Literary translation as an instrument of censorship in Soviet Russia

In Soviet Union, literary translation was a cultural institution exerting an important censorship function. It acted according to the rules of the complex Soviet censorship machine, which conceived modalities of intervention on the society aimed not only at punishing, but also at preventing dangerous thoughts and behaviours and at forging the mentality of homo sovieticus. Thus, Soviet translator firstly exercised his/her censoring function, obeying to the tenets of the Writers Union and the Translators’ Section, by wiping out the 'foreign’, potentially subversive texts from the 'alien' word of the foreigner. Secondly, an inner censor acted within him/her, a censor nested in his/her soul, able of determining his/her behavior following to the prescriptive code of Socialist Realism. To forge the new translator, a web of institutions preposte alla sua creazione e al controllo delle sue funzioni was necessary. This new sunject was produced through a hierarchic system, that went from the Party to the Writers Union and articulated in the Translators’ Section; through this process the institutionalization of Soviet translator was carried out.