Cover not available
Article published In:
FORUM
Vol. 14:1 (2016) ► pp.123–143

On the passage of transcendent messages

Johnnies and Mehmets

 | Universitat Rovira i Vigili
Translation is one way texts are accorded transcendence, understood as material transfer from a site of utterance. Although frequently construed as a quality of texts or auctorial virtue, transcendence is enacted by receivers (including translators) pulling texts across time and space, transforming them accordingly. Study of a war-commemoration text attributed to Atatürk shows this happening in its transfer to Australia. The historical authorship of the text has been contested, and analysis of its various translations and interpretations reveals competing interests, strategic omissions, distributed intercultural agency, and inscriptions. However, the historians involved in the debate, in both Turkey and Australia, have not sufficiently considered translation analysis, which can find some justification for the questioned text. Further, an ethics of cross-cultural communication might question the translation as an appeal to resolution based not just on the commonness of human suffering but also the shared concealment of guilt.
Keywords: transcendence, translation, Atatürk, Turkey, Australia
Article outline
  • 1.Memory as transcendence
  • 2.Why transcendence?
  • 3.On the role of cultures
  • 4.On the commonness of suffering
  • 5.Understanding as forgetting
  • 6.So who wrote the words?
    • 1931, August 25: Çanakkale
    • 1953, November 10: Istanbul
  • 7.Transfer and translation
  • 8.A translation analysis
  • 9.A pragmatic analysis
  • 10.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 4 August 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/forum.14.1.07pym
References (25)
References
Baudrillard, Jean. 1973. Le Miroir de la production, ou l’illusion critique du matérialisme historique. Paris: Castermann.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 1923/1977. “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers.” Illuminationen: Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. by Siegfreid Unseld, 50–62. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Brodski, Bela. 2007. Can these bones live? Translation, Survival, and Cultural Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Cheung, Martha. 2012. “The mediated nature of knowledge and the pushing-hands approach to research on translation history.” Translation Studies 5 (2): 156–171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chesterman, Andrew. 1994. “Karl Popper in the Translation Class.” Teaching Translation and Interpreting 2, ed. by Cay Dollerup and Annette Lindegaard, 89–95. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crowe, Russell. 2014. The Water Diviner. Warner Bros.Google Scholar
Daley, Paul. 2015. “Ataturk’s ‘Johnnies and Mehmets’ words about the Anzacs are shrouded in doubt.” The Guardian April 20, 2015. [URL]. Visited May 19, 2015.
Davis, George Frederick. 2008. Anzac Day meanings and memories: New Zealand, Australian and Turkish perspectives on a day of commemoration in the twentieth century. Doctoral thesis, University of Otago, New Zealand.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1979. “Living On: Border Lines.” In Deconstruction and Criticism, ed. by Harold Bloom, 75–176. New York: Seabury.Google Scholar
Dizdar, Dilek. 2015. “Kulturtechnik und Performanz - Tragfähige Begriffe zur Erforschung von Translationspolitik?” Lecture at the University of Vienna, April 27, 2015. [URL]. Visited May 19, 2014.
Ekmekçi, Aslı. 2008. The Shaping Role of Retranslations In Turkey: The Case of Robinson Crusoe. Masters thesis. Dokuz Eylül University. [URL]. Visited September 2015.
Fisk, Robert. 2006. “Lessons from the ghosts of Gallipoli.” The Independent March 25, 2006. [URL]. Visited May 2015.
Freud, Sigmund. 1913. Totem und Tabu. Vienna: Hugo Heller.Google Scholar
İğdemir, Uluğ. 1978. Atatürk ve Anzaklar/Atatürk and the Anzacs (bilingual), Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi.Google Scholar
Jones, Adrian. 2004. “A note on Atatürk’s words about Gallipoli.” History of Australia 2 (1): 10–1–10–9. [URL]. Visited May 2015.
Özakıncı, Cengiz. 2015a. “1915 Çanakkale Savaşı Anıtlarına Kazınan ‘Conilerle Mehmetçikler Arasında Fark Yoktur’ Sözleri Atatürk’e Ait Değil.” Bütün Dünya, March-April 2015. Translated into English as “The words ‘There is no difference between the Mehmets and the Johnnies’ engraved on the 1915 Gallipoli monuments do not belong to Atatürk.” Honest History: [URL], [URL]. Visited May 2015.
. 2015b. “Old tales of Greece, the Anzacs and Atatürk.” Bütün Dünya, July 2015. English translation at [URL]. Visited September 2015.
Popper, Karl. 1952. The open society and its enemies. Princeton NJ : Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pym, Anthony. 1993a. “Why translation conventions should be intercultural rather than culture-specific. An alternative basic-link model.” Parallèles 151: 60–68.Google Scholar
. 1993b. Epistemological probems in translation and its teaching. Calaceite: Caminade.Google Scholar
. 2015. “Johnnies and Mehmets. Take two.” Unpublished paper. [URL]. Visited February 2016.
Ricoeur, Paul. 2000/2004. La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli. Trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer as Memory, history, forgetting . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Stanley, Peter and David Stephens. 2014. “Ataturk’s ‘letter’ expresses admirable sentiment but is not necessarily good history.” Sydney Morning Herald September 8, 2014: [URL]. Visited May 2015.
Stephens, David. 2015. Tracking Ataturk: Honest History research note. [URL]. Visited September 2015.
Turkish Embassy, Canberra. 2015. “Atatürk’ün Anzac annelerine hitabı.” March 16, 2015. [URL]. Visited May 2015.