Changes of Eras in the History of 20th Century Hungarian Literary Translation

Abstract This paper discusses the changes of eras in the history of 20th century Hungarian literary translation, and, as a case study, focuses what was called the “Horace dispute” in more detail. The dispute analysed was connected with the bilingual (Latin– Hungarian) Horace volume published in 1961, but its focus was not only on Horace and the translation of ancient poetry, but also on general questions of translation theory: the questions of fidelity to form, the perception of the nature of the other language, and the demarcation of the boundary between translation and transposition. The paper explores the background of the Horace dispute and the network of relations between editors and translators, based on editorial correspondence and manuscript documents. The aim of the paper is to examine the background patterns of cultural mediation and to explore the underlying factors of the change of eras through the chosen sample.