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The Polemic between Ļurišin and Popovič

Róbert Gáfrik


In 1972 in the fourth issue of Slavica Slovaca Dionýz Ļurišin and Anton Popovič published two articles in which they put forward their views on translation. For unknown reasons, the articles appeared in German. The present paper is an attempt at reconstruction of the polemic between these two outstanding Slovak literary scholars. Ļurišin presupposes that equivalence is considered to be an essential term of the theory of translation. He examines its content, character and limits of its methodological utility in the field of theory of translation. Subsequently, he tries to reinterpret the term with respect to evaluation of literary translations. Popovič explains about the status of the theory of translation in the system of sciences. Important is for him the relation of translation to stylistics, whereas style does not include only language but also composition and theme. Ļurišin and Popovič use these two articles to indirectly criticise each other's views. The core of the polemic lies in their different concepts of translation and its function. Ļurišin's definition of translation is broader than Popovič's. It includes also texts that border on original literary work, a notion unacceptable to Popovič.


Keywords: Dionýz Ļurišin. Anton Popovič. Slavica Slovaca. Theory of  Translation. Literary Comparatistics. Style. Equivalence.


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