The third conference of the project “Russian Jewish Cultural Continuity in the Diaspora” will focus on the particular role of translation in continuities and disruptions of Russian Jewish Culture in Western Europe, Britain, and the United States between the World Wars. This focus encompasses translations of literary, philosophical and political works (and ideas) as well as translations between the fine and performing arts.

The sociologist Zevi Woyslawsky who lived in Berlin from 1921 to 1934 observed that Jewish culture had “reached the inevitable era of transla-tion”. In his view two aspects of translations which had always been pre-sent in Jewish culture had now become even more significant: the trans-lation and integration of non-Jewish values into a Jewish culture as well as the “outward” translation of Jewish tradition into European culture. These are only two aspects of the translation processes which were tied to the biographical trajectories of Russian emigrants in the west.

Translation had gained in all centres and languages of Russian Jewish emigration a far deeper significance than the translation of individual texts. It served — in the words of the Odessa born writer and critic Ya-cov Fikhman — “principally as the stimulus to new development”. When H. N. Brenner asked if “one can empty the beauty of Yefet into the little canisters of Jacob” he was interested in the mutual translatability of European and Jewish culture but also in the question if translation would foster or endanger the continuity of Jewish culture.

The outlined processes will address the following fields of investigation with regard to Russian-Jewish cultural production in Western Europe in the Interwar period:
- translation as a phenomenon of Jewish intellectual history,
- biographical trajectories,
- case studies of individual translations, of their techniques and motiva-tions,
- comparisons to parallel phenomena in the fine arts and music,
- translations between different art forms and genres,
- the role of translations in Jewish education.

The programme will feature a performance and lecture by the piano virtuose and musicologist Yasha Nemtsov. The performance which is generously sponsored by the Kessler Foundation (London) will be free of charge and open to the public.

Abstracts (of no more than 250 words) for a 20-minute presentation should be sent by June 15 2009 to Dr Jörg Schulte (j.schulte@ucl.ac.uk).
A limited number of travel grants will be available for participants, with preference for scholars from Eastern Europe. Please indicate if you wish to be considered for a travel grant. Accommodation at UCL will be avail-able.

The research Project “Russian Jewish Cultural Continuity in the Diaspora” (www.bath.ac.uk/esml/rjccp) is based at the Department of European Studies and Modern Languages at the University of Bath and sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust (UK).