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Target
Vol. 35:4 (2023) ► pp.573–594

Translator work practices and the construction of the correct interpretation of Marxism in post-war Greece

ORCID logo | University of Westminster

In 1951, the Communist Party of Greece published a Greek translation of the Selected Works of Marx and Engels which included a statement on the work practices followed for its creation. This article considers work practices as processes of validated knowledge production. It investigates how they were enacted to create the ‘correct’ translation of Marxist texts, and advances our understanding of the relationship between social structures, power, and processes of validated knowledge production. It argues that the party’s collaborative, centralised, and professionalised organisational model alongside mechanisms of surveillance and discipline of agents in translation supported its claims of owning the ‘correct’ interpretation of Marxism. The statement on the work practices was intended to influence the publication’s reception: the reader was encouraged to accept the party’s translation as accurate. Adopting a Foucauldian perspective, the investigation draws on party publications and archival material to study translation work practices in novel ways.

Keywords: work practices, translator work practices, translation of Marxism, Marxism in Greece, translation and knowledge production, history of Marxism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Selected Works of Marx and Engels
  • 3.Discourse domination
  • 4.Regimes of truth
  • 5.Research in translation work practices
  • 6.Translation method: Correctness and truth
    • 6.1Organisational principles and power relations
    • 6.2Structures and processes
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 March 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.21143.del
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