Totalitarian Realia: Abbreviation-Based Sovietisms and the Methodology of Their Recreation in English Translations of Ukrainian Literature

This paper explores the topic of totalitarian realia, represented by Sovietisms in the Soviet Union, from linguistic, ideological, and translation-oriented perspectives. Sovietisms can be categorized into two types: conventional and abbreviation-based. An analysis of three translations of Ukrainian Soviet-era literary works, which make extensive use of Sovietisms, identifies 139 examples. The primary focus of this paper is on abbreviation-based Sovietisms, which constitute 65.5% of the research corpus, encompass many unique linguistic phenomena, and are predominantly rendered through a domesticating approach (76%), despite the nation-narrating objectives of their translators. Based on this analysis, the key strategies for translating abbreviation-based Sovietisms into English are outlined. Additionally, an alternative strategy, termed combined renomination (calque), is proposed for foreignization-oriented nation-narrating translations involving abbreviation-based Sovietisms.