著者

ブルナ・ルカーシュ

出版者

ロシア・東欧学会

雑誌

ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2020, no.49, pp.52-61, 2020 (Released:2021-06-12)

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Czech literature was first recognized in Japan in the 1920s and early 1930s. Among literary works published during this period, which were few in number and mostly second-hand translations from English or German, three books - one play and two novels - require special attention. Karel Čapek’s dystopian play R.U.R., originally written in 1920 and first staged in 1921, was translated into Japanese in 1923 and became the first major work of Czech literature ever introduced in Japan. Just like in other parts of the world, the play attracted attention of both critics and readers. Several other translations were published soon after and the play was also successfully staged in Tsukiji Shōgekijō Theatre in 1925. A few years later, in 1930, Japanese translations of two other essential works of the inter-war period Czech literature were published – Jaroslav Hašek’s acclaimed antimilitarist novel The Good Soldier Švejk and Ivan Olbracht’s socialist novel Anna The Proletarian, a book which is now almost completely forgotten.The main objective of this paper is to explore the relation between the literary concepts adopted and constantly argued by the critics and writers of the Proletarian Literature, predominant literary movement at that time, and the reception/interpretation of foreign literary works, in this case works of Czech literature. Based on the analysis of the newspaper advertisements, book reviews and other related texts this paper shows that the reception was determined by the concepts and notions the Proletarian critics valued and that the leftist literary critics tended to emphasize those elements of these literary works they considered to be conveying the Proletarian ideals. On the other hand, Olbracht’s Anna The Proletarian, a novel praised by its translator Ichiko Kamichika as a must-read for every proletarian woman, was targeted by Japanese censorship for its radical political thoughts and was eventually published with large parts of the text censored.Consequently, this paper concludes that Czech literature introduced and translated in the inter-war period was interpreted in different ways and valued for different reasons than it was originally in Czechoslovakia.