürcher (1993) and Karpat (2004).
Once a secular orientation was established and the alphabet ‘reformed’
(coupled with extensive language planning efforts to purge Turkish of Arabic
and Persian words), an ideological and philosophical basis was created for
the national-identity-under-construction in the 1930s. Starting from the mid1930s, the idea of ‘humanism’, understood as the common cultural heritage
of the West based on pre-Christian Greek and Latin works, came to the fore.
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
41
The intention was to present humanism as a universal cultural and literary
model on the basis of which a new Turkish culture and literature would
emerge and give way to a Turkish identity. This is one of the moments where
the entanglement between translation and politics became acutely visible. The
humanism trend, along with long-standing demands by intellectuals for the
initiation of a state-sponsored movement which could support the translation
and publication of selected western classics in Turkish, led to the establishment
of the Translation Bureau (1940-1966), which was given the clear mandate
of translating works that had a humanist dimension, especially in the early
1940s. In the meantime, the high esteem in which the western classics were
held dated back to the 19th century, when Ottoman intellectuals had already
started building the basis for the translation movement which would only
materialize half a century later.
Starting from the 19th century, a certain image of the West constructed
in opposition to the Ottoman/Turkish context was mirrored in the discourse
of Ottoman intellectuals. This was often the image of a civilization regarded
as ‘superior’ to Ottoman culture from both a technical and a cultural/literary
perspective, giving rise to a self-image of Ottoman society as incompetent
or backward. This self-image of inferiority vis-a-vis the West had concrete
ramifications in the field of politics, where a westernist paradigm started
to make itself felt and led to a series of western-inspired reforms and the
establishment of western-style institutions throughout the 19th century. Not
surprisingly, literary translation was one of the fields problematized within
this paradigm: it became the subject of open debate, where intellectuals
with varying opinions discussed the importance and the benefit of translating western classics into Turkish. It should be noted that the general feeling
of inferiority which dominated the technical, political and social fields also
spilled over into the field of literature, where Ottoman prose was considered
deficient or under-developed relative to its western counterparts. This continued to be the general perception of Ottoman/Turkish literature throughout the
19th century and for a good part of the 20th.
The first Turkish translations of western prose started to be published in
the second half of the 19th century. Spurred by the ideals of the Tanzimat,
these translations were not limited to literature, but also covered political and
philosophical texts. Münif Paşa selected and translated a number of political dialogues by Voltaire, Fénelon and Fontenelle (1859), offering the basic
This is evident in numerous statements made by intellectuals in both the Ottoman and
Republican periods. For instance, in 1887-88, Halid Ziya, a major Ottoman writer of the
19th and 20th centuries, openly lamented a lack of Ottoman writers who could change the
way fiction was written and drew attention to “both deficiency and belatedness in the literary system” (Paker 2006:329), while in 1890-91, Ahmed Midhat offered European classics
as a ‘model’ for the Ottoman literary system (ibid.:331). This perception of “lag and lack”
(ibid.:332) brought with it a need for translation, which came to be seen as a remedy.
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Translation, Presumed Innocent
tenets of European Enlightenment to the Ottoman readership for the first time
(Paker 1998:57). Abbé Fénelon’s Les Aventures de Télémaque, a political and
philosophical novel, was also published in the same year. A series of translations of works by Jean-Jacques Rousseau were carried out in the second half
of the 19th century by major writers of the time, such as Ziya Paşa, Namık
Kemal and Ahmed Midhat Efendi. The choice of titles to be translated was not
accidental, and the works were largely selected according to political criteria
(Berk 2004:53). It can be safely argued that in the selection and translation
of even literary works, a Europeanizing ideology played a significant role in
the 19th century.
The first comprehensive public debate on translation into Turkish took place
towards the end of the 19th century. The discussion, known as the ‘Classics
Debate’, was carried out in several newspapers and magazines and lasted for
about three months in 1897. A number of famous literary figures of the late Ottoman period – like Ahmet Cevdet, Ahmet Râsim, Cenap Şehâbettin, Hüseyin
Dâniş, Hüseyin Sabri, İsmail Avni, Necip Asım and Sait Bey – took part in this
discussion, which was launched by Ahmed Midhat Efendi with an article he
published in Tercümân-ı Hakikat in September 1897 (Kaplan 1998). Cemal
Demircioğlu writes that the debate reveals the cultural and literary conditions
of Ottoman society “in a moment of encounter or confrontation with Europe
towards the turn of the twentieth century” (Demircioğlu 2005:154). Indeed, the
debate laid bare a series of problematics hitherto untouched by Ottoman intellectuals, and revealed not only how writers perceived (potential) translations
from the West but also their views on the general state of Ottoman literature
in the late 19th century. As formulated by Saliha Paker, the Classics Debate
“was also a moment (perhaps the first) of collective confrontation with the
problems of translating a ‘foreign’ literature and culture on the one hand and,
on the other, with the problems of generating a comparable literature ‘of their
own’” (2006:325). The Classics Debate can be considered as the precursor
of a public debate on translation that continued throughout the 1930s and
culminated in the establishment of the Translation Bureau in 1940.
2.
The Translation Bureau and after
The establishment and work of the Translation Bureau, including its official
journal Tercüme, have been discussed in detail by a number of researchers
during the past decade (Berk 2004, Tahir Gürçağlar 2008). As pointed out
above, the Translation Bureau was the embodiment of the ruling elite’s wish
to establish a western-inspired, universalist and humanist culture in the newly
founded Turkish Republic. The discourse leading to the establishment of the
Bureau in 1940 projected a hypothetical canon into the Turkish literary system
that was mainly made up of translated Greek and Latin classics, supplemented
by French, English, Russian and German literature. This hypothetical canon
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
43
was created by various writers, intellectuals and statesmen who constantly
stressed the need for the translation of these classics.
In the case of the Translation Bureau, discourse appears to pre-empt
changes in practice, rather than following them (Paker 2006:345). In other
words, rather than assessing what was already being practised, the discourse
created around translation by the individuals involved in the activities of the
Translation Bureau aimed to transform translational practices which they
regarded as being defective. The most significant purpose underlying the republican discourse on translation before 1940 was the creation of a ‘need’ for
the translation of classics. Writers argued that Turkish culture and literature
suffered from a lack of literary works designed for a younger generation of
readers – a real problem, since Turkey had broken its ties with its Ottoman
literary repertoire by abruptly adopting the Roman script, thereby making Ottoman prose and verse inaccessible to the young generation. The translation
of seminal works of western literature into Turkish was considered to be a
remedy for this problem, as these translations would provide young readers
with much-needed reading material (Tanpınar 1998:78-79). Nevertheless,
the role of translation was not confined to the practical mission of supplying these readers with new books. Translation was also considered vital for
the development of a contemporary Turkish literature and culture (Köprülü
1928:405, Nayır 1937:162).
The need for a new kind of language and literature to express the modern
condition of Turkey was often emphasized, and translation was offered as
a means of creating this new language and literature (Ediz 1939:280). The
Turkish literary repertoire was regarded as “weak, and even poor” (Nayır
1935:305), and Turkish writers were considered to be of a lower calibre than
their European counterparts (Dürder 1939:269). These and similar statements
demonstrate that the perceived superiority of western culture and literature
evident in the discourse of the late 19th century continued to prevail among
Turkish intellectuals in the 1930s and 1940s. Apparently, the context within
which translation was discussed was political and ideological, with translation
being openly given the mission of creating an intellectual and literary context
for cultural westernization. Interestingly enough, translation was not only
shown to be an instrument of familiarization with western culture, but it was
also presented as a means of self-discovery (Kâzım Nami 1934:333). It was
through a better appreciation of (translated) humanist sources that Turkish
readers would understand their own national history, culture and literature
(Arıkan 1999, Tahir Gürçağlar 2008:64-67). The mirror metaphor reflects
this double role of translation in early republican Turkey: translated works
would not only serve as a mirror of foreign cultures but would also serve as a
All translations from Turkish sources are mine.
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Translation, Presumed Innocent
looking glass through which Turks could see their own reflection, only much
more clearly.
There was general agreement over the fact that translations from western
languages since the Tanzimat were “sporadic and arbitrary”, with little positive
impact on Turkish culture (Ülken 1997:347), and that they were of a low quality (Ediz 1939:279), either too “free” (Nayır 1935:305), or too “literal” (Ülken
1997:346). A report submitted by a translation committee to the First National
Publishing Congress held in 1939 stated that a “method and order” had to be
introduced for improving translation activity, which was in a “deplorable state”
(Birinci Türk Neşriyat Kongresi 1939:125). The deliberations in the Congress
which led to the establishment of the Translation Bureau within the Ministry
of Education10 are a clear example of the kind of ideological context within
which the Bureau, and its journal Tercüme, flourished. In his inaugural address
to the Congress, the Minister of Education, Hasan-Âli Yücel, presented the
translation of classical and modern works of the “civilized world” as a must
if Turkey was to become a member of the “western cultural and intellectual
community”, indicating that translation was regarded as an official instrument
of cultural planning by the state (Birinci Türk Neşriyat Kongresi 1939:12). The
Translation Committee also prepared a list of recommended titles for translation which was largely composed of works chosen from among the western
classics, including Greek classics, as well as more modern works. Above all,
works belonging to a humanist culture would be prioritized (ibid.:125-27).
That the report of the Committee was met with general approval shows that
the discourse leading up to the establishment of the Translation Bureau had
already succeeded in creating a general consensus (among the literati) on the
necessity and importance of translation. Neither was there any disagreement
about the humanist mission given to translation, which remained the Translation Bureau’s calling until the mid-1940s.
This link between humanism and translation was further elaborated in
the early 1940s by the translators and writers involved with the Bureau. For
instance, in the first issue of Tercüme, Bedrettin Tuncel, the editor, wrote that
in order to launch a “humanist movement” in Turkey, the best examples of the
“Greco-Latin civilization” had to be translated (Tuncel 1940:81). The referThe mirroring function of translation in Turkey needs to be distinguished from the mirroring capacity of translation in the Anglo-American world as discussed by Lawrence Venuti
(1998). I will return to this issue in the following pages.
Here and throughout the paper, all translations from Turkish sources are mine.
10
One function that has always been associated with translation in Turkey since the 19th
century has been education. It is therefore not surprising that the Translation Bureau was
set up under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. Although the Ministry of Education
is no longer directly involved in translation activity, it still continues to play a role in the
market for translated literature by issuing a list of approved works for school children, some
30 per cent of which are translations. I discuss this further in the following sections.
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
45
ences made to the connection between translation and an expected “humanist
movement” in Turkey in the early 1940s are too numerous to cite here. Suffice
it to say that translators mentioned a “mission of creating a humanist culture”
(Sinanoğlu 1941:485) and that the translated classics commissioned by the
Translation Bureau were seen as a step towards creating “true humanism”
(Ünsel 1947:9).
It would be wrong to claim however, that the work of the Translation Bureau was met with unquestioning approval. Given that Turkey had adopted
the multi-party system, and the Republican People’s Party that had been
single-handedly ruling Turkey since 1923 had to pull back from some of its
modernizing cultural policies, the Bureau was also transformed in terms of
its structure and staff in 1947. This was a deliberate decision on the part of
the government. Although the Translation Bureau continued to publish lists
of classics it intended to commission for translation, its scope and pace were
dramatically reduced. This was a milestone in terms of ending the explicit
political contextualization of translation since the 19th century. With it, the
frequency and nature of the discourse created around translation also changed.
For instance, Tercüme started to publish more translations and fewer reviews
and theoretical pieces on translation (Keseroğlu and Gökalp 1985). The prefaces written by the President of the Republic and the Minister of Education
(published in the introduction of all translated classics by the Translation
Bureau) also disappeared.
Although most of the western classics translated into Turkish in the second
half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries are not overtly political in terms of their content or message, the discourses elaborated around the
activity of literary translation gave them an ideological dimension. One might
also wonder about the implicit ideologies present in translated literature in the
same period. Although the period bracketed by the Classics Debate and the
Translation Bureau was very rich in terms of the ‘marginal’ translation practices11 carried out by private publishers and translators, there seems to be little
These cover textual production strategies such as abridgements, vulgarizations, adaptation, translations with extensive omissions/additions, pseudotranslation (Toury 1995:40)
and concealed translation (ibid.:70-71), all of which appeared to be commercially driven
but also helped insert interesting explicit ideologies in translations. For instance, Ali Rıza
Seyfi brought out his translation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as an original work under the
title Kazıklı Voyvoda, and embellished it with many nationalist additions (Tahir Gürçağlar
2001). In his translation of Gulliver’s Travels published in 1935, Ercümend Ekrem Talû
added passages alluding to the alphabet reform and statements on his vision of an ideal
educational system (Swift 1935:56). The implicit ideology furthered by these two translators is one that is permissive of the translator’s intervention in the source text in line with
his or her general worldview. This intervention cannot be explained away by using the
‘fidelity’/‘freedom’ dichotomy which excludes the translator’s subject position. As I argue
below, these (subjective) categories are imposed on texts, not on people, and therefore fall
short of accounting for the factors which drive translators to translate in specific ways.
11
46
Translation, Presumed Innocent
engagement in the public discourse with such practices. The period leading
up to the foundation of the Translation Bureau, as well as the first few years
of its existence, is marked by statements, comments or criticisms reflecting
the writers’ conceptualization of translation as an idealized activity. However,
these statements have a largely textual focus and, rather than problematizing
the issue of the translator’s socio-political position as reflected in his or her
translations, they assume an impersonal distinction between ‘fidelity’ and ‘freedom’. ‘Fidelity’ was approached from a number of different angles and could
involve fidelity to textual integrity, fidelity to content and form, or fidelity to
the ‘tone’ adopted in the text; in sum, it was a relative and unchallenged concept over which there was no general agreement, except that it was something
desirable (Tahir Gürçağlar 2008:130). Against ‘fidelity’ stood the concept of
‘freedom’ which was almost always seen in a negative light, and which covered a host of different translatorial practices such as omissions, adaptations
and excessive use of domestic phrases and idioms (ibid.:130-35). Evidently,
‘free’ translation was perceived as allowing the insertion of domestic values
which were unwelcome in translated texts, at least by intellectuals. Those who
wrote about translation in the 1930s and 1940s wanted to see only aspects of
the source text and the source author in translations – which would then serve
the double role of introducing foreign cultures (in their ‘pure’ form), thereby
offering a channel of (critical) self-discovery.
Interested as they may have been in textual translation strategies, early
republican writers and translators did not refer to larger issues such as the
translator’s politics (as opposed to the writer’s), his or her responsibility, or
the ethics of translation and the limits of interpretation. An exception to this is
the discussion of the creative aspects of translation initiated by some writers
and translators (Ataç 1940, Ataç 1941, Özdenoğlu 1949). However, this discussion, which could have been developed to empower translators as creative
agents, was in fact used to support the ideal model of a ‘writer-translator’ in the
1940s. The proponents of this model attempted to encourage writers to become
translators, with the aim of enhancing the quality of literary translations. They
implied that literary translation required literary talent and that only creative
writers could make creative translators (Tahir Gürçağlar 2008: 122-123).
After 1947, some translations produced by the Translation Bureau started
to be openly criticized, not only in terms of their quality, but also in terms of
their content. For example, Lermontov’s Demon, published by the Ministry
of Education in 1945, was criticized in the National Assembly for containing
passages that are unfavourable to Turks, with one MP even proposing to delete
these passages from the book (Karpat 1959:377).
Starting in 1946 (an important year in Turkish politics, when the multi-party
system was adopted and the cultural policies of the single-party era started
to be softened and modified), the missions attributed to literary translation
by the state started to disappear from public discourse, with less attention
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
47
given to the explicit functions or roles associated with translation in speeches
and printed material. Translation was no longer expected to lead to a “Turkish renaissance” as was the case in the early 1940s but to lead to a “literary
renaissance” (‘Önsöz’ 1951:293). The reason for this shift was no doubt political: the cultural policy-makers of the multi-party era did not attach the same
kind of importance to translation as their early republican counterparts, and
they repositioned translation as a merely literary, rather than a cultural and
political, phenomenon. I would like to argue that this led to a naturalization
of the role attributed to translated literature in society by the intellectuals of
the country.
Coupled with the increasing silence and invisibility of translators in public debates throughout the decades that followed the 1940s, the ideological
implications of translation became harder to trace despite the fact that Turkish readers’ multi-faceted encounters with foreign ideas and values were not
interrupted. There have also been other periods when translation was used as
an ideological instrument to attain political goals in Turkey. The 1960s witnessed the rise of translations of leftist works that served a specific political
agenda, and the first decade of the 21st century set the stage for a particular
type of ideologically manipulated translation activity. However, despite public
knowledge of the explicit ideological background of translation (as product
and activity) in the 1940s (westernization), the 1960s (Marxism), and the first
decade of the 21st century (Islam), the implicit ideologies inherent in translation are largely ignored. It seems that for Turkish intellectuals, the ideological
implications of translation seem to surface only when translation is attached
to a clear political agenda, sometimes with scandalous results.
3.
The 1960s
State involvement in translation activity in Turkey was a phenomenon of the
early republican period, mainly carried out through the Ministry of Education,
while translation of popular literature has always been carried out by private
publishing companies in Turkey. As the Translation Bureau lost its initial
impetus and influence over the literary system in the 1950s, private publishers continued to bring out translated canonical literature, admittedly with less
force and systematicity.12 Many translator-writers who were initially associated
with the Translation Bureau – such as Sabahattin Eyuboğlu, Orhan Burian,
Vedat Günyol and Hasan Ali Ediz, to mention a few – either set up their own
publishing business or worked for private publishers during and after their
involvement with the Bureau. These individuals played a significant role in
In fact, the Remzi publishing house preceded the Translation Bureau in launching a large
series of translated world classics under the title ‘Translations from World Authors’ in 1937.
Remzi was a pioneer among private publishers who later became engaged in systematic
translation activity in the field of canonical literature.
12
48
Translation, Presumed Innocent
carrying the mission and activities of the Bureau into the private sector.
The political function of translation came to the fore once more in the
1960s. Although the Translation Bureau continued to be active until 1966,
this time it was not the state but various private publishers whose leftist
orientations gave rise to a re-contextualization of the social role of translation.
Leftist translation activity was conveyed on two different fronts. The first of
these was the translation and publication of essays on critical thought and
art criticism, mainly by two literary magazines: Yeni Dergi and Cep Dergisi.
These magazines translated a range of materials covering a wide spectrum of
topics which were popular in contemporary western thought. Among other
themes, the topics included existentialism, psychoanalysis and Marxist literary
criticism (Tahir Gürçağlar 2002). Interestingly, although both the underlying
ideology and ‘institutional support structures’ had changed, the ultimate didactic function attributed to translation remained a constant. Many contemporary
writers and intellectuals continue to express their appreciation of the way these
magazines, especially Yeni Dergi (1964-1975), put them in touch with western
critical thought (Belge 2006:7, Doğan 2006:39).
The focus on translations of contemporary material developed against the
background of an increasingly international and highly politicized environment. Turkey was no longer the isolated young republic it was in the 1940s
but had become a member of such international organizations as the United
Nations, NATO and the Council of Europe. Throughout the 1950s, the Democrat Party rule had had a pronounced focus on economic, rather than cultural,
development and had built close ties with the United States. The decade was
characterized by an increasingly oppressive political environment, including
anti-communist pressures and press censorship (Zürcher 1993:251). With the
rising discontent of the armed forces, largely supported by the intelligentsia
and university students, a military coup took place in 1960 which toppled
the Democrat government. A new constitution drafted in 1961 supported a
relatively freer environment that tolerated a wider range of political opinions
and activities in the initial few years. In this environment, there was a large
appetite shown by readers for contemporary non-fiction materials. The 1960s
proved to be the golden age of political and literary magazines. Forum and
Yön, two political magazines with local content, provided the stage for lively
debate among intellectuals and academics about various kinds of political
and social issues (ibid.:267). These magazines were deemed insufficient in
terms of conveying international ideas to Turkey, however, and this led to the
establishment of new magazines with mainly translated content.
The editor of Yeni Dergi, Memet Fuat, underlined the intellectual agenda
of the magazine in his editorial articles and carefully avoided giving the impression of being ideologically-driven. He wrote that he refused to make the
journal a mouthpiece for specific ideas or people (Memet Fuat 1965:51) and
that he would publish the works of all authors who had gained respect (Memet
Fuat 1968:462). In retrospect, however, the general profile of the journal as-
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
49
sociated it with Marxism and Marxist critical theory.
Around 80 per cent of the content of another magazine, Cep Dergisi (19661969), also consisted of translated material. Its editor, famous translator and
publisher Yaşar Nabi Nayır, presented the mission of the magazine as one
which aimed to convey to its readers “interesting, thought-provoking and
enlightening articles, ideas, and information in foreign periodicals and books”
(Nayır 1966:1-3). Like Yeni Dergi, Cep Dergisi avoided making clear statements about its ideological position, but its critical content – which included
material on existentialism and structuralism but no Marxist criticism – was
enough to associate it with dissident ideas, and the magazine was included
in a list of books banned from school libraries (Türkiye Yazarlar Sendikası
1976:14). Elsewhere (Tahir Gürçağlar 2002:271), I have written that
Both Yeni Dergi and Cep Dergisi continued the vision of translation
which came about in early republican Turkey. This vision is closely
related to three others: the reliance on “imports” rather than indigenous creation in the setting up of a sound intellectual infrastructure in
Turkey, a continued admiration of Western cultural products and a wish
to import these into the Turkish cultural system and a specific vision
of the “intellectual” as someone who assumes the role of a leader for
cultural/intellectual progress.
The editors or writers of the two magazines, who were largely instrumental
in importing western critical thought into Turkey, did not explicitly articulate
the ideological entanglements of translation – unlike their counterparts in the
late 19th century or the 1930s and 1940s. Although the explicit ideology of
translated critical texts could still be understood within a paradigm of modernization, this was not openly stated.
The international political radicalism of the 1960s found its most manifest
expression in Turkey in the intense translation activity carried out by publishers
of leftist books. Translations of various Marxist and socialist works, including
those by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Harold J. Laski, John Strachey, Herbert Marcuse
and Roger Garaudy, were published in Turkish throughout the 1960s (Landau
1990:25-26). In his pioneering and extensive study of translations of Marxist
literature into Turkish in the 1960s, Erkal Ünal lists 33 publishing houses with
leftist inclinations which produced a total of 347 translated non-fiction leftist
books between 1960-1971 (2006:41). These translations covered ‘Marxist
classics’, including, but not limited to, Marx and Engels’ works. The publishers tried to contextualize their translation activity vis-à-vis certain debates of
the day (such as Islam and socialism and the Asiatic mode of production),
and expanded the list of source authors (Ünal 2006:52-54). Amidst all this
publishing activity, leftist intellectuals tried to establish a ‘canon’ and offered
readers (recommended) reading lists through the essays they published in
various magazines (ibid.:85-88).
50
Translation, Presumed Innocent
This leftist translation activity, which appeared to have a mainly intellectual and ‘utopian’ character, took on a more activist role with the onset of
translations of works on guerilla warfare which aimed to import the actual
guerilla experiences of other countries into Turkey and to serve as ‘models’ for
comparable activities (ibid.:74). These translations started with the publication
of Che Guevara’s Man and Socialism in Cuba and a collection of writings
by Mao and Guevara on guerilla warfare in 1967, and were met with great
interest. They did have effects that went beyond ideational positions and were,
to a certain extent, instrumental in the escalation of political radicalism and
activism in Turkish society in the late 1960s. There were various attempts at
restricting the circulation of leftist books – and especially those on guerilla
warfare – by the government, which often prosecuted their publishers and
translators (Berk 2004:193, Ünal 2006:79).
The silence of publishers, editors, writers, translators and readers regarding
the role played by translation, not only in terms of relaying foreign ideas and
trends to Turkey, but also in terms of contributing to the violent political events
of the late 1960s and early 1970s, is striking. Another interesting point is the
lack of engagement with the use of translation as a tool for juxtaposing the local
condition with international leftist debates in meaningful ways. Ünal discusses
how issues of authenticity, and the representation of the leftist individual as
someone disconnected from the realities of his own nation, continue to be
at the heart of the general critique of the Turkish left (2006:50). Translation
of Marxist works in the 1960s both reinforced and modified this situation,
firstly by importing foreign ideas and making them available to Turkish leftist
readers, ideas which some considered ‘inauthentic’, and then juxtaposing the
Turkish local condition with the foreign one, leading to a re-assessment of the
local situation and the engendering of a “native Turkish Marxism” (ibid.:128).
Once more, the Marxist intellectual was confronted with the same problem
the intellectuals had to solve in the 1940s, namely, the need to look at one’s
own condition through a foreign filter in order to become more authentic. This
time the double mirror of translation, reflecting both the other and the self,
failed to rekindle a public debate on the use, necessity and nature of translation. Yet one can also argue that there was no need for such a debate. Unlike
humanism, which was endorsed and encouraged by the government in the
1940s, Marxism was a subversive ideology, perceived to be against the state.
With translators already being prosecuted by the government, a public debate
on the role of translation in disseminating Marxism would subject publishers
to further risk. One could also argue that the intentions of the translators and
publishers of leftist books were quite clear and did not need further elaboration for their readers.
The implicit ideologies at work in the translation of Marxist classics in the
1960s have not been studied. There was no discourse which specifically dealt
with translation strategies and the translators’ positioning vis-à-vis their source
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
51
texts, just as there was no discussion of the political context of these translations. The evidence regarding the general position on translation strategies
may be inferred from a series of articles on translation criticism published in
Yeni Dergi in 1966 and 1967. The writers of these articles encouraged close
adherence to the source author’s style and condemned ‘free’ translations. The
translators were advised to restrain their creativity. This can be linked to the
journal’s constant emphasis on the importance of gaining access to the meaning and style of the material being translated in order to acquire an in-depth
knowledge of the ideas being expressed (Tahir Gürçağlar 2002:268-69).
With the advent of the 21st century, implicit translation ideologies suddenly
moved into the foreground. The biggest public debate on translation which took
place in Turkey in recent decades was occasioned by the so-called ‘Islamist’
translations of a series of children’s classics. The issue exploded in the media
in August 2006 and quickly turned into a scandal, with Turkish readers, writers and even statesmen feeling the need to express their views on the subject.
The islamization of children’s classics provided an opportunity for writers and
readers to express their views about the ideological implications of translation.
While Marxist translations mainly foregrounded the use of translation for disseminating an explicit ideology already present in the source text, Islamized
translations revealed the translator’s role in creating an ideological context for
translations, a context which is not present in the source text. In other words,
in Islamized translations, the implicit ideology functioned to create an explicit
ideological framework for the reception of translations.
4.
Islamizing children’s classics
Islamist publications, which had begun to appear in the 1960s, started to grow
in number after the 1980s and expanded into the field of literary and non-fiction
translation from western languages (Eker 2001). Some Islamist publishers have
an openly religious agenda which is reflected in both their discourse and their
publications. Two recent academic works have explored the aims of Islamist
publishers, their expectations in relation to translation and their criteria for
selecting titles to be translated (Eker 2001, Karadağ 2003).13 Karadağ (2008)
shows how in a retranslation of Robinson Crusoe into Turkish Ali Çankırılı,
the translator, repositions the work within an Islamic context, presenting it as
13
Arzu Eker’s MA thesis (2001) explores the translation of social science texts into Turkish and offers a discussion of the activities of some Islamist publishers, namely İz, İnsan
and Pınar. She also includes transcripts of her interviews with the editors of the publishing
houses in the appendix. Banu Karadağ’s PhD thesis (2003) focuses on two translations
of Robinson Crusoe into Turkish, one of which is translated and published by Timaş, a
conservative publishing house that has of late become more mainstream. She too appends
the transcripts of her interview with the editor of Timaş, which deals with the specific work
(Robinson Crusoe) as well as the publisher’s general translation policy.
52
Translation, Presumed Innocent
a plagiarized work from the Arabic Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl.14 Çankırılı
wrote extensive footnotes which included references to the links between Hayy
Ibn Yaqzan and Robinson Crusoe and to slavery and its incompatibility with
Islam; he also introduced textual additions in praise of Islam.
However, it was not this translation which brought Islamist translations
into the public arena. The scandal broke out when a news item harshly criticizing the translations of some European classics was published in one of
the leading Turkish dailies, Radikal (Aktaş Salman 2006). The reason why
these translations were being criticized had to do with a specific domestication strategy adopted by the translators and the publishers. The fact that the
terms and phrases used in the translated texts and some additions that did not
originate in the source texts reflected an Islamist worldview attracted negative
attention from the public. As mentioned before, ‘free’ translation, including
various strategies of domestication, was a translatorial tool used extensively
in the late Ottoman and early republican contexts. Nevertheless, the public
debate which followed the initial article in 2006 demonstrated that the negative view of ‘free’ translation, which had dominated the field of translated
canonical literature in Turkey since the 1930s, was still alive and well. In
fact, the severity of the reaction against these translations showed that in its
Islamized form, domestication would not be permitted by either intellectuals
or the government.
The criticism levelled against these translated books mainly focused on the
fact that the translations had been recommended by the Ministry of Education
for inclusion in school curricula.15 The news read: “Chaos rules the ‘100
Essential Works’ recommended by the Ministry of Education to students in
primary school. There is no control by the Ministry and therefore all publishers
can publish these books, and the way the stories are told in these books vary
depending on the ideology of the publishing house” (Aktaş Salman 2006).
Salman’s article then moves on to illustrate the point using mainly lexical
examples to show how Islamic terms and phrases are used to domesticate the
texts and how some of the protagonists in the books are made to say things in
Hayy ibn Yaqzan is an Arabic philosophical romance written by Ibn Tufayl, a twelfthcentury physician and philosopher born near Granada. It tells the story of a hermit who
attains knowledge of the divine following a long seclusion on an island. The book was
translated into several European languages in the 17th century and was widely read (The
Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2007, available from http://www.bartleby.com/65/
ib/IbnTufay.html, last consulted on 20 January 2008).
15
The Ministry of Education issued a circular in 2004 that introduced a list of “100 Essential
Works”, with the aim of helping the students to acquire good reading habits; the Ministry
claimed that the works in the list have “a high literary value” and that they are suitable for
the age group of the students (http://www.meb.gov.tr/duyurular/duyurular/100TemelEser/
100TemelEserGenelge.htm, last consulted on 1 December 2007). For a full list of the
“100 Essential Works”, see http://www.meb.gov.tr/haberler/haberayrinti.asp?ID=924, last
consulted on 1 December 2007. The list includes 30 translations from various languages.
14
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
53
support of Islam. This initial article immediately connects the issue of domestication with an explicit ideology. Other articles follow in the same tone, listing
examples of various Islamic and local references in the translations. The most
typical complaint concerns the way Allah (as a specifically Muslim concept)
is used to translate the English word God (Berkan 2006, Boztepe 2006). In the
meantime, publishers were criticized for editing and abridging existing translations for their own purposes and reprinting them without mentioning the name
of the translators in return for unfair financial gains (‘Sorumsuz Yayıncılık’
2006, Neydim 2006). The public reaction caused by the media coverage also
alarmed the Ministry of Education, which issued a press statement maintaining
that the Ministry “would not approve of translations that tampered with the
originals, detaching them from their essence and origin” (‘Basın Açıklaması’
2006). There were several articles by columnists, writers and translators condemning the Islamist interventions in translation (Hızlan 2007, ‘Pinokyo’yu
Dini Bütün Yaptılar’ 2006). These comments mostly referred to the ethical
aspects of domestication and criticized the use of translation as a tool for
creating an Islamist framework for western children’s classics.
Meanwhile, three academics wrote lengthy newspaper articles that explored
various aspects of the scandal (Neydim 2006, Karadağ 2006, Daldeniz 2006).
Writing from the perspective of an informed translation scholar, Ayşe Banu
Karadağ stresses the ideological nature of any translation activity, argues in
support of the translator’s ‘visibility’, and criticizes the tendency to see the
translator as an ‘innocent’ and ‘impartial’ agent. Her stance towards the Islamist strategies of domestication is not judgmental. Instead, she calls for a better
contextualization of these translations, and while one would have expected her
approach to lead to a dialogue with writers who indiscriminately want such
translation activity to be banned, this did not happen. Published in Radikal,
the main medium through which the Islamist translations were reported and
examined, her article attracted no response or reaction from those who had
previously written on the subject.
Necdet Neydim’s article, likewise published in Radikal, problematizes the
issue of domesticating interventions in translation and argues that alterations
in the translations of children’s classics may be permissible, provided that they
aim to protect the child from the bad influence of a hegemonic culture and from
religious propaganda. Neydim points out, for example, that Christian elements
have often been downplayed or omitted from Turkish translations of children’s
books in the past, a form of domestication which he sees as legitimate. At the
same time, he naively and quite paradoxically claims that using translation as
an ideological tool is unethical and unacceptable, thus implying that ideology
is outside the remit of translation (Neydim 2006). What was almost a routine
textual practice in the past – manipulation, adaptation or domestication of the
source text – is now presented and perceived as scandalous, mainly because of
the specific Islamist ideology it encodes. This collective amnesia with respect
54
Translation, Presumed Innocent
to translational and textual practices of the past in Turkey is surprising. Only
Neydim and Karadağ referred to the history of domesticating translations in
Turkey and, as mentioned earlier, both writers failed to trigger any kind of
rethinking of translation strategies or the social functions of translation on the
part of journalists or translators.
The Islamist translations debate shows how translation continues to be
seen as problematic when associated with explicit ideologies. The discourse of
writers and journalists (with the exception of Karadağ, Neydim and Daldeniz,
who are all translation scholars) seems to take for granted the idea that, in its
ideal form, translation is a neutral and ideology-free activity. These writers
specifically denounce ideological manipulations on the level of lexical or
matricial (Toury 1995:59) decisions and show no interest in entering into a
dialogue with those who are willing to entertain the presence of ideology on
a much wider and deeper scale in translated texts. Another recent debate, to
which I now turn, demonstrates the extent to which this kind of dialogue may
or may not be possible to conduct. This is a debate triggered by the prosecution
of translators under the Turkish penal code.
5.
Prosecution of translators
Legal proceedings against translators are not a new phenomenon in Turkey.
Translators were forced to appear in courts, both as witnesses and defendants,
in different periods, under different laws. The most notable period in terms of
litigation against translators is the 1960s, as discussed above. Although the
1961 Constitution offered a higher degree of political freedom and tolerance, it
still retained articles which banned “communist propaganda” (Berk 2004:184).
These articles not only covered original books and their writers, but also translations. There were numerous court cases against translators and publishers
of such books, involving famous literary figures such as Sabahattin Eyuboğlu
and Vedat Günyol (tried for compiling and translating writings by Graechus
Babeuf in 1964) and Can Yücel (tried for translating Che Guevara’s Guerilla
War in 1968) (Kabacalı 1990:195; Gürsel 1983:322; Ünal 2006:79).
A series of recent court cases revolving around the violation of Article
30116 of the Turkish Penal Code, and the ensuing discussions in the media,
have once more drawn attention to the political burden borne by translation in
Turkey. Article 301, which continues to be the topic of a heated public debate,
criminalizes statements that are perceived as an insult against ‘Turkishness’.
The critical Paragraph One of Article 301 reads as follows: “(1) Türklüğü, Cumhuriyeti veya Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisini alenen aşağılayan kişi, altı aydan üç
yıla kadar hapis cezası ile cezalandırılır” (Those who publicly denigrate Turkishness, the Republic of Turkey or the Turkish Grand National Assembly shall be
sentenced to between 6 months and 3 years of imprisonment).
16
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
55
Numerous writers, editors, translators and publishers have been tried under
this article in recent years. One of the court cases involved the publisher,
editor and translator of Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, who was
acquitted in 2006 (‘Turks Acquitted over Chomsky Book’ 2006). Another case
involved the translation of Turkish author Elif Şafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul.
Originally written in English, the novel was translated into Turkish by Aslı
Biçen. An investigation was launched against Şafak on the grounds that one
of the Armenian characters in the novel “denigrated Turkishness”, a charge
which also implicated the publisher and the translator of the novel. Although
the case was dismissed in the first trial (‘Top Novelist Acquitted in Trial’ 2006),
the indictment issued by the public prosecutor triggered extensive debate on
the responsibility of the translator and on the prosecution of translators for
translating works in breach of the penal code.
The Association of Book Translators (ÇEVBİR) started a campaign
against the prosecution of translators for their professional activities, which
they entitled ‘Çevirmene Zeval Olmaz’ (Don’t Shoot the Translator). The
campaign and the discourses that emerged around it have led to divided
views on the legal responsibility and accountability of translators. One view,
elaborated mainly by practising translators involved in ÇEVBİR, seems to
represent translation as a ‘conduit’. In the press statement prepared by the
Association, the translator’s ‘task’ is described clearly: “The translator has
the obligation to translate the message (a text or a speech) from one language
into another, in line with the properties of both languages and cultures, in a
faithful, accurate and impartial manner. This is his or her sole responsibility” (‘Tercümana Zeval Olmaz’ 2006). In a statement he made to the press,
the Chairman of ÇEVBİR, Tuncay Birkan, summed up this view as follows:
“A translator does not express his or her own views, he or she is bound by
what the author has said. Therefore he or she should not be prosecuted”
(Birkan, in ‘Çevirmeni Yargılama’ 2006). He was supported by a range of
intellectuals, both translators and non-translators. Lawyer Turgut Ağar wrote
that “the offensive content is written and created solely by the writer of the
work. The translator only practices his or her profession and translates a work
he or she is commissioned to undertake in return for a fee” (Ağar 2006). Aslı
Biçen, Şafak’s translator, also argued for a similar view: “Of course every
translator has a certain political stance and a worldview but leaves it behind
while doing his or her job. He or she has to relay a text by remaining faithful to the original and to the rules of his or her own language without adding
or omitting anything, without introducing ideological distortions. This is
required by professional ethics” (Biçen 2006). Although he acknowledged
and sympathized with the translator’s creativity, writer and translator Yiğit
Bener wrote that “the translator’s interpretation is limited by the principle of
fidelity to the content of the original message” and that “the translator must
be a reliable conduit” (Bener 2006). Translator and academic Hasan Anamur
56
Translation, Presumed Innocent
wrote that the translator’s task was to create an equivalent effect on the readers of the target text (2007).
Although the statements quoted above share the same point of departure,
they seem to diverge on a basic point: the exact task of the translator. Their
main argument is that the translator remains ‘innocent’ while translating a
dissident message, because he or she is limited by a very ambiguous notion
of fidelity or equivalence. Birkan, Bener and Ağar seem to link fidelity to
the content/message of the source text. Biçen refers to a nebulous idea of
“fidelity to the original text”, but to this she adds fidelity to the rules of the
target language. Hasan Anamur, on the other hand, focuses on a completely
different aspect, describing the translator’s role as one that should facilitate a
reproduction of the source text’s effect in the target culture. An elusive concept
of fidelity thus becomes the yardstick against which the translator’s innocence is measured and promoted. The writers seem to ignore the contours
of the decision-making process that shapes the translators’ choices and ignore
questions like “fidelity to what?” and “fidelity according to whom?”. Birkan,
Bener and Anamur also refer to the second view that can be extracted from
the discourse that emerged around ÇEVBİR’s campaign but are extremely
critical of it.
This second view is held mostly by academics or students of translation
studies and is voiced by Alev Bulut (2006), Meral Camcı (2006) and Sabri
Gürses (2006). These writers point at two major flaws in the way the campaign
was conceptualized. They maintain that by arguing for the translator’s innocence, the campaign divides what should otherwise be a united front against
violations of freedom of expression. In other words, according to this view,
the translator’s innocence should only be dealt with in conjunction with the
writer’s innocence. These academics also claim that the campaign represents
the translators as a transparent conduit and goes against the much-desired visibility of the translator in the public sphere. Birkan (2007) gave several lengthy
responses against this view, arguing that the disagreements are indicative of a
general lack of dialogue between translators and translation scholars.
What concerns me here, however, is the way the mainstream media approached the campaign. The few critical views on the campaign were read
as conference papers in an academic setting or were printed as part of the
discussion on ÇEVBİR’s website, while the campaign and statements by its
proponents enjoyed wide coverage in mainstream papers, including major
national dailies such as Hürriyet (Hızlan 2007, İnce 2007), Radikal (Hamsici
2006) and Star (‘Karamazov Kardeşler Yıllarca Sansürlendi’ 2006). News
items reporting on the press conference that launched the campaign provided
an account of the meeting without referring to any of the criticisms. In the
meantime, columnists Doğan Hızlan (2007) and Özdemir İnce (2007) endorsed
the campaign fully in their essays. Birkan’s and Biçen’s views were printed in
the daily Radikal, thus giving currency to the main argument for the translator’s
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
57
presumed ‘innocence’ and the importance of fidelity, while arguments by opponents remained confined to a small professional and academic circle.
The investigation against Şafak and Biçen lays bare the ideological implications of translation in twenty-first century Turkey. This court case can be
regarded as a continuation of the same practice which led to translators being
accused of relaying potentially harmful ideologies in the 1960s. This time, the
threatening ideology is not communism but an ethnic separatism that allegedly
finds expression in statements denigrating ‘Turkishness’. On the other hand,
the visibility of the translator is an implicit aspect of the ideological framing
of this discussion: The self-erasing attitude of the translators involved in the
campaign is interesting, and in my view needs to be assessed as part of the
reproduction and maintenance of the myth of the translator’s reliability as a
true ‘channel’, a myth which, it would seem, is a basic building block of the
Turkish translator’s professional self-identity. Needless to say, no argument can
be made in favour of the prosecution of translators because of the translations
they produce. Freedom of speech belongs to everyone – to translators as well
as writers. What is interesting in the specific case of Şafak and Biçen is that
instead of arguing for the universal freedom of speech, including that of translators, ÇEVBİR concentrated on constructing and reinforcing an image of the
translator as a neutral individual, completely lacking in power or agency.
6.
Conclusion
Lawrence Venuti discusses the ‘mirroring’ process enabled by translation
within a given target culture and writes that “the foreign text becomes intelligible when the reader recognizes himself or herself in the translation by
identifying the domestic values that motivated the selection of that particular
foreign text, and are inscribed in it through a particular discursive strategy”
(1998:77). He describes this process as a largely narcissistic one where “the
reader identifies with an ideal projected by the translation” (ibid.). The different
moments and discourses in translation explored in this paper have also been
used to argue for the mirroring capacity of translation in Turkey. Yet there is
a difference in the way the mirror reflects and mobilizes sentiments about the
domestic situation in Turkey. As represented by the Classics Debate, the late
nineteenth-century discourse on literary translation not only focuses on the
function of translation as a tool for bringing Turkish readers in contact with
French literature but also stresses the country’s need for these translations. It
seems that writers recognized an inferior and defective self in the mirror of
translation, a self which again needed translation in order to improve. Translation in the 1940s had a similar function. This time, the self-reflection in the
mirror was a nation in quest of its own renaissance. The mirror image still
showed a lesser literature that needed translation to find models for the creation
of a new, domestic literary canon. In the 1960s, the self-image reflected by the
58
Translation, Presumed Innocent
mirror of translation had hardly changed, translation serving not only to fill, but
also to point at the lack readers suffered from in terms of understanding and
synthesizing the basic ideas of western critical thought.17 In 2006, the Islamist
interventions in translated children’s books reflected a society suffering from a
different anxiety, fearful of a potential fundamentalist influence that threatened
to shake the foundations of the country’s secular system.
As discussed throughout the present paper, both translation as a professional
and intellectual activity and translations as texts have often been associated
with certain ideologies in Turkey in the course of the past century. In the
1960s and in the opening decade of the 21st century, the potential risks of
these associations became visible as translators were taken to court for their
professional activities. Interestingly, although public discourse draws attention
to the explicit ideologies relayed or introduced by the translators, there seems
to be little awareness or problematization of what I have referred to as the
implicit ideologies encoded in translation. The translator’s subject position is
not adequately explored and contextualized in lay discourse, and when it is
recognized, as in the case of the Islamist translations or the debate triggered
by the Şafak case, it is seen in a negative light, as an ethical problem. What is
also interesting is the fact that this position is advocated by translators themselves, who might be expected to have more insight into the impact of their
social and translational stance on the resulting translation.
The root of this apparent paradox is difficult to explain. The paradox has
been pointed out before by various scholars (see Jänis 1996 and Simeoni 1998,
among others) and the Turkish case is not different from other cases – in terms
of the split between theory and practice. Using the conceptual framework offered by Pierre Bourdieu, Simeoni seeks an answer in the internalized positions
of the translators, in their habitus. Simeoni quotes from Marja Jänis’s study,
in which she interviewed Finnish translators of theatre plays and concluded
that 94.4 % of her sample population saw their role as being subservient to
the playwright. Simeoni writes that “translators seem to have been not only
dependent, but willing to assume their cultural and socio-economic dependence – to the point that this secondariness has become part of the terms of
reference for the activity as such” (1998:11-12). He depicts a picture which
is very similar to the case of the Turkish translators who seem to be denying
their agency in the act of translating. Simeoni adds that “the more vocal calls
for translatorial emancipation have not originated in the ranks of translators as
such, but among peripheral observers” (ibid.:12), who happen to be translation
scholars in Turkey. Perhaps the widespread discourse on subservience among
translators, which has also surfaced in a number of other public debates on
The sense of deficiency felt by readers was evident in the writings of Memet Fuat, the
editor of Yeni Dergi. He advised his readers, who were complaining about not being able
to understand the essays he published in the magazine, to read the essays more than once
and even to underline the parts they found important (Memet Fuat 1965:2).
17
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
59
translation in Turkey,18 is indicative of an enduring translatorial habitus which
defines the identity of the professional translator in Turkey.
ŞEHNAZ TAHIR GÜRÇAĞLAR
Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies, Boğaziçi University,
Bebek, Istanbul, Turkey. sehnaz.tahir@boun.edu.tr
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