Oltre Ajtmatov: note sulla pratica autotraduttiva nelle repubbliche sovietiche

The problem of translation as "perevod avtora" both in the Soviet and post-Soviet period, rather than in the author’s biographical or literary world can find an adequate explanation in the dynamic of Russian language policy and sociolinguistic processes developing inside the national republics from the Twenties of the last century up to now. In this paper I would like first to shed light on the so-called “literary bilingualism” in the Soviet Union, when construction of new alphabets (jazykovoe stroitel’stvo) gave birth to several new literary languages for the ethnic minorities. In this area, where social bilingualism was a historical reality, new vertical diglossic relations between languages and literatures were established, with national languages and literatures as local Low varieties and Russian language and literature as an official High variety. Čingiz Ajtmatov represents the typical Soviet writer, symbol of the fusion (slijanie) of the national and Russian literary spirit, derived from “one-way bilingualism” (odnostoronnee dvujazyčie), the most widespread form of language contact in the USSR. National contemporary writers of the post-Soviet area, trying to operate in a profoundly changed literary and publishing reality, are present at the change of linguistic repertoire and interests of the reader and must adapt to a new linguistic dominance configuration. After Perestrojka we note a visible change in relations between Russian and national “titular” languages, leading to an upsetting of the above-mentioned vertical hierarchy and the recovery of official status for the national languages and literatures. Some writers who used to write only in Russian, now begin to develop a new literary production in their mother tongue, with many difficulties, essentially due to the new market conditions. Their intention is to provide a new opportunity for their national literature to emerge from the status of mainly oral and folkloric cultures. An example of this new trend is Jurij Rytcheu, giving voice to his people ciukci and writing stories for children, school materials and a dictionary. These writers live on the border of two worlds and cultures, between the “language and the reader diktat”, oppressed by the globalizing crisis of culture and without the financial support of national policies. The voices of these bilingual authors can survive only with great difficulty.