Translating Ukrainian poetry into Estonian: Acts of identity

Abstract

The reaction of Ukrainian poets to the full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 has been remarkable and was noticed all over the world. Understandably, interest towards Ukraine increased, and translation of Ukrainian poetry is one of the ways to learn and to share Ukrainian culture. Estonian is a small language, not at all related to Ukrainian, and until recently, the general public knew little about Ukrainian literature; nevertheless, the reaction of Estonian translators was immediate. Given the shared experience of the Russian/Soviet domination, this is not surprising. The study seeks to explore translators’ motives and their history of discovering Ukrainian poetry and language. The theoretical framework employed in the article is that of Translator Studies, that is, the focus is on the translator’s trajectories (why and how they turn to a particular literature/author, why and how they learn the necessary language, their beliefs, ethos, personal development, etc.). A connection between Translator Studies and sociolinguistic disciplines such as language biographies, multilingualism and (personal) language policy is discussed. The data comes from interviews with three translators of Ukrainian poetry into Estonian, Igor Kotjuh, Maarja Kangro and Irena Peterson-Pavljuk who are poets themselves. Their ethnolinguistic background, language biographies and paths of becoming translators from Ukrainian into Estonian differ, but all three emphasise their dedication to Ukrainian poets.