Im Wald, im Holzhaus by Michael Krüger and Its Polish Translation: Translation as Intervention

This article deals with the Polish translation of the poetry volume by the German poet Michael Krüger, Im Wald, im Holzhaus. German translations, although present in Poland since the Middle Ages, have been characterized by a certain foreignness since the Romantic era. This resulted from the fact that German culture was perceived as hostile and threatening in Poland, which reflected numerous wars and conflicts between the two states. It seems that in recent years this attitude has been changing, as evidenced by the Polish edition of Krüger’s collection of poems. Moreover, publishing the book in 2023 might be seen as an intervention against the political situation in Poland where the conservative government tried to escalate Polish-German animosities.