Natalia Kamovnikova's book takes as its focus literary translation in the Soviet Union during its last three decades, from 1960 to the collapse of the communist system. It builds on a small but growing area of interest in Slavic studies in translation. Until recently, the history of translation in the Soviet Union has not been as well developed as for other countries; this work represents a valuable contribution to this developing literature, especially in its engagement with the theoretical literature on translation. Most studies of Soviet translation have to date dealt primarily with the text; Kamovnikova instead focuses on translators as individuals and on their social and cultural positioning. Using extensive oral history interviews, she presents a history of Soviet translation in the words of those most intimately involved in mediating between east and west.

The book begins by laying out the theoretical and historical contexts of translation into Russian before turning to translation and translators in more detail. Kamovnikova avoids presenting a simply diachronic account of the system in the last three decades of the Soviet Union, instead taking a thematic approach, which allows her to present cultural, professional, and political aspects of Soviet translators’ work. This does, however, somewhat obscure the extent to which translation developed alongside the momentous changes that took place in Soviet society in the three decades under consideration here. Chapter 1 draws upon recent theoretical approaches in Translation Studies of censorship in authoritarian contexts, drawing important parallels between the Soviet Union and other societies. Wisely, Kamovnikova argues against conceiving of Soviet society as totalitarian, and indeed the detailed analysis in the following chapters shows the extent to which translation in a so-called “closed” society is a profoundly political yet often ambiguous activity that combines adhering to and breaking norms in a single action. Chapters 2 and 3 place Soviet translation history into the history of publishing and “subordination” (50) of literature. In doing so, the uniquely in-between status of translation in the authoritarian context is highlighted. Chapter 4 discusses translation as a profession. Kamovnikova exposes the translators’ seminars as locations not only for professional networking and training, but also of creation of a kind of literary and cultural identity among translators—these were spaces where those who had been victimized by the regime could find professional status and build a community around themselves. She goes on in Chapter 5 to explore the professional status of translators and their often thorny relationship with the Union of Writers, showing that translation was frequently precarious and considered by translators to be a vocation. Chapter 6 shifts focus somewhat to the texts themselves and especially the use of interlinear trots by translators. The use of textual examples is enlightening here and helps to illuminate the issues that translators working in languages unfamiliar to them had to deal with. Chapters 7 and 8 return to more explicitly ideological questions, examining censorship, not only within texts, but also in terms of choosing (or not choosing) texts to publish. Although some of this section repeats ideas dealt with in the second chapter, it is useful for its presentation of the translators’ personal experiences of censorship and negotiation. Finally, Kamovnikova stresses that, although Soviet translation was “steeped in confrontation” (196), translators did see themselves not as primarily ideological actors, but as individuals with a literary and cultural vocation, struggling to preserve their ideals as far as they could.

The greatest strength of this book lies in its use of oral history interviews, which allows translators to present themselves in their own words, bringing an extremely valuable nuance to studies of translation in authoritarian societies, foregrounding the individual. Nonetheless, I might have liked to see the balance skew a little more towards analysis and away from direct quotation. Sometimes long quotations from translators could have been usefully illuminated by additional commentary to frame these recollections, contextualize the translators’ statements and consider questions around the fallibility of memory and the ways in which translators sought to present themselves as liberal, cultured, occasionally rebellious individuals. Nevertheless, this work is an important intervention in a growing area and, by focusing on individuals and allowing them to present themselves in their own words, enriches our understanding not only of how translation functioned as part of the Soviet literary and ideological ecosystem, but also of the translators themselves as complex, multifaceted Soviet (and global) citizens.