La Russia nello specchio dell'editoria italiana nel ventennio fascista: bibliografia, scelte e strategie

The research is dedicated to creation of a complete Bibliography of translations from Russian to Italian in 1924-1945. The Bibliography includes only literary works, written in Russian, translated from Russian, and published in Italy. Following those criteria, we have selected 1155 books. Those were divided in four phases, according to the frequency of publications per year. The four phases were defined as growth (1924-1929), saturation (1930-1933), downfall (1934-1940) and renewal (1940- 1945). Each phase has been analysed from the point of view of involvement of Italian publishers in the promotion of Russian literature and of their selection of authors and titles to be printed. The analysis included the discovery of the original Russian title, often covered by a totally casual Italian one. We also offered information about minor Russian authors, especially about those who emigrated in Italy and has never been published in Russia. The materials for the research included, besides the study of the old editions, reading of literary magazines as well as books of memories and letters of main personalities of Italian cultural world of fascist period. The analysis has shown that the publications translated from Russian are following the general trends of relationship between fascist Italy and soviet Russia. During the phase of growth there is a vivid interest due to the fact that Russia is still an unknown territory that attracts attention of readers. In the same time, the publishers who need to find new proposals to satisfy the growing market request, find in Russian literature a valuable source of new novels of secure success. The Russian novels appear both in elaborate translations targeted at educated readers, and in popular editions that are treating the source text in a very negligent way. During the saturation phase, when the Italian society was more controlled by censorship of fascist government, the interest in Soviet Russia was more specific: besides the classic authors of Nineteenth century we can find many modern soviet authors, whose works were a source of information about soviet life, which has been seen with curiosity or abhorred as a negative example, opposite to fascist way of implementing social revolution and constructing of a “new man”. During the downfall phase, when Italy becomes German ally, the publishing business has to adapt itself and introduce self-censorship and very strict selection of titles to be published. Therefore in this period the choice of Russian classical authors was limited to those with lesser ideological contents, and works of Russian emigrants of anti-soviet orientation were highly welcome. The renewal phase instead was unpredictable and based mainly on internal political events. During the war time Russian and Soviet literature did not disappear, and in the post-war years there were an explosion of pro-soviet publications. Throughout the description of those four phases we have highlighted and illustrated the evolution of publishers’ and translators’ attitude towards the translation, that changes from total indifference to the integrity of source text to the major respect of the texts’ composition unity and style characteristics, that produces some translation of highest quality, that survive till present days. Particular attention has been paid also to the role of Russian immigrants resident in Italy and active in publishing business as consultants and translators in the promotion of their culture in Italy.