MARKO VOVCHOK AS A CULTURAL MEDIATOR: A STATE-OF-THE-ART REVIEW
MARKO VOVCHOK AS A CULTURAL MEDIATOR: A STATE-OF-THE-ART REVIEW

Summary/Abstract: This state-of-the-art review tests the hypothesis that Marko Vovchok, the most prominent female writer in nineteenth-century Ukrainian literature, acted as a cultural mediator between Ukraine and French-speaking Western Europe, while also engaging in cross-cultural exchanges within the Russian Empire. To this end, scholarly literature related to her professional legacy and extensive range of activities is examined through the lens of the cultural transfer approach (Espagne and Werner 1980; Broomans 2009; Broomans and Jiresch 2011), the literary-historical method (Werner and Zimmermann 2006), and polysystem theory (Even-Zohar 1978). The findings highlight Marko Vovchok’s role as a cultural mediator within the European cultural space, demonstrated through her literary works, translations, self-translations, self-adaptations, editorial work, collaboration with translators and correspondence. Furthermore, the research sheds light on instances of indirect translation, in which her texts were translated into French not from the Ukrainian originals but via Russian versions. In some cases, these French translations even served as the basis for subsequent translations into other languages. The study also identifies a lack of text-based comparative and translation-oriented analyses and emphasises the necessity for further in-depth investigations of Vovchok’s work from different perspectives.

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