Tradurre/Tradire: The Declaration of Independence in the Italian Context

Abstract

The subject of translating the Declaration of Independence, which we have been asked discuss as a litmus test for the role of the historian as between cultures, is an incredibly complex one, full of ambiguity. The very etymology of the words translator and mediator points up how they have historically been carriers of paradoxical roles. Translator comes from the Latin for to transport something from one place while mediator means to place oneself in the middle. The journal's questions imply that be historian of another country or culture, much more than of one's own, it is necessary place oneself in the and transport things-I deliberately maintain the pregnant material content of the Latin etymologies from one place another. To this end one must be sure that finding oneself in the middle does not mean losing contact with either one's own place of origin or one's field of research: it is true one needs leave in order find, but without simply standing in the isolated (Italian isola, Latin insula, English island), without contact with either side. The historian-merchant adventurer leaving for America must construct a map depicting both the Old World and the New with himself in the exactly where the Atlantic Ocean is deepest and where there is no world, where Atlantis lies hidden. During its history, historiography has taken on difficulties and ambiguities of this sort by resorting a series of instruments culminating in the scientific method, which aims systematically set up a research community independent of the researchers' place of origin. The scientific method, while necessary as analytical instrument and undoubtedly useful compensate for this finding oneself in the middle, aims at creating a new language that is common all researchers and used exclusively for scientific communication, contradicting the very idea of mediation. Belonging an international community with an agenda set by the internal canons of the discipline can lead the historian view the discipline as something independent of the problems of the cultural belongingness of the individual historians who practice it, making the question of cultural mediation appear less important. Trying harmonize the different factors