ABSTRACT
Translations of Joseph Conrad's works into Polish are like a prism concentrating the ideological tendencies and discourses of the times in which they function. They reflect not only the individual creativity and competence of translators but also the political circumstances of successive historical periods. Conrad's life (born to Polish parents, he emigrated as a young boy) and career (he wrote in English) have always provoked an emotional response in Poland, which has coloured the way his work has been perceived, imagined, and used in translation and through translation. His international career coincided with the period of Polish independence, restored in 1918, and the associated hopes for a dynamic modernisation of the country, which were cut short by World War II and subsequent Communist rule. Radically appropriated by Polish culture, Conrad played a variety of roles in turn: Romantic bard, patron of Poland's modernisation, and role model for resistance circles. This chapter focuses on the mechanism behind the shaping of Conrad's reception through translation. Striving to understand the ‘Polish Conrad’, it points to the ways in which translation is implicated in historical circumstances and postulates a need for new categories for the study of translation history.
