Sibeliusta käsittelevät tietotekstisuomennokset tutkimuskohteena

Authors

• Turo Rautaoja Turun yliopisto

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61200/mikael.129548

Keywords:

translation history, Sibelius, musicological texts, narrative theory

Abstract

Translations of musicological texts into Finnish have received no notable scholarly attention. In this article, based on my on-going doctoral research on musicological translations, I investigate a particular subgroup of musicological writing, namely, Sibelius-related texts translated into Finnish in the first half of the 20th century. My aim is to examine various possibilities of
approaching Sibelius translations and consider their implications. In an attempt to relate the material under study to the socio-cultural conditions of early 20th century Finland, I draw on Tarasti’s notion of Finland as a culturally colonialised nation. The material itself is identified and preliminarily discussed on the basis of Pym’s concept of translation archaeology. Finally,
Baker’s narrative theory is considered as a means of tying together the various strands of the topic. In the course of the article, I introduce notable Sibelius-related texts, translated from Swedish, English and German, and explore possible motivations for translating these texts into Finnish. Based on my findings, I suggest that, in the absence of a large body of Finnish language source texts, Sibelius translations served a variety of purposes in the process of shaping Finland’s cultural life.