Cover not available

In:Literary Translation in Periodicals: Methodological challenges for a transnational approach
Edited by Laura Fólica, Diana Roig-Sanz and Stefania Caristia
[Benjamins Translation Library 155] 2020
► pp. 365–384

Get fulltext
PDF logo with download linkDownload Chapter PDF

Chapter 16
The politics of translation

Textual-visual strategies towards transnational network building in the periodicals of the Czech interwar avant-garde

 | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 10 December 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.155.16for
Abstract
Founded in 1920, Devětsil – a Czech group of young leftist artists and poets – set out to create a distinctly modern avant-garde movement with broad international ties. This was a goal that Devětsil managed to achieve with remarkable success through a variety of strategies; the scope of its project is perhaps most visible in the case of its periodicals, which were circulated widely across Europe.
This essay looks at several specific examples of the use of translation and multilingualism, as well as a “universal” visual language, in the magazines published by the Czech avant-garde in the 1920s, towards a better understanding how transnational and non-hierarchal modes of network formation were enacted via the periodical publications of the historical avant-garde.
Article outline
  • Text: Multilingualism in Devětsil publications
  • Image: Typography as universal language
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (32)
References
Ades, Dawn. 1978. Dada and Surrealism Reviewed. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1978. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same titled, organized by and presented at the Hayward Gallery, London, January 11-March 27, 1978.
Ardis, Ann. January 2013. “Towards a Theory of Periodical Studies”. Paper presented at the Annual MLA Convention, Boston.
Brooker, Peter, Sascha Bru, Andrew Thacker, and Christian Weikop, eds. 2013. Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines. Vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Puineuf, Sonia. 2010. “A Dot on the Map: Some Remarks on the Magazine Nová Bratislava ”. Journal of Modern Periodical Studies 1, no. 1, 100–111. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drucker, Johanna. 1994. The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909–1923. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. “Letterpress Language: Typography as a Medium for the Visual Representation of Language”. Leonardo 17, no. 1 (1984):8–16. Reprinted in Leonardo 41, 1:66–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forbes, Meghan. 2016a. “In the Middle of It All: Prague, Brno, and the Avant-Garde Networks of Interwar Europe”. PhD diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016b. “Advertisement as Collaboration in the Central European Magazines of the Interwar Avant-Garde”, post (March 22, 2016): [URL] Accessed March 4, 2020.
, ed. 2019. International Perspectives on Publishing Platforms: Image, Object, Text. London, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forst, Vladimír, ed. 1985. “Artuš Černík”. In Lexikon české literatury: A-G, vol. 1, 445. Prague: Academia.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garfinkle, Deborah. 2003. “Karel Čapek’s ‘Pásmo’ and the Construction of Literary Modernity through the Art of Translation”. The Slavic and East European Journal 47, no. 3 (Autumn 2003):345–366.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grutman, Rainier. 2009. “Multilingualism”. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. Edited by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha:182–186. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kinross, Robin. 2002. Unjustified texts: perspectives on typography. London: Hyphen Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris) and Saugnier (Amédée Ozenfant). 1922. “Architektura a Purism/Architecture et Purisme.” Život 2: 74–85.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mertins, Detlef, and Michael W. Jennings, eds. 2010. G: An Avant-Garde Journal of Art, Architecture, Design, and Film 1923–1926, translated by Steven Lindberg with Margareta Ingrid Christian. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moholy-Nagy, László. 1995. “Die neue Typographie”. In Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1923 Weimar-München: Bauhausverlag, 1923. Anthologized in bauhaus: drucksachen, typografie, reklame, edited by Gerd Fleischmann, 14–16. Stuttgart: Oktagon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
“Novinářská zpráva.” ReD 1, no. 1 (Oct. 1927):4.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ort, Thomas. 2013. Art and Life in Modernist Prague: Karel Čapek and His Generation, 1911–1938. New York: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Philpotts, Matthew. 2013. “Defining the Thick Journal: Periodical Codes and Common Habitus”. Paper presented at the annual MLA Convention, Boston, Jan. 4.
Poskočil, Oskar. “nové typografické tendence”. ReD 2, no. 8 (April 1929): 255–258.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sayer, Derek. 2013. Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century: A Surrealist History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Soupault, Philippe. “Do Prahy”. ReD 1, no. 1 (Oct. 1927):3–4.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Teige, Karel. 1927a. “Moderní Typo”. Typografia 34, no. 7-9:189–198.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1927b. “Slova, slova, slova”. Horizont 1, no. 1–4: 1–3, 29–32, 45–47, 70–73.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1929. “neue typographie”. ReD 2, no. 8 (April 1929):258–259.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1931. “Jan Tschichold v Praze”. Rozpravy Aventina 6, no. 18 (Jan. 1931):212.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. “Modern Typography”. In Karel Teige/1900–1951: L’Enfant Terrible of the Czech Modernist Avant-garde, edited by Eric Dluhosch and Rostislav Švácha, translated by Alexandra Büchler, 92–105. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Teige, Karel, et al.. 1970. “U. S. Devětsil”. Pražské ponděli (Dec. 6, 1920). Anthologized in Avantgarda známá a neznámá. Edited by Vlašín Štěpán. Vol. 1.:81–83. Praha: Svoboda.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tschichold, Jan. 1928. Die neue Typographie: Ein Handbuch für Zeitgemäss Schaffende. Berlin: Verlag des Bildungsverbandes des Deutschen Buchdrucker.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1995. “elementare typographie”. Special issue, Typographische Mitteilungen 22, no. 10 (1925). Anthologized in bauhaus: drucksachen, typografie, reklame, edited by Gerd Fleischmann, 333. Stuttgart: Oktagon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1995. The New Typography: A Handbook for Modern Designers. Translated by Ruari McLean. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witkovsky, Matthew. 2002. “Avant-Garde and Center: Devětsil and Czech Culture, 1918–1938”. PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Pokorn, Nike K.
2023. Translation and diaspora. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 35:2 ► pp. 262 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue