Between cultures and languages: Ukrainian literature in Hungarian translation

The article conceptualizes literary translation between Ukrainian and Hungarian literatures as a multidimensional form of intercultural communication and cultural transfer that extends beyond purely linguistic transformation. Translation is interpreted as a space of interaction between cultural codes, aesthetic systems, and nationally conditioned models of artistic thinking, through which interliterary dialogue is formed and sustained. Particular attention is paid to the Ukrainian–Hungarian context, in which translation contributes to the circulation of literary values and facilitates the reception of Ukrainian literature within a Hungarian-speaking cultural environment. The study focuses on the rendering of culturally marked elements, including historical and cultural allusions, symbolic imagery, forms of address, everyday realia, and worldview-related concepts that shape the national specificity of literary texts. It demonstrates that such elements cannot always be adequately reproduced through literal equivalence, since their meanings are deeply rooted in linguistic, historical, social, and cultural contexts. Their transfer into another language therefore requires careful interpretation and the selection of strategies capable of balancing accessibility for the target reader with the preservation of the cultural specificity of the source text. Effective literary translation consequently involves interpretative adaptation, communicative adequacy, contextual clarification, and the preservation of culturally significant meanings. The article also examines the translator’s role as an active cultural mediator whose linguistic and interpretative choices influence the reception and understanding of Ukrainian literature in the Hungarian-language environment. Special emphasis is placed on the interaction between domestication and foreignization strategies and their role in negotiating cultural distance between the source and target texts. The study further considers the importance of Hungarian translations, literary anthologies, and educational translation projects in strengthening the presence of Ukrainian literature in Hungarian cultural space. It is argued that such publications contribute not only to literary reception but also to intercultural awareness, the transmission of cultural memory, and the development of sustained dialogue between Ukrainian and Hungarian literary traditions.