Translation in Polish interwar periodicals: Wiadomości Literackie [Literary News] and Robotnik [The Labourer]

The article discusses the presence of translation in two periodicals published in the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939): Wiadomości Literackie [Literary News], a liberal socio-cultural weekly popular with Warsaw intelligentsia, and the leftist daily Robotnik [The Labourer], edited by members of the Polish Socialist Party. The two press outlets with different profiles and readerships are approached as documents of the socio-cultural reality in the short but formative period following Poland’s regaining of political independence. The article analyses critical metatexts on translation (by translators and literary critics) against the repertoire of translated texts to investigate the links between the two categories within each periodical and between them. The results of a quantitative translation content analysis based on bibliographic metadata are juxtaposed with data from the interwar publishing market. The discussion focuses on the socio-cultural underpinnings of translation presence in Wiadomości Literackie and Robotnik, i.e., the way it reflects the developments entailed in Poland’s modernisation: massification of literature, commercialisation of the book market, and professional activity of translators (especially women) from outside the intellectual elites. Translation-centred analysis provides insights into the cultural history of the period, revealing discrepancies between translated texts (often popular) and translation discourses (mostly elitist).