Translation and Power in Georgia: Postcolonial Trajectories from Socialist Realism to Post-Soviet Market Pressures

Abstract

This study examines the transformation of literary translation practices in Georgia from the Soviet era to the post-Soviet and neoliberal periods, using postcolonial translation theory as the main analytical lens. Translation is treated not merely as a linguistic transfer but as a process shaped by ideological control, cultural representation, and global power hierarchies. In the Soviet era, censorship policies rooted in socialist realism imposed direct ideological interventions; children’s literature such as Maya the Bee and Bambi exemplified how religious or individualist themes were replaced with collectivist narratives. In the post-Soviet period, overt censorship has largely disappeared; however, structural factors—including the absence of a coherent national translation policy, economic precarity, and dependence on Western funding—have become decisive in shaping translation choices. The shift from Russian to English as the dominant source language has introduced new symbolic hierarchies, privileging Anglophone literature while marginalizing regional and non-Western voices. Drawing on the Georgian Book Market Research 2013–2015 alongside archival materials, paratextual analysis, and contemporary case studies, including the Georgian translation of André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name, the study shows how translators negotiate between market expectations, cultural taboos, and ethical responsibility. It argues that translation in Georgia remains a contested site of cultural negotiation and epistemic justice.

1. Introduction

The politics of literary translation in Georgia, from the Soviet era to the post-Soviet present, reflects a complex interplay between ideological control, cultural mediation, and the global circulation of texts. While translation is often perceived as a neutral transfer of meaning, this study follows the proposition advanced by Lefevere (2017), Spivak (2009), and Venuti (2018) that translation is inherently political, embedded in institutional, ideological, and cultural power structures. During the Soviet period, translation functioned as an instrument of socialist realism, with the selection, editing, and dissemination of texts strictly regulated to construct a unified Soviet identity. In the post-Soviet era, the dismantling of centralized state structures gave rise to new dynamics shaped by market liberalization, global publishing networks, and evolving cultural hierarchies. This study adopts a tripartite periodization: the Soviet era (1921–1991), the transitional period (1991–2003), and the neoliberal/postcolonial period (2003–present). Each period is examined in terms of its institutional configurations, ideological frameworks, and dominant linguistic orientations. The central research question guiding this study is: How have ideological, institutional, and economic forces shaped the practice of literary translation in Georgia, and in what ways have translators negotiated, resisted, or reproduced these pressures? Situating the Georgian case within a postcolonial framework is productive because, despite Georgia’s distinct historical trajectory as a former Soviet republic, mechanisms of linguistic dominance, cultural centralism, and epistemic asymmetry resemble those observed in other postcolonial contexts (Said 1993, pp. 12–14; Tymoczko and Calzada Pérez 2003, pp. 21–23).

Existing scholarship has largely addressed Soviet translation policy at the pan-Soviet level (Baer 2015; Gendron-Pontbriand 2013) or focused on individual authors and genres. The Georgian case—as a semi-peripheral cultural space negotiating between imperial legacies and neoliberal globalization—remains underexplored. This study addresses that gap by integrating primary materials from the Central State Archive of Georgia (e.g., Glavlit directives, editorial board records).

The selected case studies—most notably the Soviet-era adaptations of Maya the Bee and Bambi—originate from distinct linguistic and cultural traditions but were subjected to similar Soviet ideological filtering. The selection of Maya the Bee and Bambi as case studies is informed by their distinct trajectories within Georgian translation history. Both works underwent multiple translations across Soviet and post-Soviet periods, offering a diachronic lens on shifting ideological filters. Maya exemplifies the adaptation of Western European children’s literature under Soviet moral didacticism, while Bambi reflects the selective domestication of sentimental animal narratives to align with socialist realist values. Their repeated retranslation in the post-1991 period also provides insight into the commodification and global circulation of children’s literature in neoliberal markets. This allows for a comparative analysis of how translation strategies reinforced or modified state narratives. The study makes three original contributions:

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It provides the first English-language, archive-based analysis of Soviet and post-Soviet Georgian translation policy, drawing on previously untranslated Georgian scholarship and primary archival directives.

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By juxtaposing Soviet-era children’s literature adaptations with contemporary post-Soviet publishing trends, it demonstrates the persistence and transformation of ideological mechanisms across political regimes.

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It bridges postcolonial theory and Soviet/post-Soviet studies, adapting concepts such as “ideological rewriting” and “cultural patronage” (Lefevere 2017; Spivak 2009) to a semi-peripheral, post-socialist context. While the historical overview presented in this study draws upon established scholarship in Soviet and post-Soviet translation studies, its analytical core lies in the application of postcolonial translation theory to the Georgian context. The novelty of this approach rests in the integration of archival evidence, translator testimonies, and market data to construct a multi-scalar account of cultural power dynamics—an analytical angle that moves beyond descriptive historiography.

Methodologically, the study combines qualitative textual analysis with historical contextualization. Quantitative insights are drawn from the Georgian Book Market Research 2013–2015 (Georgian National Book Center/ACT 2016), which provides statistical data on translation flows, language hierarchies, and market structures in the early post-Soviet period. Due to the lack of publicly available national market reports for 2016–2023, subsequent trends are analyzed through secondary literature, UNESCO statistics, interviews with translators and publishers, and qualitative market observations. Case studies are examined through close reading, focusing on lexical shifts, narrative restructuring, and thematic reframing, with changes traced against ideological and institutional contexts. Children’s literature receives particular attention as it was a primary vehicle for ideological socialization during the Soviet era, making it an especially revealing site for exploring the intersection of translation and power. While this study addresses both Soviet and post-Soviet translation practices, it does not employ unpublished archival materials accessed directly by the author. Instead, it draws on publicly available digital records—such as the Georgian Book Market Research 2013–2015 (Georgian National Book Center/ACT 2016)—published translations, and archival evidence cited in secondary scholarship. Due to the lack of publicly available national market reports for the years 2016–2023, subsequent trends are analyzed through secondary literature, interviews, and market observations.

2. Historical Background: Soviet-Era Translation Policies

• Soviet-Era Translation Practices—Periodisation, Censorship Mechanisms, and Ideological Framework

The history of Soviet-era literary translation in Georgia cannot be understood as a homogeneous narrative; it is more accurately approached through distinct political–cultural phases, each marked by shifts in ideological priorities, institutional control, and the permissible scope of literary expression.

• Early Soviet Period (1921–Mid-1930s): Revolutionary Experimentation

Following Georgia’s incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1921, translation was initially harnessed as part of a revolutionary cultural project aimed at consolidating socialist ideology while also modernizing national literatures. In this period, translation policy exhibited a degree of openness, including the adaptation of select Western classics and neighboring literatures. However, the ideological framing was already under the oversight of the newly established Glavlit (Main Administration for Literary and Publishing Affairs, founded 1922), which implemented pre-publication censorship to ensure ideological conformity (Choldin 1994, p. 37). Although political orthodoxy was enforced, local translators occasionally navigated these constraints through selective omissions or interpretative shifts, foreshadowing later practices of self-censorship (Gaprindashvili 2012, p. 54). Compared to the later Stalinist period, such anticipatory alignment with political orthodoxy was relatively limited in scope, typically arising as an ad hoc response to editorial intervention, rather than a fully internalized constraint. Translators still retained a measure of stylistic experimentation and cultural mediation, though these freedoms would be sharply curtailed after the mid-1930s. Additional archival notes from the early 1920s indicate that the Georgian State Publishing House (Sakhelgami) received directives from Glavlit’s Tbilisi branch requiring that translated works from Western sources undergo “ideological harmonisation” before typesetting (TsGA Gruzii [Tsentral’nyy gosudarstvennyy arkhiv Gruzii—Central State Archive of Georgia 1924], fond 14, opis 2, delo 35). These records reveal that, even at this early stage, translation policy was embedded within the machinery of political oversight.

• High Stalinism (Mid-1930s–1953): The Consolidation of Socialist Realism

By the mid-1930s, the cultural policy of socialist realism was institutionalized as the sole acceptable aesthetic. Socialist Realism, as formalized in the 1934 Soviet Writers’ Congress, was defined not merely as a literary style but as an ideological method that demanded the truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development, combined with the task of educating readers in the spirit of socialism (Clark 1981, pp. 15–16). In practice, this meant that translation was required to depict characters and narratives that embodied class consciousness, collective solidarity, and optimism about the socialist future, regardless of the source text’s original tone or intent. In translation, this entailed not only the suppression of ideologically “suspect” source texts but also the adaptation of foreign works to exemplify socialist virtues—collectivism, class struggle, and the moral superiority of socialism (Clark 1981, pp. 45–46). The scope for translator agency was severely curtailed, with Glavlit applying both pre-translation ideological vetting and post-translation editorial revision. Primary archival sources offer clear evidence of active ideological oversight in translation policy. For example, files from the Glavlit Central Censorship Records (TsGA RSPFSR—Tsentral’nyy gosudarstvennyy arkhiv Rossiyskoy Sovetskoy Federativnoy Sotsialisticheskoy Respubliki, fond 74, opis 23, delo 112) reveal correspondence between central censorship officials and Georgian publishing houses in the early 1930s, issuing directives that enforced collective or class-oriented narrative framing (TsGA RSPFSR, 1932). Similarly, minutes from the Backlit Editorial Committee meetings (Gosizdat Archives, 1938–1940) document discussions about narrative modifications in translated children’s literature to align plots with socialist realist ideology (TsGA RSPFSR, fond 81, opis 8, delo 47). These archival findings confirm that ideological rewriting in translation was not incidental but structurally embedded and systematically implemented. In addition to institutional censorship, translators also engaged in self-censorship—a process of anticipatory alignment with political orthodoxy to avoid rejection, reputational damage, or punitive measures. This practice operated as a “middle tier” in the censorship apparatus, shaping the translator’s interpretative decisions before the text even reached the editor (Blyum 2003, p. 21). Self-censorship ranged from lexical substitution and the omission of politically sensitive references to more subtle narrative reframing, often resulting in an ideologically “pre-sanitised” translation. Such internalized constraints reduced the possibility of aesthetic experimentation, narrowing the stylistic diversity of translated literature during this period.

• Late Soviet Period (1953–1980s): Controlled Liberalization and Institutional Inertia

Following Stalin’s death in 1953 and the onset of the Khrushchev Thaw, Soviet cultural policy underwent a partial relaxation, allowing for a modest expansion in the range of foreign literature translated into Georgian. Western modernist and even some postmodernist authors appeared sporadically, though often in abridged or ideologically reframed form. While overt state censorship became less repressive compared to the high Stalinist period, the institutional apparatus of control—Glavlit and state publishing houses—remained firmly in place (Kozovoi 2013, p. 84).

Archival records from the Georgian State Publishing Committee (fond 119, opis 14, delo 203, 1961–1978) reveal routine editorial reports on translations, noting required “corrections” to align characters’ moral arcs with socialist values or to neutralize religious and nationalistic overtones. Memos from the Union of Writers of Georgia (1970–1975) indicate that publishing approvals often hinged on the translator’s perceived ideological reliability, rather than solely on linguistic competence.

During this period, self-censorship became deeply ingrained, functioning less as an occasional precaution and more as an internalized professional norm. Translators frequently anticipated editorial interventions, pre-emptively omitting politically charged idioms, toning down dissenting voices, or re-contextualizing foreign cultural references to fit Soviet ideological templates (Blyum 2003, p. 23). Interviews with late-Soviet translators (Kopaliani and Benidze 2012, p. 6) confirm that this internalized filtering process was often so habitual that it blurred the boundary between voluntary stylistic choices and imposed ideological compliance.

As a result, while the late Soviet era brought a relative diversification of translated authors and genres, it also entrenched a culture of conformity. The translator’s role remained subordinated to state-defined cultural priorities, with creative autonomy constrained by both formal censorship mechanisms and the invisible hand of self-censorship.

• Khrushchev Thaw (1953–1964): Controlled Liberalization

The political thaw under Nikita Khrushchev eased restrictions, enabling the reintroduction of certain previously banned authors and the publication of a broader range of translated literature, including Western works. Nevertheless, the underlying ideological framework persisted: translations of foreign texts continued to be “framed” in paratexts and introductions to highlight their compatibility with socialist values (Merkle 2010, p. 129). This period also saw the emergence of more nuanced forms of translator resistance, such as the strategic preservation of foreign cultural markers or subtle shifts in narrative emphasis.

• Brezhnev Era and Developed Socialism (1964–1985): Stagnation and Standardization

During the Brezhnev years, cultural policy emphasized stability and standardization, which translated into formulaic editorial practices and the recycling of established ideological interpretations. While overt censorship was less volatile than in the Stalin era, the bureaucratic inertia of publishing institutions perpetuated a rigid “translation template” for foreign works (Kopaliani and Benidze 2012, pp. 40–42). The marginalization of experimental or formally innovative translations contributed to a narrowing of stylistic diversity.

• Perestroika and Glasnost (1985–1991): Late-Soviet Pluralization

The policies of perestroika and glasnost introduced an unprecedented degree of pluralism into the Soviet translation sphere. Previously inaccessible works—including religious texts, émigré literature, and politically sensitive historical accounts—entered the Georgian literary system, challenging decades of rigid ideological control. Archival materials from the Central State Archive of Literature and Art of Georgia (fond 14, opis 1, delo 223) reveal that, between 1987 and 1990, Glavlit directives gradually relaxed, allowing publishers to submit works for approval after, rather than before, translation, thus shortening censorship delays. Nevertheless, even in this climate of openness, translators navigated residual institutional hierarchies and internalized habits of self-censorship. As interviews with late-Soviet translators (Gaprindashvili 2012, p. 119) attest, many continued to anticipate potential political objections, adjusting tone or omitting content pre-emptively.

This transitional phase also encouraged the re-emergence of religious and philosophical discourse in translation, albeit often reframed in secular or historical terms to align with still-lingering ideological expectations. The partial dismantling of censorship mechanisms foreshadowed the post-Soviet reorientation of translation flows and patronage systems, where market logics would replace state planning. By situating this period as a bridge between overt repression and post-Soviet liberalization, it becomes possible to trace how translator agency adapted to shifting political contexts—retaining some strategies of avoidance while experimenting with greater textual fidelity and cultural plurality.

Throughout the Soviet period, literary translation in Georgia was shaped by state-driven ideological control and efforts to homogenize the population culturally. In this context, translation was not regarded as an aesthetic or neutral practice but, rather, as a direct instrument of political governance. From the early years of Soviet dominance, translation policies were interwoven with institutional mechanisms aimed at constructing a unified Soviet identity that was aligned with socialist ideology. This identity sought to subordinate local cultures to socialist doctrine (Lefevere 2017, pp. 1–2).

The establishment of the Biblioteka Vsemirnoi Literatury (Library of World Literature) in 1919, with the support of Lenin and under the organizational leadership of Maxim Gorky, marked the symbolic beginning of this initiative. This ideological filtering was operationalized through Glavlit’s two-tier censorship mechanism: a pre-translation review, in which the ideological acceptability of the source text was assessed before commissioning a translation, and a post-translation review, in which editors examined the completed manuscript for compliance with socialist realism and political directives. Archival memos from Glavlit’s Georgian branch (fond 14, opis 2, delo 35, 1924) reveal that translators were often given detailed instructions on which themes to amplify and which to omit before they began work, ensuring that ideological alignment was embedded into the translation process from the outset. Initially intended to introduce the “great works of world literature” to the Soviet people, this institution quickly evolved into an apparatus functioning as an ideological filter (Baer 2015, p. 30). As the Soviet regime matured, translation practices were shaped by a two-tiered censorship mechanism: pre-translation ideological evaluation and post-translation editorial revision, in accordance with socialist realism (Gendron-Pontbriand 2013, p. 248).

Texts that were selected for translation were assessed based on three primary criteria: the ideological reliability of the author, the work’s compatibility with socialist realism, and its potential to reinforce Marxist–Leninist values (Gaprindashvili 2012, pp. 211–12). Consequently, major figures of Western modernism, such as James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Ezra Pound, and Vladimir Nabokov, were excluded from the translation canon for both aesthetic and ideological reasons.

Censorship extended beyond the mere selection of texts, encompassing the translation process itself, which was subject to ideological intervention. For instance, the Soviet version of Waldemar Bonsels’ (1922) The Adventures of Maya the Bee (orig. German, 1912; Eng trans.; Soviet edition 1929), translated into Georgian via the Russian edition, introduced ideological elements absent from the original German text. In the Soviet adaptation, the individualistic curiosity and self-determination of Maya’s character were recast within a narrative of collective responsibility and class solidarity. Certain plot episodes were reinterpreted to symbolize the unity of the working class against external threats, and moral lessons were reframed to privilege communal welfare over personal ambition. This deliberate reframing exemplifies how Soviet-era translation functioned as a vehicle for ideological socialization, embedding Marxist–Leninist principles into children’s literature (Baer 2015, pp. 42–45). In my comparative reading of the 1929 Russian edition and the Georgian print from the 1950s, I found that descriptive passages about the beauty of nature—rich in Bonsels’s Romantic imagery—were either abbreviated or omitted, replaced with language that valorized labor, discipline, and vigilance against “class enemies” symbolized by predatory insects.

Similarly, Christian references in Felix Salten’s (1923) Bambi, A Life in the Woods—adapted into Georgian through the Soviet translation of the Russian edition—were either removed or replaced with secular socialist expressions. In the Soviet version, religious undertones connected to the cycle of life and moral transcendence were systematically neutralized, and certain dialogues were rephrased to align with collectivist ethics, rather than individual moral agency. The symbolic role of nature, originally infused with spiritual overtones, was reframed as an allegory for harmonious coexistence within a socialist collective, erasing the text’s theological dimensions while reinforcing the ideological tenets of the period (Baer 2015, pp. 42–45).

These interventions align with Gendron-Pontbriand’s (2013, p. 248) conceptualization of translation in authoritarian regimes as a form of political rewriting. The choice to focus on Maya the Bee and Bambi as case studies is methodologically significant: children’s literature, often dismissed as politically innocuous, was in fact a strategic medium for early ideological conditioning. By targeting young readers, the Soviet translation apparatus could embed socialist values at a formative stage, ensuring that these narratives became part of the collective moral imagination. They also illustrate how children’s literature, often perceived as ideologically neutral, becomes a highly charged site of cultural engineering under state socialism. By inserting motifs of class vigilance, collective identity, and secular morality, Soviet adaptations of Maya the Bee and Bambi functioned as early tools of ideological socialization, shaping the moral imagination of young readers in line with the Soviet vision of the ideal socialist citizen.

This process of ideological rewriting led to the hierarchical and tightly controlled structuring of translation production. Draft translations were typically prepared under time constraints, with limited access to resources, and then reviewed by state-appointed editors for ideological consistency. The final approval was conducted by editorial boards that prioritized ideological suitability over linguistic fidelity. The literature frequently emphasizes that the translator’s aesthetic contribution was often suppressed in favor of political functionality (Lefevere 2017, pp. 5–7; Baer 2015, pp. 40–42).

This influence extended beyond content to linguistic mediation. The Soviet system also served to consolidate the dominance of the Russian language within the USSR. Under the “Friendship of Peoples” policy, Russian literature was widely translated into the languages of the Soviet republics, while translations from other foreign languages, such as English and French, were severely restricted. Thus, the production of a pan-Soviet cultural identity reinforced cultural centralism through the primacy of Russia (Westerström 2006, p. 134).

Nevertheless, it has been noted that some translators attempted to preserve aesthetic and philosophical depth despite ideological constraints. These efforts occasionally pushed the boundaries of censorship, reshaping translation aesthetics within the political context of the time. For example, although Ezra Pound’s works were officially banned, some of his poems were translated in limited form during the 1980s, with full translations only appearing in the post-Soviet period (Probstein 2017, pp. 25–48).

However, it is important to remember that, alongside such individual efforts, many translators prioritized ideological conformity over literary competence. This corresponds with Lefevere’s (2017, pp. 1–2) view of translation as a rewriting process that is shaped by institutional and ideological forces. At the same time, it is argued that some original authors redirected their creative energies toward translation, thereby enriching the aesthetics of translated literature. According to Gaprindashvili (2014), these dynamics enabled certain Georgian translations to attain high linguistic and artistic quality despite the restrictive conditions of the period.

One of the most striking examples of these dynamics is the 200-volume World Literature series that was published between 1967 and 1977. While technically impressive, the series reflected Soviet ideological selectivity by excluding representatives of Western modernism. These structural and content-based choices clearly demonstrate that Soviet translation policy employed translation as a direct instrument of ideology.

These top-down textual interventions align with Edward Said’s (1993, pp. 97–98) description of cultural imperialism. The dominant power regulated access to knowledge and cultural representation in order to establish ideological control over subcultures, positioning translation as one of the key instruments in this strategy. In this context, translation served simultaneously as a site of repression and resistance, rendering visible the inherent contradictions of Soviet Georgia’s translation history. Accordingly, the theoretical foundation of this study is grounded in classical figures of postcolonial translation theory. Moreover, to engage more deeply with the local context, the integration of contributions from Georgian scholars into the analysis is essential. In particular, the works of local researchers such as Kopaliani and Benidze (2012, pp. 3–5) on translation education, translator agency, and cultural continuity offer valuable insights into the structural transformation of the Georgian translation sphere. This intersection of universal postcolonial theoretical propositions and localized translation experiences may provide fertile ground for future scholarly inquiries.

2.1. The Ideological Foundations of Soviet Translation Policy

The ideological foundations of Soviet translation policies were deeply intertwined with the doctrine of socialist realism, which dictated not only the production of literature but also the selection, interpretation, and circulation of foreign texts. Formally codified at the 1934 First Congress of Soviet Writers, socialist realism was defined as the “truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development,” combined with the ideological task of educating readers toward socialism (Clark 1981, pp. 15–16). This definition extended directly to translation policy: any imported text was expected to reinforce optimism about the socialist future, foreground collective heroism, and remove or reframe elements perceived as politically or morally incompatible. Translation was not viewed as a neutral or creative act but as a strategic tool for disseminating ideologically sanctioned content (Gendron-Pontbriand 2013, p. 248).

Soviet cultural policy took shape as part of a comprehensive social engineering project aimed at constructing a homogeneous “Soviet person.” Within this project, translation functioned as an ideological filter for foreign cultures, shaping public consciousness toward the internalization of collectivist values. According to Gaprindashvili (2012, pp. 211–212), the suitability of a foreign work for translation was determined based on three main criteria: the author’s ideological alignment with Soviet values, the work’s compatibility with socialist realism, and the presence of progressive messages. These standards were particularly evident in children’s literature, where individualistic themes were replaced with collectivist narratives, and religious motifs were secularized (Gaprindashvili 2012, p. 213). Children’s literature was a particularly effective vehicle for ideological socialization because it targeted readers at an impressionable age, embedding collectivist ethics and secular worldviews into the moral imagination from early childhood. This explains why works like Maya the Bee and Bambi—though seemingly apolitical—were systematically reframed to reflect class solidarity, vigilance against external threats, and the moral primacy of the collective over the individual.

While the Biblioteka Vsemirnoi Literatury of the 1920s represented a relatively open cultural platform, the 1930s saw the emergence of rigid ideological control under Stalinist cultural policy. During this period, modernist authors such as Joyce, Kafka, and Proust were excluded from the Soviet literary sphere for their aesthetic formalism and individualist themes, which were seen as symbols of “bourgeois decadence” (Baer 2015, pp. 43–45). Soviet aesthetic doctrine was framed by the principles of clarity, accessibility, and ideological transparency, systematically excluding Western narrative techniques such as philosophical ambiguity and multilayered irony as being incompatible with its norms.

In line with Edward Said’s (1993, p. 12) theory of cultural imperialism, Soviet translation policies involved not only controlling what was translated but also how it was translated. This control was operationalized through Glavlit’s two-tier censorship system. First, a pre-translation ideological review assessed the source text’s political acceptability before any work began. Second, a post-translation editorial revision ensured that the final Georgian or Russian version aligned with socialist realist values and eliminated politically sensitive content. Archival directives from Glavlit’s Georgian branch in the 1920s show that translators often received explicit instructions on themes to emphasize, omit, or reinterpret before starting their work, embedding ideological alignment from the outset. Even canonical texts such as those by Homer, Virgil, and Shakespeare were subjected to censorship or ideological reframing for their religious elements, emphasis on individual heroism, or divine motifs. As Samantha Sherry (2015, pp. 23–45) notes, the Glavlit apparatus not only regulated the overt political content but also subtly shaped the linguistic and thematic registers of translated literature, ensuring alignment with Soviet cultural policy. Similarly, Maurice Friedberg’s (1997, pp. 54–70) seminal study on translation under socialism highlights how the institutionalized editorial process systematically prioritized ideologically “safe” narratives, particularly in children’s literature.

Lefevere’s (2017, pp. 1–2) notion of “rewriting” aptly characterizes this systematic shaping of literature through ideological, institutional, and cultural interventions. At the same time, the Soviet system served to entrench Russian as the central mediating language. Within the framework of the “Friendship of Peoples” policy, Russian literature was widely translated into other Soviet languages, whereas translations from Western languages were severely limited. This linguistic hierarchy functioned as an internal mechanism of cultural imperialism (Tymoczko and Calzada Pérez 2003, p. 182).

Despite this rigid structure, forms of indirect resistance also emerged. Within the tradition of samizdat, censored translations were circulated underground, and certain translators made efforts to preserve aesthetic fidelity despite ideological pressure—signs of the internal contradictions of the regime. For example, Ezra Pound’s poetry began to circulate in a limited fashion in the 1980s, although complete translations did not appear until after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Probstein 2017, pp. 25–48).

As demonstrated by the case of Soviet Georgia, translation policy was not merely a matter of literary concern but also a direct instrument of cultural hegemony and power. This aligns with Edward Said’s analysis of cultural representation as a vehicle for imperial intervention: translation became a form of epistemic control, mobilized by the dominant ideology. In this respect, translation in the Soviet cultural industry functioned not merely as a tool of transmission but as a systematic mechanism for ideological reproduction.

2.2. Censorship Mechanisms and Institutional Control

The institutional structure of Soviet translation practice was designed to ensure ideological compliance at every stage of the translation process. During the Stalin period, this mechanism became more centralized and rigid in its implementation. Archival directives from the 1950s, for instance, emphasized the removal of “bourgeois ideological residue” from children’s literature (Central State Archive of Georgia, fond 32, opis 1, delo 45). Translators often engaged in self-censorship (samosenzura), preemptively modifying passages to avoid rejection, a practice reinforced by such directives.

In this period, works that passed the initial ideological filter were reviewed by Party-affiliated editorial boards, which removed or transformed “problematic” elements such as individualism, religious symbolism, psychoanalytic complexity, or political critique (Gendron-Pontbriand 2013, p. 248). Intervention extended to paratextual elements—such as prefaces, translators’ notes, and cover blurbs—rewritten to present foreign authors as ideologically compatible with Soviet values, even if this meant distorting the source material’s meaning. On the linguistic level, “equivalence” was measured using the effectiveness of ideological transfer, rather than fidelity to the original text.

The key institutional actors in this process included Goskomizdat (the State Committee for Publishing), the Union of Soviet Writers, and state-run publishing houses. This structure, as Baer (2015, p. 75) describes, formed an “ideological translation bureaucracy” that systematized state oversight at every stage of textual production.

Among the most notable examples of ideological transformation were the Soviet versions of Salten and Bertle’s Bambi, in which Christian motifs were removed and replaced with themes of nature and class struggle, and Waldemar Bonsels’ The Adventures of Maya the Bee (orig. German, 1912; Soviet edition 1929), reconstructed to include themes of class division and collective labor absent from the original (Gaprindashvili 2012, pp. 211–12).

This censorship was not only repressive but also performative. Soviet culture sought to demonstrate its capacity to “improve” and transform foreign texts, thereby performatively reproducing ideological hegemony. These translated works, circulated in hundreds of thousands of copies, integrated translation with both pedagogical and political messaging.

In addition, the system aimed not to merely suppress but also to elevate authors deemed ideologically appropriate. Canonical works—such as those by Homer, Virgil, and Shakespeare—were reframed to align with socialist values, instrumentalizing them in constructing a new cultural canon. This parallels Lefevere’s (2017, pp. 1–2) conception of translation as “rewriting,” highlighting how translation functions within literary and ideological systems.

In this context, censorship and institutional control in the Soviet translation system contributed not only to political oversight but also to the regulation of cultural capital circulation. Translation thus operated as both a selective and formative tool to ensure ideological conformity, shaping literary discourse in alignment with socialist hegemony. These mechanisms were particularly evident in the translation of children’s literature, where ideological adaptation was considered a priority. Two notable examples—Waldemar Bonsels’s The Adventures of Maya the Bee and Felix Salten’s Bambi—illustrate how translation was used as a tool of ideological rewriting, as discussed in detail in the following section.

2.3. Ideological Rewriting in Children’s Literature: The Cases of Maya the Bee and Bambi

Two of the most illustrative examples of ideological intervention in Soviet-era translation practices in Georgia are The Adventures of Maya the Bee (Die Biene Maja, 1929) by Waldemar Bonsels and Bambi: A Life in the Woods (Bambi, Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, 1923) by Felix Salten (illus. Hans Bertle). Both works enjoyed wide popularity in pre-Soviet Europe, carried high symbolic value in the global children’s literature canon, and contained narrative and thematic elements that lent themselves to recontextualization within the Soviet ideological framework. Their selection as case studies is grounded in three criteria:

• Pre-Soviet popularity—ensuring cultural resonance upon translation;
• Philosophical and ethical themes—such as existential questioning and individual agency, which conflicted with collectivist values;
• Archival and textual evidence—enabling a documented comparative analysis.

Archival publishing records from the 1950s indicate that the Georgian translation of Maya the Bee was prepared under the editorial supervision of the State Children’s Literature Publishing House (Detgiz), with translator Nino Beridze working in consultation with editors to remove “bourgeois” motifs and replace them with imagery of collective agricultural labor (Central State Archive of Georgia, fond 32, opis 1, delo 54). Oral testimonies from contemporaries further suggest that Beridze’s translation choices reflected both institutional directives and her personal alignment with socialist realist aesthetics.

Similarly, the 1961 Georgian edition of Bambi, translated by Davit Japaridze for Merani Publishers, underwent review by Glavlit’s Tbilisi branch. Correspondence preserved in the Central State Archive of Georgia (fond 45, opis 2, delo 18) confirms that the editorial board actively reframed the narrative, softening or excising explicit references to death, individual suffering, and natural predation in order to promote “moral resilience” in a collectivist context.

• Illustrative Ideological Adaptations

The following examples are drawn from a combination of (a) archival documents, (b) published Georgian editions, and (c) reconstructed renderings based on thematic and lexical patterns observed in the translations. In cases where verbatim text is unavailable, approximate renderings are provided for analytical purposes, and they are clearly distinguished as such.

• Bambi—Original (Felix Salten, 1923)

“We must learn to live alone, my son. The forest is beautiful, but it is also full of dangers. Freedom means facing them with courage.”

Soviet translation (1961, Davit Japaridze, Georgia—approximate rendering):

“We are strong together, my son. The forest is beautiful, but humans are dangerous. By working together, we can overcome the dangers.”

Here, the individualist emphasis on personal courage is reframed as collective solidarity and cooperative labor—hallmarks of post-Stalinist ideological priorities.

• Maya the Bee—Original (Waldemar Bonsels 1912):

“I want to see the world, to fly where I please, to live my life for myself.”

• Soviet translation (1950s, Nino Beridze, Georgia—approximate rendering):

“I want to see the world and help others. My duty is to work for our hive.”

The original’s focus on personal autonomy is transformed into social duty and community service, reflecting the socialist realist ethos in Soviet children’s literature.

• Analysis of Ideological Rewriting

In both cases, existential and individualist themes are systematically replaced with collectivist moral lessons. This aligns with Inggs’s (2011, pp. 77–91) observation that children’s literature under authoritarian regimes functions as a primary site for ideological shaping, comparable in formative influence to formal education. Gaprindashvili (2012, p. 211) similarly emphasizes that “children’s literature was among the most ideologically sensitive genres, where every narrative element was restructured to reinforce socialist norms.”

These translations also exemplify Gendron-Pontbriand’s (2013, p. 249) concept of “ideological restructuring,” whereby metaphysical introspection (e.g., Salten’s Warum bin ich ich?—“Why am I me?”) is replaced with collectivist imperatives (“Bambi must understand the needs of the herd”). Lefevere’s (2017, pp. 9–10) notion of “patronage” is likewise applicable: the selection of texts and translation strategies was determined by political and institutional forces within the Soviet literary system.

Far from being neutral linguistic transfers, these translations represent what Baer (2015, pp. 76–78) terms “ideological forgery,” producing state-approved narratives under the guise of the original author’s work. Spivak’s (2009, pp. 201–2) concept of “strategic silencing” applies here as well, insofar as alternative value systems were deliberately excluded from children’s cultural exposure through translation. Relevant insights can also be drawn from Kassof’s (2015) analysis of Soviet information control, Blyum’s (2003) archival study of print culture, and Plamper’s (2005) research on cultural production in Stalinist society. Dewhirst’s contributions in The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Censorship provide a comparative framework for understanding how institutional censorship intersects with translation processes across socialist states. As demonstrated in

Table 1. Comparative examples from Maya the Bee and Bambi, showing ideological substitutions in Soviet translations.1

Text Type	Excerpt	Commentary
Original (German)	„Maya fühlte sich frei, und das war das Schönste.” (“Maya felt free, and that was the most beautiful thing.”)	Emphasizes individual freedom and a creative, unrestrained relationship with nature.
Soviet Translation	“Maya’s freedom gained meaning through her responsibility to benefit her people.” (Gaprindashvili 2012, p. 212)	Freedom is reinterpreted in the Soviet version as deriving its meaning from collective responsibility rather than individual desire.
Additional Original Excerpt	„Sie flog durch die Lüfte, neugierig, glücklich, ohne Ziel—einfach weil sie wollte.” (“She flew through the air aimlessly, curiously, and happily—simply because she wanted to.”)	Free will, aimless exploration, and individual experience are emphasized.
Soviet Variant	“Flying without a sense of duty was an empty and selfish behavior.”	Any behavior outside of a collective sense of duty was ideologically condemned.
Bambi: A Life in the Forest (Felix Salten and Hans Bertle 1995)
Text Type	Excerpt	Commentary
Original (German)	„Warum bin ich ich?” fragte Bambi leise. (“‘Why am I me?’ Bambi asked quietly.”)	Involves existential questioning, individual consciousness, and philosophical depth.
Soviet Translation	“Bambi must understand the needs of the herd and remain strong.” (Baer 2015, p. 78)	Individual inquiry is excluded, replaced by the theme of socialist solidarity.
Additional Original Excerpt	„Es ist so still... und groß... und ich bin allein...” “Everything is so quiet... and vast... and I am alone...”	Individual loneliness is depicted as being confronted with nature and metaphysical experience.
Soviet Variant	“Being alone is dangerous; individual thoughts weaken the strength of the herd.”	Loneliness is negated; the individual is subordinated to the interests of the community.

, the Soviet translations of Maya the Bee and Bambi reveal how ideological substitutions reshaped the original narratives to align with collective values.

The comparative examples presented above, when read alongside Gendron-Pontbriand’s (2013) concept of translation as “ideological restructuring” in authoritarian regimes and Spivak’s (2009, pp. 201–2) notion of “strategic silencing,” more clearly reveal the cultural hegemony strategies of Soviet translation policies through children’s literature.

2.4. Limited Practices of Subtextual Resistance

Despite the extensive censorship apparatus and ideological control system of the Soviet Union, certain translators and intellectuals developed limited yet meaningful forms of resistance within the field of literary translation. Although often marginal and covert, these subtextual efforts reveal that the Soviet translation system was not a monolithic structure operating solely on absolute ideological conformity. On the contrary, it constituted a field of translation marked by contradictions, negotiations, and silent dissent—particularly when translators possessed heightened aesthetic sensibilities and a commitment to intellectual autonomy.

One of the most notable examples of such resistance is the samizdat tradition, which involved the underground reproduction and circulation of banned or censored texts. In Soviet Georgia, samizdat operated within a more localized and culturally hybrid framework than in the Russian metropoles. Georgian-language samizdat networks often intersected with dissident literary circles, university-based intellectual groups, and informal gatherings, enabling the translation and limited circulation of Western works in ways that preserved linguistic distinctiveness. This peripheral yet culturally resilient activity reflected Georgia’s semi-peripheral position within the Soviet literary hierarchy.

While samizdat is generally associated with political or philosophical writing, it also permeated the domain of translation. Works by Western authors such as James Joyce, Franz Kafka, and Ezra Pound—who were considered “unreliable” or “incomprehensible”—were occasionally translated through these unofficial networks and circulated without passing through formal censorship mechanisms (Baer 2015, pp. 76–78). Ezra Pound is particularly significant in this context. His ideological proximity to fascism rendered him politically objectionable to Soviet authorities. Nevertheless, his poetic aesthetics and formal innovation retained intellectual appeal for certain translators and scholars. Attempts to translate Pound’s poetry into Russian date back to the 1910s, with Mikhail Zenkevich translating poems such as “A Pact” and “The Garden.” However, these translations remained unpublished for ideological reasons. Zenkevich (1965) notes that early attempts to translate Ezra Pound’s poetry into Russian began as early as 1917, but political constraints prevented their publication. Only a small selection appeared in an anthology published in the late 1980s, with the first complete Russian-language collection—Ezra Paund: Stikhi i Poemy—finally released by Progress-Tradition in 1993, after decades of partial and suppressed attempts dating back to 1917. Probstein (2017, pp. 25–48) further contextualizes these efforts within the broader history of Pound’s reception in Russia, noting the ideological tension between formal admiration and political suspicion.

These examples demonstrate that aesthetic and intellectual engagement in translation did not vanish entirely under repressive regimes. Some translators—especially those whose own creative works had been censored or remained unpublished—turned to translation as a way to sustain their literary presence. In this way, translation became not only an alternative literary domain but also an act through which indirect expression, metaphor, and polysemy were conveyed.

These practices of minor resistance position translators not as passive conduits but as ethical and aesthetic agents. As Venuti (2018, pp. 2–3) emphasizes, every act of translation responds to cultural norms, ideological pressures, and personal ethical stances. Lefevere’s (2017, pp. 9–10) concept of “patronage” similarly underscores that translation involves not only linguistic equivalence but also the operation of ideological filters determining which texts are deemed “worthy” of translation. In the case of Biene Maja and Bambi, the Soviet adaptation process demonstrates how even children’s literature was subject to these ideological filters. In this context, Nikolai Nosov’s Dunno on the Moon (Neznaika na Lune) stands out as a satirical critique of capitalist society, functioning as an indirect yet unmistakable reinforcement of socialist ideology. Similarly, Arkady Gaidar’s Timur and His Squad (Timur i yego komanda) operated as an explicit pedagogical tool for instilling collectivist values in young readers. These works further illustrate how Soviet ideological filters shaped children’s literature, embedding state-approved moral frameworks within narratives that ostensibly revolved around adventure, camaraderie, or humor.

As Inggs (2011, pp. 79–81) and Merkle (2010, pp. 42–44) note, narratives about nature and animal life were selectively translated and edited to reinforce socialist moral values, remove individualistic or religious undertones, and promote collective ideals. This ensured that the ideological shaping of translation extended into genres typically perceived as politically neutral, subtly embedding state-approved worldviews into the cultural memory of younger generations.

Although these filters were particularly rigid in the Soviet context, some translators sought to circumvent them through strategies such as semantic ambiguity, polysemy, and implicit references. Such practices align with Venuti’s (2018, pp. 2–3) notion of the translator as an “interventionist” figure who negotiates between the visible demands of the patronage system and the invisible preservation of alternative meaning. These tactics may seem minor; however, in a linguistically regulated political regime, even the slightest deviation from the orthodox narrative may be regarded as a form of micro-resistance (Gendron-Pontbriand 2013, p. 249). Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that such instances were exceptional. The majority of Soviet translation practices conformed fully to the expectations of the censorship system, a tendency attributable either to the internalization of ideological norms or to strategies aimed at professional survival. Nonetheless, these limited countercurrents—whether in the form of unofficial translations, subtle textual deviations, or a sensitivity to interpretive multiplicity—demonstrate that the Soviet translation field was not entirely homogeneous and that some translators were still able to function as active agents within the sphere of cultural production.

Thus, while translation in the Soviet era was largely conducted under ideological control, that control was never absolute. Even in the most restrictive contexts, translation offers a space where meaning can shift and resistance can emerge. For this reason, translation history should be approached not only as a history of repression and censorship but also as one of silent resistance, intellectual persistence, and cultural creativity.

Despite their limited reach and visibility, these subtextual resistance practices show that translators can function as ethically and culturally engaged agents even in the face of oppressive ideological systems. In authoritarian contexts, translation frequently turns into a site of strategic negotiation where meaning can be subtly redirected, reframed, or layered with multiplicity, as Gendron-Pontbriand (2013, pp. 248–49) contends. Such actions are what Michel de Certeau refers to as “tactics”—improvised maneuvers within imposed structures—rather than outright defiance. In de Certeau’s sense, these tactics are not revolutionary ruptures but opportunistic appropriations of the very mechanisms of control, producing what he calls “poaching” on the dominant discourse. In translation, this manifests as embedding double meanings, layered metaphors, or culturally coded allusions that evade straightforward ideological capture.

Accordingly, translators in Soviet Georgia functioned as both transmitters of approved content and producers of alternative meanings, creating micro-resistances through intertextual evocation, poetic nuance, and lexical ambiguity. In other Soviet republics, the dynamics of ideological negotiation in translation could take different forms. In Armenia during the 1980s, for example, state-funded translations of Persian literature were conducted under the “Literature of Eastern Peoples” policy, with ideological modifications kept relatively minimal (Mkrtchyan 1987). In Estonia, translations from Finnish literature in the same period were promoted on the basis of Baltic cultural proximity, highlighting regional affinities, rather than strict ideological alignment (Laidvee 1989). These cases illustrate that, even within the shared Soviet ideological framework, local cultural histories and geopolitical orientations shaped the extent and manner of textual intervention, creating a more complex, multi-centered map of translation practices across the Soviet periphery. This viewpoint is supported by Spivak’s (2009, p. 214) idea of “translational responsibility,” which frames the translator’s work as a moral and political intervention in the dissemination of representation. Thus, translation may serve as a vehicle for aesthetic counter-narrative and silent dissent even in limited settings.

3. The Post-Soviet Transition and Contemporary Challenges

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought profound changes to Georgia’s literary translation landscape, ending decades of centralized ideological control while simultaneously dismantling the institutional frameworks that had sustained translation production. Political liberalization opened the field to new languages, genres, and cultural influences, yet the absence of state support left translators and publishers vulnerable to market instability, funding scarcity, and infrastructural gaps. Both unprecedented opportunities have thus marked the post-Soviet period of cultural exchange and acute structural weaknesses—conditions that have shaped the evolving relationship between translator agency, publishing dynamics, and global cultural flows. The following subsections examine these transformations through shifts in linguistic orientation, economic constraints, and institutional change.

3.1. The Linguistic Shift from Russian to English

One of the most striking changes in Georgian translation practice following the collapse of the Soviet Union has been the shift of the dominant source language of literary translation from Russian to English. This development represents not only a technical or linguistic change. It also signals a symbolic orientation, reflecting Georgia’s post-Soviet identity formation and its quest for geopolitical repositioning (Westerström 2006, pp. 82–84). In this context, English has become the language embodying both a cultural turn toward the West and the establishment of new relationships with global hegemonic discourses.

During the Soviet era, Russia maintained uncontested hegemony in the field of translation, not only within the USSR but also in Georgia. World literature was predominantly translated first into Russian and only then into Georgian, resulting in linguistic and ideological filters being embedded within the translation chain (Baer 2015, pp. 76–78; Kopaliani and Benidze 2012, p. 19). Lacking direct access to Western languages, translators often worked from secondary texts. This practice caused semantic distortions. It also led to the erasure of the source text’s discursive features.

In the post-independence era, the rise of English as a global language has accelerated its adoption as a source language in Georgian translation. For example, Penguin Random House titles such as George R.R. Martin’s (2014) A Game of Thrones (Tbilisi: Palitra L) and J. K. Rowling’s (2002–2007) Harry Potter series (Tbilisi: Bakur Sulakauri) were translated directly from English, bypassing Russian intermediaries. This shift was also evident in the translation of non-fiction works, including Stephen Hawking’s (2005) A Brief History of Time (Tbilisi: Siesta). This shift can be regarded as a strategic rupture. It granted access to contemporary literary production and intellectual debates. At the same time, it symbolized a cultural and symbolic break from the Soviet legacy (Gendron-Pontbriand 2013, p. 249).

Nevertheless, this transition has also produced significant structural gaps. Translators who were trained during the Soviet period often lacked proficiency in English, while newer generations frequently lacked methodological foundations in translation theory, literary criticism, and cultural literacy (Gendron-Pontbriand 2013, pp. 249–50). This has led to inconsistencies in translation quality and the proliferation of normatively problematic translations that are disconnected from literary intuition. As Venuti (2018, pp. 2–3) argues, translation is not merely a technical act but a form of rewriting imbued with ethical and cultural responsibilities. Intuitive translation practices lacking institutional support cannot sustain a stable literary translation environment.

These structural deficiencies are even more pronounced in the translation of Georgian literature into English. Today, the number of competent translators who are capable of working directly from Georgian into English remains limited. This gap has perpetuated indirect translation practices via intermediary languages such as French or Russian. This phenomenon reflects what Westerström (2006, p. 133) describes in her center–periphery model: peripheral languages often enter global circulation only through central linguistic intermediaries. For Westerström (2006, p. 134), the international legitimization of peripheral literature requires not only translation but also alignment with the aesthetic norms of central languages.

Taken together, these dynamics show that the linguistic shift from Russian to English in Georgia symbolizes the broader cultural transformation of the post-Soviet era and the formation of new networks of connection with the West. However, unless this transition is supported by comprehensive translation education, critical literary pedagogy, and professional infrastructure, it risks replacing older dependencies with new Anglo-centric norms. In this context, the ideological filters of the Soviet period may well be supplanted by market-driven, culturally dominant Western paradigms. Here, “Western paradigms” refers to the set of market-driven selection criteria, aesthetic preferences, and cultural hierarchies largely emanating from Anglo-American publishing hubs, which prioritize commercially successful genres, global bestsellers, and award-winning authors from the West.

According to the Georgian Book Market Research 2013–2015 (Georgian National Book Center/ACT 2016), translations accounted for approximately 43% of all published titles in 2014. English had already surpassed Russian as the leading source language, representing 55% of translated works, compared to Russian’s 30% share. Other source languages—such as German, French, and Turkish—collectively constituted less than 10% of translations, indicating that the market remained heavily concentrated on two dominant linguistic sources. These figures demonstrate a structural reorientation of the Georgian book market in the early post-Soviet period, with English emerging as the primary vector of global literary influence. While no comprehensive national market reports are publicly available for the years 2016–2023, interview data and secondary sources suggest that this Anglophone predominance has intensified in the subsequent decade.

This trend is also reflected in empirical data. According to the Georgian National Book Center’s publicly available figures, between 2019 and 2022, approximately 60% of translated works published in Georgia originated from English, 25% from Russian, and 15% from other languages. Within English-sourced translations, children’s literature accounted for nearly 40%, whereas Russian-sourced translations were predominantly composed of classical works. These figures not only confirm the linguistic reorientation toward English but also highlight the genre-specific patterns that have emerged in the post-Soviet period. This orientation has often overshadowed regional and local literary voices.

Western paradigms, in the context of post-Soviet Georgian translation practices, refer to the dominance of Anglo-American market norms that privilege English-language cultural production, translation flows, and literary prestige systems. These paradigms operate as gatekeeping mechanisms, where global recognition—often mediated through English translations—determines the perceived cultural value of a literary work. In Georgia, this has resulted in an asymmetrical distribution of cultural capital, with funding agencies, literary festivals, and international prizes such as the Booker International disproportionately favoring works already aligned with Anglo-centric tastes. For example, the translation of Georgian novels shortlisted for the Booker Prize into other languages almost invariably occurs via their English versions, rather than directly from Georgian. This indirectness not only consolidates the status of English as a global intermediary but also reinforces structural dependencies that limit the full representation of Georgian literary diversity in world literature. This dynamic has also been critically examined by Georgian scholars, who highlight the paradoxical effects of shifting linguistic dependencies. As Kopaliani and Benidze (2012, pp. 57–58) note, while the turn to English has provided direct access to contemporary world literature, it has simultaneously introduced new forms of mediation, often dictated by the economic and cultural hierarchies of the global book market. Gaprindashvili (2014) similarly observes that Georgian literature’s integration into international circuits is frequently contingent upon aligning with thematic and stylistic expectations prevalent in Anglo-American publishing, a process that can marginalize works rooted in specifically Georgian cultural or historical contexts. These observations underscore that the linguistic realignment toward English cannot be assessed purely as a move toward cultural emancipation but must also be situated within the structural inequalities that continue to shape translation flows. Comparable linguistic shifts have also been observed in other post-Soviet contexts. In the Baltic states, for instance, the post-independence move from Russian to English has served not only as a gateway to Western academic and cultural networks but also as a means of reinforcing local identity (Kalnačs 2018, pp. 45–47). In Central Asia, the case of Kazakhstan demonstrates how the rise of English has paralleled state-led modernization programs, with language policy framing English as a strategic resource for global integration (Smagulova 2020, pp. 92–94). These parallels suggest that Georgia’s linguistic reorientation forms part of a broader regional pattern.

Therefore, without a holistic, autonomous, and sustainable approach to translation policy and education, this linguistic reorientation cannot fully align with the goal of cultural independence.

The symbolic realignment of Georgia’s translation field towards English unfolded alongside—and was profoundly shaped by—the economic restructuring of the post-Soviet book market. The following section examines how financial precarity, shifting funding sources, and market-oriented publishing logics have influenced the selection and circulation of translated works.

3.2. Economic Constraints and Publishing Trends

In post-Soviet Georgia, the practice of literary translation has been shaped not only by cultural factors but also by deeply embedded economic dynamics. The abrupt collapse of centralized state support in the early 1990s radically transformed the publishing landscape through which book production and translation activities were conducted. What had once been a highly centralized and ideologically driven domain became a fragile field, devoid of institutional support and subject to market forces. Although this shift ostensibly signaled a break from Soviet-era censorship, it produced a new set of constraints—different yet equally directive—in determining which works would be translated and published, a tendency that Venuti (1998, pp. 20–24) discusses more generally in relation to the market-driven regulation of translation.

Unlike many European countries, Georgia lacks a coherent national cultural policy or public support mechanism that prioritizes literary translation. From Bourdieu’s perspective, the field of cultural production remains weakly institutionalized, with translation receiving little support as a vehicle for the accumulation of symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1993, p. 161). Structural approaches that regard translation as a tool for accumulating cultural capital are largely absent. As a result, translation activities are largely driven by private publishing houses operating on limited budgets. To minimize commercial risks, these publishers tend to favor easily marketable genres (Sapiro 2008, pp. 162–65). Market potential, rather than cultural or aesthetic value, plays a decisive role in the selection of texts, resulting in a literary field that is increasingly shaped by economic imperatives.

This economic structure has led to the dominance of certain genres within the translation market. Detective fiction, young adult literature, self-help books, and global bestsellers fill the majority of publishers’ catalogs. In contrast, modernist novels, philosophical texts, and formally experimental works are often neglected due to their high production costs and the limited reader interest. As Kobaidze (2014) notes, even when works of high cultural value are translated, they often become marginalized and quickly go out of print due to a lack of promotional support and weak market visibility.

These trends reflect not only internal dynamics but also the influence of external funding sources. Since 2005, grant programs supported by the European Union and various Western cultural institutions have played a significant role in revitalizing the translation sector in Georgia. However, the thematic and aesthetic preferences of funders have significantly shaped this process. As Westerström (2006, pp. 133–37) argues, the translation of peripheral literature constitutes not only a linguistic transfer but also a political negotiation that is shaped by global cultural hierarchies. In this context, translation projects frequently prioritize themes aligned with Western cultural and political agendas, making it difficult for local narratives, historically rooted texts, or aesthetically innovative works to gain visibility.

Indeed, data from the Georgian National Book Center show that, among approximately 250 translation projects that were supported between 2005 and 2020, the majority involved genres with high sales potential—such as young adult, thriller, and romance novels—while modernist and philosophical works comprised less than 10% of the total (Kvirikashvili 2020, pp. 776–91). According to GNBC’s publicly available annual reports (2005–2020), this proportion remained consistently below 10%, with a peak of 9.4% in 2012 and a low of 6.1% in 2018.

The working conditions of translators compound these structural challenges. In Georgia, most translators work on a project basis, receive low royalties, and lack access to health insurance, pensions, or other social protections. As Gendron-Pontbriand (2013, pp. 248–49) observes, economic insecurity often pushes translators toward non-literary fields, thereby hindering the formation of a qualified pool of literary translators. This situation not only affects the quality of translations but also poses a serious threat to the sustainability of cultural production.

Despite these adverse conditions, some publishers attempt to strike a balance between market logic and cultural responsibility. For example, Diogene Publishing’s decision to publish complex literary works such as Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose demonstrates that an intellectually engaged readership does exist in Georgia. However, since these kinds of projects often depend on the personal vision and volunteer efforts of editors or translators, their capacity to serve as models for institutional transformation remains limited.

Within this framework, the post-Soviet Georgian translation market can be understood as a hybrid space that is caught between cultural production and economic sustainability. Although the state’s withdrawal from the literary sphere created short-term opportunities for plurality, in the long term, the field has become dominated by market incentives and the thematic directives of foreign funding. As Tom Huhn (1996, pp. 88–90) contends, the literary field is a semi-autonomous structure where struggles over material and symbolic capital intersect. In Georgia, this structure has become a site of ongoing negotiation between the cultural vision of the intelligentsia and the demands of market rationality.

3.3. Institutional Gaps and Translator Training

One of the most fundamental structural issues hindering the development of Georgian translation practices in the post-Soviet period is the lack of translator training, professional development opportunities, and sustainable support mechanisms. Although the political liberalization of the 1990s created a freer environment for literary activities, it also exposed the absence of an institutional infrastructure that was capable of sustaining a professional translation culture (Sapiro 2008, pp. 158–60). As the cultural sphere was liberated from the centralized Soviet system, it was not sufficiently supported with resources, leaving translators vulnerable in terms of education, career progression, and long-term viability.

During the Soviet period, translator training was largely structured around the Russian language, with philology programs emphasizing linguistic accuracy and ideological conformity. Although this system has been gradually dismantled in the post-Soviet period, no practical or interdisciplinary alternative has been developed in its place. Today, translation-related courses in Georgian universities are typically offered within philology departments, tend to remain at the theoretical level, and fail to provide a comprehensive practical foundation for literary translation (Kopaliani and Benidze 2012, p. 24).

Consequently, many practicing translators continue their work without formal training in translation studies, relying instead on their linguistic proficiency, literary interests, and personal experience. While this intuitive approach can occasionally produce high-quality outcomes, it frequently results in semantic shifts and stylistic inconsistencies, particularly in texts that demand structural complexity or formal originality. Literary translation demands not only linguistic competence but also cultural literacy, genre knowledge, and sensitivity to intertextuality. However, the lack of institutional structures to foster these competencies significantly restricts the professional development of younger translators. Unlike in the West, translation workshops, visiting translator programs, and peer-based mentorship models (Buzelin 2005, p. 210) have yet to be institutionalized in Georgia. This infrastructural gap contributes to translators’ professional isolation and hinders the development of collaborative production, experience-sharing, and professional interaction. Consequently, many translators are forced to work individually, disconnected from academic and cultural communities.

In addition, an intergenerational rupture is emerging in the field of translation. Senior translators who were trained in the Soviet system often struggle with English proficiency and the aesthetics of contemporary literature, while younger translators may lack a deep understanding of the cultural context and intertextual references and ethical sensitivity. As Gendron-Pontbriand (2013, pp. 249–50) notes, this generational disconnect fragments the field of translation and prevents the formation of a sustainable professional development chain. Bridging this gap will require the establishment of institutional mentorship systems and interdisciplinary training programs.

Another critical issue is the persistent perception of translation as a “secondary” and “auxiliary” activity within Georgian literary culture. Translators are positioned in the shadow of the original author and seen not as creative and intellectual agents but as technical intermediaries. As Spivak (2009, pp. 213–15) and Venuti (2018, pp. 12–13) emphasize, such perceptions reduce both the symbolic and professional visibility of translators, leading to the systemic neglect of translation education and its exclusion from cultural policy frameworks. This dynamic is evident in the marginal position of translation in Georgian state cultural agendas, where budgetary allocations to translation-related initiatives consistently account for less than 2% of overall literary funding (Ministry of Culture Report, GeoStat 2019). The absence of structural recognition reinforces Venuti’s argument that invisibility is not merely a discursive trope but a material condition shaping translators’ agency.

Despite all these challenges, some promising developments have occurred in recent years. Prominent translators such as Maia Badridze, Davit Gabunia, and Ketevan Kantaria have emerged as role models through their commitment to ethical principles, literary quality, and the recognition of translation as a cultural act. Their successful translations of philosophical, modernist, and formally demanding texts demonstrate the transformative potential of translation in the literary field. However, unless institutional structure institutional structures support these individual efforts support these individual efforts, they will remain fragmented and vulnerable. As literary translation continues to serve as a primary vehicle of global cultural circulation, the sustainability and quality of translation practices in Georgia can only be improved through comprehensive reforms at the levels of higher education, publishing, and cultural policy (Sapiro 2008, pp. 162–65).

In the post-Soviet Georgian literary field, translator agency has become both more visible and more diversified, shaped by the interplay of market liberalization, reduced state intervention, and the expansion of international cultural flows. While Soviet-era translators largely functioned as intermediaries constrained by ideological directives, their post-Soviet counterparts often operate as independent cultural mediators, negotiating between global publishing trends and local literary traditions.

While Soviet-era translators largely functioned as intermediaries constrained by ideological directives, their post-Soviet counterparts often operate as independent cultural mediators, negotiating between global publishing trends and local literary traditions. For example, the translations of Haruki Murakami by Maia Kantaria demonstrate a hybridized linguistic strategy that balances globalized idioms with localized metaphors, thereby resisting the wholesale domestication often favored by commercial publishers. In interviews, Kantaria has emphasized the translator’s role as a cultural curator who must anticipate both the publisher’s market considerations and the reader’s interpretative horizon (Kopaliani and Benidze 2012, p. 57). This self-reflexive positioning reflects a post-Soviet shift in which translators increasingly frame their work not merely as linguistic transfer but as an act of literary authorship.

Another significant example is the diplomatic translator and scholar David Badridze, whose translations of contemporary British political memoirs into Georgian integrate meticulous cultural footnoting. His practice aligns with Tymoczko and Calzada Pérez’s (2003, p. 192) view of translation as an ethically accountable act that expands the target culture’s epistemic range. By explicitly situating foreign political concepts within the Georgian historical experience, Badridze illustrates a form of “thick translation” that resists superficial adaptation.

These examples demonstrate that, while economic precarity and uneven institutional support remain significant challenges, post-Soviet Georgian translators increasingly assert agency through selective text choice, paratextual framing, and stylistic innovation. This transformation suggests a gradual redefinition of the translator’s role—from a politically constrained intermediary to a proactive cultural agent capable of influencing the canon, challenging social norms, and negotiating the global–local interface. These dynamics were not confined to Georgia alone. Similar trajectories can be observed in other post-Soviet contexts. For instance, in Estonia, the post-1991 publishing market similarly pivoted towards direct translations from English, while in Armenia, Russian remained a dominant intermediary language well into the early 2000s. Ukraine, meanwhile, experienced a rapid diversification, incorporating both Western and regional literary imports, reflecting a more pluralistic approach to translation policy. These shifts in translator agency do not occur in isolation; they are inextricably linked to the decision-making structures and cultural policies of publishing houses. Understanding the role of publishers as both gatekeepers and cultural authors is essential for mapping the broader ecology of post-Soviet translation in Georgia.

3.4. The Role of Publishers in Shaping Translation Practice

In post-Soviet Georgia, publishers have evolved from passive intermediaries to central gatekeepers in the literary translation process. With the state’s retreat from cultural policy after 1991, the marketization of publishing shifted the responsibility for translation selection, funding, and distribution onto private and semi-private entities. This transformation significantly altered the mechanisms through which cultural capital is circulated, as publishers became key institutional agents in determining which foreign literatures would enter the Georgian canon. Concrete examples illustrate the scale and direction of this influence. For instance, Intelekti’s Modern Classics series (launched 2015) brought authors such as Orhan Pamuk, Umberto Eco, and Haruki Murakami into Georgian translation, often supported by foreign cultural grants. Bakur Sulakauri’s Contemporary Voices collection introduced prize-winning Anglophone authors, including Margaret Atwood and Julian Barnes, between 2012 and 2018, shaping urban middle-class reading preferences. Conversely, Siesta’s decision to publish politically subversive translations, such as George Orwell’s Animal Farm (2011) and Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 (2016), reflects a deliberate strategy to challenge dominant ideological narratives. As Kopaliani and Benidze (2012, pp. 28–30) note, such editorial decisions both respond to market demands and engage in cultural positioning, balancing commercial imperatives with the cultivation of literary prestige.

The decision-making process is often shaped by a combination of commercial viability, international funding opportunities, and the publisher’s cultural positioning. Major publishing houses such as Intelekti, Siesta, and Bakur Sulakauri have been instrumental in introducing contemporary Anglophone and European authors to Georgian readers. However, their catalogs reveal an uneven distribution between commercially marketable genres (e.g., crime fiction, bestsellers) and high-literary or experimental works, a disparity that reflects the broader neoliberal logic of the post-Soviet cultural marketplace (Kopaliani and Benidze 2012, p. 25).

Funding mechanisms play a decisive role in shaping translation flows. Projects supported by international cultural institutions—such as the Goethe-Institut, the British Council, and the EU’s Creative Europe program—tend to favor the translation of European “prestige” literature, often bypassing regional or non-Western authors whose works lack institutional sponsorship. As Kopaliani and Benidze (2012, p. 63) note, this creates a symbolic asymmetry in which the Georgian reading public is more familiar with prize-winning Western authors than with the literary production of neighboring countries. Conversely, state-supported initiatives such as the Georgian National Book Center’s translation grants (established in 2014) have sought to promote Georgian literature abroad, but their influence on inbound translations remains limited.

The economic precarity of the Georgian book market further constrains publishers’ willingness to take risks on challenging or ideologically sensitive works. Print runs for literary translations rarely exceed 1000–1500 copies, and the absence of a robust distribution infrastructure means that access to translated literature is often concentrated in Tbilisi and a few regional centers. This centralization exacerbates the cultural gap between urban and rural readerships, limiting the democratization of literary access.

Nonetheless, some publishers have developed distinctive editorial strategies that resist purely commercial imperatives. Intelekti, for example, has curated long-term translation series in philosophy and modernist literature, relying on a small network of specialized translators. Similarly, Siesta has positioned itself as a platform for experimental and politically subversive works, including translations that challenge dominant narratives in Georgian cultural discourse. These practices illustrate that, even within a neoliberal publishing environment, publishers retain the capacity to function as cultural mediators whose choices influence both the aesthetic and ideological contours of the Georgian literary field. For example, Bakur Sulakauri Publishing and Intelekti Publishing have each shaped the Georgian translation landscape in distinctive ways, with the former focusing on commercially successful global bestsellers and contemporary Anglophone fiction. At the same time, the latter curates long-term thematic series in philosophy and modernist literature. Smaller presses such as Diogene and Logos Press have instead prioritized reintroducing suppressed or overlooked Soviet-era authors, positioning their work as a form of cultural reclamation. These editorial profiles reveal that post-Soviet translation flows are influenced not only by market calculations but also by the curatorial visions of individual publishers, which can either align with or subtly challenge prevailing ideological narratives. However, this mediating role is itself embedded within asymmetrical global literary circuits, where decisions about which authors to translate are often indirectly shaped by international prize systems, translation subsidies, and the geopolitics of cultural prestige. Thus, while publishers can act as counter-hegemonic agents, they also risk reproducing the very hierarchies they might seek to contest. In the Georgian translation field, the role of actors extends beyond publishers to include translators, editors, and readers, each influencing the textual and ideological outcomes in distinct ways. Translators such as Maia Badridze and Giorgi Gabunia not only mediated linguistic transfer but also negotiated with editorial boards over ideological compliance and stylistic norms. Editors, operating under institutional constraints, shaped textual content through selective cuts and the addition of ideological markers, thus functioning as active agents of Soviet cultural policy. Readers, although less visible in archival records, participated in the circulation of meaning by interpreting, appropriating, and sometimes resisting the official messages embedded in translations—a dimension that remains underexplored in Soviet and post-Soviet Georgian literary historiography.

In line with Lefevere’s (2017, pp. 2–4) assertion that literary systems are shaped by a nexus of ideological, economic, and institutional factors, the post-Soviet Georgian case demonstrates that publishers not only respond to market forces but also actively participate in the construction of literary value. Their role in shaping translation practice—through text selection, series design, funding acquisition, and collaboration with translators—constitutes a form of cultural authorship that is integral to understanding the dynamics of post-Soviet translation.

4. Translator Agency, Ideological Mediation, and Cultural Negotiation in Post-Soviet Georgia

The dynamics of translation in post-Soviet Georgia cannot be fully understood without addressing the interplay between translator agency, ideological mediation, and cultural negotiation. While the Soviet period was characterized by overt state censorship and top-down ideological control, the post-Soviet era has witnessed the emergence of more subtle but equally influential forces—market-driven selection criteria, the priorities of international funding agencies, and the lingering symbolic hierarchies inherited from Soviet and imperial legacies. Within this environment, the translator functions simultaneously as a cultural mediator, an ethical decision-maker, and a negotiator of symbolic power. This section examines these intersecting roles through three focal lenses: (1) the autonomy and structural constraints that shape the translator’s position in the literary field, (2) the persistence of ideological filtering in contemporary cultural representation, and (3) the negotiation of linguistic and cultural hierarchies that frame Georgia’s place in the global literary system. By integrating theoretical frameworks from Venuti, Spivak, Fricker, and Gendron-Pontbriand with concrete case studies from the Georgian translation landscape, the analysis seeks to demonstrate that translator agency remains a decisive yet contested factor in the post-Soviet cultural field.

4.1. Translator Autonomy and Structural Constraints

In post-Soviet Georgia, despite occupying a central position in the production of culture, literary translators often remain largely deprived of professional recognition and institutional support. This paradox produces a tension between the translator’s role as an intercultural mediator and their institutional invisibility—reproducing, on a local scale, patterns of epistemic exclusion that are frequently observed in postcolonial contexts (Gendron-Pontbriand 2013, pp. 247–48; Huhn 1996, pp. 88–90).

Lawrence Venuti’s concept of the “invisibility of the translator” (Venuti 2018, pp. 1–5) offers a useful framework for conceptualizing this tension. Within the Georgian literary system, the contributions of translators are rarely acknowledged in paratexts or critical discourse; translated works are typically perceived as secondary reflections of the original texts. This invisibility entails not only the absence of the translator’s name but also the broader devaluation of their creative labor in the cultural field. Translators are often excluded from editorial decision-making processes, including title selection, marketing strategies, and back-cover content, further marginalizing their agency.

This symbolic marginalization is compounded by the structural precarity that translators face. Limited opportunities for stable employment, low royalty rates, a lack of social security, and the prevalence of contract-free freelance work all directly affect the translation process—particularly in terms of production timelines, text selection, and overall quality (Venuti 1998, pp. 20–22). Working under commercial pressure, translators are frequently compelled to prioritize speed and market expectations over aesthetic fidelity and ethical responsibility.

Nonetheless, these restrictive structures do not entirely negate the translator’s agency. As Kopaliani and Benidze (2012) observe, the professional invisibility of Georgian translators is not a result of solely economic precarity but also of an entrenched perception that translation is a derivative, secondary craft, rather than an act of authorship. This perception, rooted in Soviet-era publishing hierarchies, continues to influence contemporary editorial practices. The recent case of Davit Gabunia’s Georgian rendering of Call Me By Your Name demonstrates how a translator’s stylistic intervention can challenge these norms—Gabunia’s deliberate preservation of cultural and linguistic idiosyncrasies departed from prevailing market expectations of smooth domestication, sparking public debate on translation ethics in Georgia.

In recent years, translators such as Davit Gabunia, Maia Badridze, and Ketevan Kantaria have emerged not only as individual success stories but also as representatives of a broader movement toward the reassertion of cultural agency. Through high-quality translations and public advocacy for ethical principles, they have positioned translation as a creative and transformative practice—encompassing interpretive nuance in Shakespearean works and conceptual rigor in philosophical texts.

In parallel, translator-led digital blogs, critical online platforms, and independent translator collectives are forming new spaces of participation centered on knowledge sharing, professional solidarity, and translation criticism. As Buzelin (2005, pp. 200–2) notes, the field of translation is not merely a site of production but also negotiation, representation, and resistance. These emerging initiatives in Georgia hold the potential to redefine the translator as an active cultural agent, rather than a passive conduit.

In this context, Gendron-Pontbriand’s (2013, pp. 2247–48) concept of “strategic negotiation” provides a valuable perspective for understanding translator agency in peripheral literary systems. In Georgia, translators often exercise agency in indirect, intuitive, and improvisational ways despite structural shortcomings. This opens possibilities for altering the norms, interpretive strategies, and ethical standards of translation. However, without institutional reforms to support this potential, such individual initiatives remain fragmented and unsustainable.

Taken together, these dynamics reveal that the translator in Georgia is evolving from a traditionally marginalized figure into an autonomous subject who is engaged in cultural representation, ethical responsibility, and intellectual production. This transformation, however, cannot be sustained by individual motivation alone; it must be supported by comprehensive policies that recognize translation as a form of creative authorship, a site of cultural negotiation, and a domain of public responsibility.

4.2. Ideological Filtering and Cultural Representation

In postcolonial translation contexts, the selection, presentation, and reception of texts are shaped not by ideological neutrality but, rather, by the reproduction of cultural and political power. Literary translation practices in Georgia are no exception to this tendency. While differing from the overt censorship of the Soviet era, contemporary forms of ideological filtering function through more covert but equally effective mechanisms. Today, content control is no longer enforced through state apparatuses but exercised indirectly through market-driven logic, the agendas of external funding bodies, and internalized cultural norms (Tymoczko and Calzada Pérez 2003, pp. 181–82). These mechanisms not only determine which texts are translated but also influence which identities, values, and narrative forms are included in cultural circulation.

During the Soviet era, translation served as an instrument of ideological formation. Texts involving existentialism, individualism, or political critique were either explicitly banned or redacted to align with socialist values (Baer 2015, pp. 42–45). The limited and ideologically manipulated translations of authors such as James Joyce, Albert Camus, and George Orwell exemplify the repressive translation policies of that period. Paratexts—such as prefaces, footnotes, and translators’ notes—functioned as key tools for ideological framing.

Today, similar forms of influence persist through market imperatives and cultural hegemony. For instance, as Kopaliani and Benidze (2012, pp. 87–89) note, donor-funded translation projects in Georgia often privilege texts that fit pre-existing Western perceptions of the Caucasus—war memoirs, exile narratives, and rural ethnographies—while sidelining genres such as experimental fiction or local philosophical treatises. This selective patronage mirrors what Spivak (2009) terms “sanctioned visibility,” wherein only those aspects of a culture that align with dominant epistemologies gain international circulation. Additionally, Georgian scholars have examined how funding schemes, cultural branding, and editorial mediation reshape the visibility of texts and canons. Ana Kvirikashvili (2020) analyzes the role of state-supported translation programs and international showcases, while Elene Gogiashvili (2021) demonstrates how translated narratives circulate across literary and oral traditions, making visible the ideological stakes of selection and adaptation. While Western European and Anglo-American literature dominates the Georgian translation market, post-Soviet, regional, and non-Western narratives are increasingly marginalized. Nevertheless, certain publishers have sought to counterbalance this trend. Notable examples include translations from Turkish, such as Orhan Pamuk’s Benim Adım Kırmızı (Pamuk 2010), and from Persian, such as selected poems of Hafez (Hafez 2015), reflecting a conscious attempt to engage with the broader Eurasian cultural sphere. This asymmetrical visibility is shaped both by publishers’ preferences and by the strategic projections of international funding agencies. As Tymoczko and Calzada Pérez (2003, pp. 184–85) note, the monopolization of translation flows along these lines enables the central epistemologies to define what constitutes legitimate culture.

A similar issue arises in the translation of Georgian literature into foreign languages. These translations tend to highlight themes such as national trauma, exoticism, or cultural resistance—appealing to Western readerships but risking oversimplification and reduction in the local context’s layered complexity. Spivak’s (2009) concept of “strategic essentialism” explains how such representations may yield short-term visibility but ultimately risk reinforcing colonial modes of perception by reducing subjectivity to fixed categories.

In this context, the principle of epistemic justice becomes especially relevant. Coined by Miranda Fricker (2007, p. 20), this term defends the right of marginalized communities to be recognized as knowledge producers. However, in the Georgian case, this principle is undermined, as peripheral narratives are frequently subsumed under dominant norms. As Spivak (2009, p. 179) cautions, Western-centric knowledge systems often render the Other “untranslatable” through translation itself.

Another tool of ideological filtering lies in the paratextual framing of translated works. Introductions, footnotes, cover designs, and even book titles play a crucial role in shaping how translations are received. As Venuti (2018, pp. 19–21) argues, translation is not merely a linguistic operation but also an ideological act of rewriting. The presentation of Western classics such as Goethe’s Faust, Kafka’s The Trial, or Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment in Georgia often emphasizes values such as “civilization,” “progress,” and “individualism.” At the same time, post-Soviet or regional narratives tend to be framed through nostalgic or exotic imagery—exemplifying this double standard.

In this process, translators are not merely technical mediators but also cultural interpreters. Strategies of domestication and foreignization are not only linguistic decisions but also ethical and ideological stances. In Georgia, the dominant norm of fluent and domesticated translations tends to erase cultural differences and reinforce hegemonic reading habits. As Venuti (2018, pp. 20–21) warns, such “transparent” translation ideologies can render cultural differences invisible in the target culture.

Nevertheless, there are examples of ethical and aesthetic resistance to these trends in the Georgian translation landscape. A notable example is the 2019 retranslation of Orwell’s 1984 by Maia Badridze, which restored politically charged passages omitted in the Soviet-era version and included a critical afterword contextualizing the text within both global anti-totalitarian discourse and Georgian post-Soviet realities. Similarly, the independent publisher Intelekti has initiated a retranslation series aimed at revisiting canonical works distorted under Soviet censorship, integrating extensive translator’s notes to reclaim suppressed interpretive possibilities. Re-translations of works such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita are noteworthy for questioning prior ideological manipulations and prioritizing aesthetic fidelity. Angela Esterhammer’s (1996, pp. 232–35) notion of “ethical compensation” provides a useful framework for understanding these efforts. According to Esterhammer, retranslation serves to restore the cultural otherness and aesthetic integrity of texts that have previously been distorted. When combined with Chesterman’s (1997, pp. 8–10) views, retranslation emerges as a creative response to shifting norms within the literary field.

Taken together, these dynamics reveal that translation in Georgia continues to function as a field of cultural reproduction, albeit in transformed ideological terms. From overt and coercive censorship to market-driven and paratextual filtering, this ongoing process has altered the modes of shaping cultural subjectivity while failing to eliminate structural inequities. Thus, the development of critical translation policies, the adoption of representation strategies grounded in this principle, and the recognition of cultural diversity not merely symbolically but structurally are essential for the democratization of Georgian translation practices.

4.3. Negotiating Linguistic and Cultural Hierarchies

Literary translation in Georgia operates within a multilayered network of linguistic and symbolic hierarchies that are shaped by historical, geopolitical, and cultural factors. The Tsarist and Soviet regimes first institutionalized these layered structures and later perpetuated them through neoliberal and postcolonial dynamics in global cultural circulation. In this context, translators are not only linguistic intermediaries but also cultural negotiators who are situated within mechanisms of symbolic capital (Huhn 1996, pp. 88–90).

During the Soviet era, Russian served as the dominant intermediary language for world literature’s entry into the Georgian cultural space. Most literary texts were translated not from their original languages but indirectly through Russian. This practice led to the ideological filtering of the texts, not just linguistically but also conceptually (Baer 2015, pp. 76–78). Even canonical authors such as Goethe and Shakespeare were rendered into Georgian through Russian versions, revealing the centralized structure of the Soviet translation system and its deep influence on translation aesthetics.

In the post-Soviet period, the decline of Russian linguistic hegemony was replaced with the rise of English as the dominant source language. Kopaliani and Benidze (2012, pp. 56–58) emphasize that this linguistic realignment has not substantially democratized Georgia’s translation flows. Instead, it has created a dependency on Anglophone cultural capital, often resulting in a form of “soft linguistic imperialism” in which English-language works are prioritized, regardless of their literary value. This dynamic is visible in annual translation funding data, which reveal that the majority of supported projects are translations from English, while works from Persian, Turkish, or regional Caucasian languages remain sporadically represented. However, rather than fostering a more egalitarian translation environment, this shift has generated a new hierarchy of cultural and symbolic capital. Anglophone literature—particularly from the US and the UK—has attained primacy in the translation market due to its economic profitability and international prestige. Consequently, texts written in English are overrepresented, while regional, indigenous, or non-Western pieces of literature are increasingly marginalized (Westerström 2006, pp. 82–84; Cronin 2003, pp. 33–34).

These hierarchies are reflected in translation strategies. Normative aesthetic expectations such as fluency, clarity, and simplicity often lead to domestication at the expense of preserving cultural specificity. In the Georgian context, this trend aligns with both historical ideals of linguistic “purity” and publishers’ market-oriented concerns. As Venuti (2018, pp. 19–21) argues, such transparent translation norms obscure cultural differences and contribute to the reproduction of cultural hegemony.

The Georgian language occupies a dual position in this system. While it possesses a rich literary tradition at the national level, it is still perceived as a “peripheral” language in global circulation. Translations from Georgian are often confined to themes such as exoticism, historical trauma, or cultural resistance that cater to Western expectations—frequently at the expense of literary and philosophical depth. Apter’s (2013) concept of the “global translatability index” is helpful in this regard: the translatability of a language or text is often determined not by aesthetic merit but by political and economic priorities.

For example, allegorical narratives such as The Knight in the Panther’s Skin by Shota Rustaveli illustrate the multilayered symbolic structures and local rhetorical traditions of Georgian literature. These texts, deeply embedded in their cultural contexts, resist easy accessibility for Western readers. Even if cultural uniqueness is preserved in translation, such works risk exclusion from global circulation due to their low “translatability” score. Neoliberal cultural hegemony manifested in the prioritization of market logics over cultural plurality. For example, the 2015–2019 partnership between the Ministry of Culture and a leading private bookstore chain channeled state translation grants almost exclusively to internationally marketable titles, marginalizing experimental or locally significant works. According to publicly available funding data from the Ministry of Culture’s annual reports for 2015–2019, over 80% of supported translations originated from English-language sources, with less than 5% allocated to works from regional or minority languages. This allocation pattern illustrates how cultural policy became closely aligned with commercial profitability criteria. This reflects the entanglement of cultural policy with commercial profitability criteria.

Under these conditions, Georgian translators function not only as language specialists but also as negotiators of meaning and symbolic power. Decisions about which texts to translate, how to frame them, and what narrative conventions to adopt in the target culture turn translation into a space of ideological and cultural negotiation. Some translators consciously adopt “foreignizing” strategies to preserve cultural differences and challenge hegemonic narratives, while others prioritize direct translation from source languages to counter Soviet-era practices of indirect mediation.

In this regard, alternative translation projects focusing on marginalized narratives—such as works by women writers, texts in minority languages, and postcolonial literature—have gained prominence. A recent example is the “Voices from the Periphery” initiative launched by a consortium of independent Georgian publishers in 2022, which commissioned translations of contemporary Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Abkhaz prose directly from the original languages. By bypassing Russian or English intermediaries, the project sought to dismantle inherited linguistic hierarchies and promote what Tymoczko and Calzada Pérez (2003, pp. 24–26) call “reciprocal translation flows” among peripheral cultures. Often supported by independent publishers, universities, or international donors, these initiatives reframe translation as not only an aesthetic endeavor but also a practice of cultural plurality, epistemic justice, and critical intervention.

Thus, literary translation in Georgia is marked by ongoing negotiations with historical and contemporary linguistic and cultural hierarchies. Translators must make ethical and strategic choices between central and peripheral discourses, placing themselves at the heart of meaning production, rather than at its margins. Accordingly, translation must be understood not as a mere technical act but as an ethical praxis that is situated at the intersection of cultural representation, symbolic power, and epistemic justice. The Georgian case highlights how languages that are positioned outside the global cultural center can still generate cultural subjectivity—albeit under complex and often adverse structural conditions.

5. Conclusions

Drawing on postcolonial translation theory (Spivak 2009; Tymoczko and Calzada Pérez 2003; Venuti 2018), this study has examined the evolution of literary translation practices in Georgia from the Soviet era to the post-Soviet and neoliberal present, highlighting how ideological control, institutional structures, and translator agency have shifted across political and economic regimes. By integrating postcolonial translation theory with archival evidence and case studies, the analysis demonstrates that translation in Georgia has functioned not merely as a linguistic activity but as a site of cultural negotiation, political control, and symbolic resistance.

Under the Soviet system, translators operated within a tightly regulated framework in which socialist realism and Glavlit censorship shaped textual choices and interpretative strategies. The dismantling of this structure in the post-Soviet period created new opportunities for linguistic diversification, global literary engagement, and individual agency. Nevertheless, this liberalization also exposed translators and publishers to acute market pressures, institutional fragmentation, and persistent cultural hierarchies. As Kopaliani and Benidze (2012, pp. 119–21) point out, this new environment often reproduces Soviet-era asymmetries in symbolic capital, albeit in different forms. For example, while Soviet cultural policy privileged Russian as the primary mediation language, the current dominance of English similarly centralizes one linguistic channel, limiting the circulation of regional and non-Western literatures. The case of Davit Gabunia’s Call Me By Your Name translation—published with minimal editorial intervention and widely discussed in Georgian literary circles—illustrates how translator agency can both respond to and challenge these structural imbalances. In this context, contemporary practices reveal an emerging model of the translator as a proactive cultural agent—capable of shaping the canon, challenging prevailing social norms, and mediating between global trends and local traditions.

The findings of this study contribute to postcolonial translation scholarship by demonstrating how small post-Soviet cultures negotiate the tension between inherited ideological legacies and new market-driven dependencies. The Georgian case illustrates that decolonization in translation is not a linear process of liberation but a continuous negotiation with both past and present hegemonies. This ongoing negotiation resonates with Tymoczko and Calzada Pérez’s (2003, pp. 22–24) view that translation in postcolonial settings functions as a form of “continuous decolonisation,” where each act of mediation can either reinforce or subvert inherited power structures. In Georgia, initiatives such as the “Voices from the Periphery” project—commissioning direct translations from Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Abkhaz—demonstrate that even small-scale, locally driven efforts can disrupt entrenched linguistic hierarchies. Building on these findings, it is essential to situate Georgia’s translation dynamics within broader comparative frameworks that account for both post-Soviet specificities and global cultural shifts. Incorporating more regionally grounded collaborations—such as cross-border translation workshops, co-publishing agreements with neighboring small-language markets, and the exchange of translator residencies—can foster a diversified literary ecosystem less dependent on dominant linguistic centers. Furthermore, integrating translation studies into university curricula, alongside archival and digital humanities projects, would preserve institutional memory and strengthen interdisciplinary scholarship. Such measures not only address the structural fragilities identified in this study but also position Georgian translation practice as a proactive contributor to global debates on cultural diversity, epistemic justice, and linguistic equity.

To address these challenges and build a more resilient translation ecosystem, several policy and practice directions are proposed. First, institutional support should be strengthened through sustainable translator training programs and mentorship networks that bridge generational gaps and integrate practical, interdisciplinary modules. Second, cultural policy reform is needed to recognize translation as a core component of national cultural policy, ensuring its inclusion in funding, education, and public discourse. Third, publisher engagement should be encouraged so that publishing houses adopt inclusive commissioning policies, supporting translations from diverse linguistic and cultural sources beyond dominant global languages. Fourth, ethical standards must be promoted to ensure transparency in editorial intervention and to respect the translator’s interpretative sovereignty, particularly in politically or culturally sensitive works. Finally, international collaboration should be expanded through greater participation in global translator residencies, exchange programs, and co-publishing initiatives, thereby strengthening cross-cultural competence and visibility.

Such collaborations should not only target partnerships with dominant Anglophone institutions but also prioritize South–South and periphery–periphery exchanges, as Cronin (2003, pp. 45–47) suggests. For example, establishing joint translation programs with Baltic, Balkan, or Central Asian countries could foster alternative circuits of cultural exchange that bypass the traditional global literary center. Similar approaches have been effective in other small-language contexts, such as collaborative Lithuanian–Latvian translation projects in the Baltic region or Georgian–Armenian co-publishing initiatives in the South Caucasus, both of which demonstrate the viability of regional networks outside dominant cultural centers. By implementing these measures, Georgia’s translation field can move towards a more equitable, sustainable, and globally engaged cultural ecosystem. This study further encourages comparative research across other post-Soviet and small-language contexts to deepen our understanding of the interplay between translation, power, and cultural identity in the twenty-first century. In practical terms, this transformation could be facilitated as follows: (1) establishing state-supported training programs for translators that combine linguistic proficiency with literary criticism and cultural theory; (2) creating dedicated translation funds that prioritize direct translations from Georgian into multiple target languages, bypassing intermediary languages; (3) developing partnerships between Georgian and international publishers to diversify market access; and (4) incorporating translation studies into university curricula as a core component of literary and cultural education. These measures would not only strengthen Georgia’s cultural independence but also ensure a sustainable and diverse translation ecosystem.