The Place of Hungarian Literature within the Serbian Literary Polysystem. A Case Study

Abstract

The article examines the place of Hungarian literature in the Serbian literary polysystem, starting from the assumption that, when it comes to translating from less widely spoken languages, the role of personal initiative and the individual qualities of the translator become paramount. It is this same assumption that, on the basis of the comparison between the formation of the translation opus of Danilo Kiš, Aleksandar Tišma, Sava Babić and Árpád Vickó and the condition of possibility of the subsequent generations of translators (to which the author of the article also belongs), demands re-evaluation. The loss of the freedom of choice of works to be translated, which characterizes the new generations of translators, besides informing of the changed status of literature and of the increasing dominance of the capitalist logic of the literary market, induces to reinterpret the situation of the literary translator: if on the one hand he is, today, aware of not having any real power to shape the literary polysystem, on the other hand, however, he is fully aware that he can try to exert influence on the same literary polysystem indirectly, through the act of translation.