Historical dynamics of cultural policy: the case of literary translation from English to Czech (1918–2018)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study analyses the dynamics of the Czech policy of literary translation from English (1918–2018). Translation policy is considered a part of cultural policy, whose definition connects cultural policy ‘proper’ with a wider cultural context. The periodisation applied is based on historical turning points dividing the investigated timespan into three periods. The conceptual framework used is inspired by Bourdieu’s social field theory, adding to it the notion of a ‘third logic’. This framework allows for identification and interpretation of the main features of the individual periods; it also allows for quantification of translation policy in terms of numbers of editions of published translations. The goals of the study are (1) to illuminate the historical dynamics and the social conditioning of translation policies in the framework of cultural policy; (2) to trace and describe the development of the Czech policy of fiction translation from English from 1918 to 2018.