Overview and Presentation of Foreign Literary Translation Histories

The chapter deals with the analysis of foreign translation history works as possible theo­retical-methodological basis for the analysis of the history of Slovene literary translation. The analysis included 19 translation history works, which could be classified into three categories: (a) general or linguistically and culturally non-specific works, (b) linguisti­cally and culturally specific (restricted to individual areas) works, and (c) field-specific or problem-oriented works. The most relevant studies for the analysis of the history of Slovene literary translation are the linguistically and culturally specific works, especially the analyses of the Serbian, Czech, Slovak, Finnish and Irish situations, as they investigate the translation history of smaller peripheral cultural-linguistic areas with specific histo­ries, which corresponds to the Slovene situation. The most relevant study for the analysis of Slovene translations through history proved to be the content-rich Suomennoskirjal­isuuden historia [The History of Literary Translation into Finnish] (ed. Riikonen et al. 2007), as it includes a chronologically and thematically organised analysis of numerous aspects – from textual and linguistic topics and issues related to translators, to publish­ing and socio-cultural aspects. The other works are useful for Slovene translation history either because they analyse situations in areas socio-culturally connected to Slovenia, or because they address various methodological and content issues.