From Russian to Uzbek (1928-53)

This chapter focuses on Stalin-era literary translations from Russian to Uzbek in the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan. Highlighting the different steps for the increasing supervision of the translators’ activity within the Soviet Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan, it sheds light on the material conditions of the professionalization of the translation industry, including career benefits, risks and opportunities, gender inequality, and strategies of institutional control. Within this framework, my chapter addresses the question of inequality between the languages of the Soviet Union through a both quantitative and qualitative approach, contextualising translations from Russian in a wider cultural landscape, including translations from Uzbek to Russian as well as from the languages of the Republic’s minorities. I highlight the complexity of the sometimes contradictory objectives assigned to translation activity, incorporating at the same time a policy of modernisation that gave pre-eminence to Russian culture. Using unpublished archive material as well as press articles and literary texts, my study reveals the shifting strategies of the Soviet Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan, while revealing how individuals responded to changing directives from local and central Party and state authorities. By analyzing the ever-changing criteria for accurate translation from Uzbek into Russian at key historical moments, such as the Great Terror and the Great Patriotic War, I expose the linguistic implications of translation policy.