Original scientific paper
Re-Siting Gogol’s Jews: Roman Šovary’s Translation of Taras Bulba
Antonia Pintarić
; University of Zadar
Abstract
Translation Studies has increasingly focused on the role of translation in the construction of identity and the (re)distribution of power. However, insufficient attention has been paid to cases in which the translator belongs to a community that is negatively stereotyped in the source text and whose marginalization the text helps perpetuate. One such case is the Croatian translation of Nikolai Gogol’s Taras Bulba by Roman Šovary, a translator of Jewish origin and a Holocaust survivor. This paper examines how Šovary translates the antisemitic discourse of the source text and explains the effects of his translational strategy in order to determine whether the translation functions as a site of resistance, enabling either retaliation against or the rehabilitation of the marginalized Other. The comparative textual analysis draws on insights from the cultural turn in Translation Studies concerning the ethics of translation and the construction of identity through translation, while also incorporating historically and sociolinguistically relevant evidence. The analysis focuses on the translation of the Russian ethnonym zhid and its derivatives, as well as on representations of Jews as greedy, disloyal, and unclean heretics. The findings demonstrate that the translation does not neutralize the source text’s antisemitism. Šovary consistently renders the derogatory Russian ethnonym zhid as the standard Croatian ethnonym Židov (“Jew”), while using the pejorative Croatian term Čifut only sparingly, in contexts of extreme dehumanization and immediate violence, thereby allowing the derogatory force to emerge from the narrative and social context rather than from the lexical choice itself. At the same time, Šovary faithfully translates all stereotypical representations while successfully preserving the poetic complexity of Gogol’s work. His translational approach thus constitutes an ethical strategy of quiet resistance, transforming translation into a site of the dignified rehabilitation of the marginalized Other.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
349666
URI
Publication date:
23.7.2026.
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