Paper short abstract:

This project reformulates the translation of a work by my father, Radio Free Europe commentator and journalist Zoltan Thury to include various hidden layers of emancipatory potential: my perspectives, a 1974 film about him, and historical sources on his role in the 1956 Hungarian revolution.

Paper long abstract:

I am currently working on a project centered on translating a 1956 work by my father, Zoltan Thury. Autobiographical and political in turns, The Refugee's Guide describes his life after fleeing Hungary in 1947, touching on the journalism compelling his departure from newly-Communist Hungary, and on his putative role in encouraging the 1956 Revolution as a commentator for Radio Free Europe. My project involves reformulating the structure of the translation to incorporate: my own memories and perspectives, a film made in 1974 about him, and historical sources about his role in the revolution. I began with a feeling of resistance: I did not appear in a book describing the essence of my father, and yet I had been THERE. How could that be? However, as I continued, I began to see my goal not as following the rules for a “faithful translation” but for a more encompassing fidelity to the revolution my father supported. The need to resist his voice developed into a transformation that incorporates various layers in addition to the original material in the form of what Leon Anderson calls multithreading or "meta-discursive commentary" in the tradition of Susan Griffin. I have now translated about 20 pages and fitted that with various perspectives that were formerly hidden but have the potential to better represent the power structures inherent in the work, as a brief excerpt of this material will show in the course of the presentation.