Translation policy vis-à-vis national politics: change and continuity in the ©Poland translation program

This article discusses to what extent the change of political power in Poland affected ©Poland Translation Program, the largest public funding framework for translations from Polish, which is operated by the Book Institute, a governmental agency subject to the Ministry of Culture. The research is based on a comparative quantitative analysis of 2,410 bibliographic records - published books that received funding in 2008-2015 and in 2016-2022, i.e., under different managements appointed by different Polish governments - and supplemented by selected qualitative close-ups. The statistics do not confirm the common public sentiment that in the latter period, under the right-wing government of the Law and Justice party, ©Poland took a political turn, promoting historical writing that glorifies Polish past. Authors opposing the government were not discriminated against, and funding was allocated for translations into the same target languages as before. However, there was a noticeable trend in promoting contemporary right-wing non-fiction with an anti-liberal agenda (politically engaged journalistic reportage and socio-philosophical essay) in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Hungary. The results are discussed in terms of soft power, linking translation flows with international political relations, and the limits of quantitative analysis are problematized.