Translations are crucial to the flow of themes, images, forms and ideas across boundaries. They constitute a special case of cultural dynamics as, in a sense, they are existing texts revived in a new form. The introduction of textual works in a target culture involves a high degree of strategy and control. These moments of control, selection and influence deserve special attention in cultural, receptional, and translation-historical studies. The essays in this yearbook address aspects of the central topic: the impact of translations on culturalhistorical developments in Europe. First and foremost is the question which works were selected and why, and next which were neglected and why. In a wider scope: what - in the long-term processes of cultural transfer - were the «peaks» or key moments, and of which nature was the discourse accompanying the presence of a foreign-language culture in translation? Why did it all happen like this, and what was the precise impact of the introduction of new works, new ideas, new culture through the medium of translation? These are the questions to which the authors of this work attempt to provide answers.

Contents/Contenu : Ton Naaijkens: Event or Incident. Evénement ou Incident - an Introduction - Sergey Tyulenev: Modernization as Translation: Eighteenth-Century Russia - Cees Koster: Non-translation as an Event. The Reception in the Netherlands of John Dos Passos in the 1930s - Anne van Buul: The Importance of Translations in Processes of Repertoire Creation. Rossetti's «Blessed Damozel» in Dutch - Jennifer Varney: The Imagist Poet as Cultural Mediator. H.D. and the Translation of the Classics - Petra Broomans: Reception and Ideology. «Wild Volcanism» and Other Varieties on Strindberg - Ágnes Somló: The Role of Literary Translators in the Mediation of Ideas and Literature Across Cultures - Mónica Amenedo Costa: Cultural Assimilation through the Translation of Proper Names - Jean-Marc Gouanvic : Panorama de la traduction-importation de la littérature américaine en France (1820-1960) - Stéphanie Vanasten : Quand l'événement trompe l'attente et arrive de France. Hugo Claus traduit Friedrich Hölderlin - Titika Dimitroulia : L'éthique de la traduction indirecte : le cas de Yannis Ritsos - Lieve Jooken/Guy Rooryck : John Locke ou la traduction de l'entendement - Winibert Segers/Henri Bloemen: Schwangerschaften. Poe's Verlorener Brief und dessen Spuren - Olivier Demissy-Cazeilles : Du scots au picard : la traduction au service des langues régionales ou minoritaires - José Yuste Frías : Au seuil de la traduction : la paratraduction.

Ton Naaijkens is professor of German Literature and Translation Studies at the University of Utrecht. His teaching and research focus on German literature, cultural transfer and translation history. Naaijkens is closely involved in the Master programme «Translation», he is director of the Utrecht- based Centre of Expertise on Literary Translation and responsible for the international research group «ETOILE».