Abstract

Abstract

This article examines two Kazakh translations of Jack London’s The Story of Keesh, one produced in 1927 and another in 1937, to explore how translation functioned simultaneously as a nation-building project and as an ideological instrument in early Soviet Kazakhstan. Using theoretical perspectives from Lefevere’s concept of translation as rewriting, polysystem theory, postcolonial studies, and censorship research, the analysis combines paratexts with close comparison of Russian intermediary versions.

The 1927 rendering domesticated London’s tale by recasting the protagonist in the idiom of the Kazakh batyr (heroic) epic, supplementing the text with pedagogical prefaces and scientific explanations, and privileging idiomatic Kazakh syntax to advance cultural modernisation. The 1937 retranslation, by contrast, employed Russified lexis and syntax, inserted Soviet institutional terminology, and aligned the narrative with socialist-realist didacticism.

Taken together, these competing rewritings illustrate how patronage, ideology, and poetics shaped translation practices on the Soviet periphery and suggest broader comparative insights into retranslation across non-Russian republics.