Translating Western feminism in Central and Eastern Europe: 30 years later

This paper provides an overview of the gains and losses in the translation of Western feminism in Central and Eastern Europe thirty years after the collapse of communism. Focusing on Bulgaria, while also referring to examples from other post-communist countries, it explores the uneasy appropriation of Western feminist texts, methodologies, and policies in the region. In addition to the obvious achievements in women’s equality and anti-discrimination policies, the paper discusses some pitfalls in translation related to the direct transmission of Anglo-American feminist ideas and conceptual apparatus. Special attention is paid to the concept ‘gender’, which was initially embraced as a more inclusive and scholarly term but has not been translated well into Slavonic languages, reaching an impasse during the debates on the (non)ratification of the Istanbul Convention on the prevention and combating of violence against women in several EU member states (including Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Hungary). The linguistic and political confusion surrounding the key feminist term in the context of anti-gender mobilisations in the region raises questions about its translatability outside its original context, the need for locally produced conceptual tools as well as the future of transnational feminist translation.