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Part of
Translation in Knowledge, Knowledge in Translation
Edited by Rocío G. Sumillera, Jan Surman and Katharina Kühn
[Benjamins Translation Library 154] 2020
► pp. 81–102

Chapter 4
Translating the Iron Curtain

A translational perspective on the epistemic dimension of Radio Free Europe

| Justus Liebig University Giessen

This chapter, taking as a case study Radio Free Europe (RFE), demonstrates the potential of studying from a translational perspective the Cultural Cold War with its many forms of cultural and scientific contacts, both within, but also between the two blocs. As an international radio broadcaster from Munich to Central and Eastern Europe, RFE was an intermediator between ‘East’ and ‘West’. RFE had to translate the perceived reality of an Iron Curtain for audiences on both sides of this curtain, with each audience requiring individualised translations of the Cold War’s bipolarity. Thus, looking at the Cultural Cold War from a translational perspective will help us to further deconstruct the Cold War’s bipolar separation and help uncover the many transsystemic interactions.

Keywords: Radio Free Europe, Cultural Cold War, translation during the Cold War, radio broadcasting
Article outline
  • 1.A porous curtain: Translation in the study of the cultural Cold War
  • 2.Radio broadcasting in the Cold War: A case of/for translation?
  • 3.Translating the Curtain: Linguistic translation for scriptwriting
  • 4.Radio broadcasting as a unidirectional translation practice
  • 5.Radio broadcasting as a reciprocal process of transsystemic translations
  • 6.RFE and the USA: Negotiating agendas
  • 7.Translating research: The epistemic dimension of RFE
  • 8.Creating a transsystemic “imagined community”: RFE as a translator between the two blocs
  • 9.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.154.04ott
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