ABSTRACT
The Eastern European area constitutes a valuable vantage point for looking at the relationship and interactions between literary translation and politics. Surprisingly, scholarly literature on communism and Eastern Europe has largely overlooked translation issues, as did for instance studies dealing with the language policies in that region. The ways in which translation and politics interacted in Eastern Europe have a history that stretches beyond the communist period; long-term intellectual, social and political trends shaped part of the developments that occurred during this recent era. The bulk of the existing research focuses on a specific Eastern European socialist country at the receiving end of the translation, and consists of case studies. By adopting a differentiated approach to literary transfers, scholars can examine institutions and individual players involved in publishing translations not only within an authorised and regulated sphere of institutions and practices, but also within an underground and clandestine one, while identifying some variations within each of them.
