Journal: Translation Matters
Issue: History as Translation
Call Deadline: 15-Dec-2025

Special issue on History as Translation (Vol. 8.1, Spring 2026)
Guest-editor: Margarita Savchenkova

Over the past few decades, translation studies have shown an increasing interest in historical themes. This emerging focus has led to a range of publications that seek to offer a thorough understanding of how history and translation intersect (see Bastin and Bandia, 2006; Hermans, 2022; Rundle, 2022). Nevertheless, much of this research approaches translation primarily as an interlingual activity, often identifying temporal gaps, along with cultural and linguistic aspects, as key challenges faced by translators.

This special issue of Translation Matters encourages rethinking translation beyond a strictly interlinguistic framework and exploring the idea of interpreting history as translation in its broadest sense, sparking discussions and debates around the implications of this perspective.

The idea of history as a form of translation first appeared in critical historiography. For instance, Hayden White ([1987] 1990, p. 1) describes narrative—and therefore history—as “the problem of how to translate knowing into telling, the problem of fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of meaning that are generally human rather than culture-specific”. Alun Munslow (1997, p. 6; 2012, p. 150) also argues that history is fundamentally “the process of translating evidence into facts” and is essentially “a translation exercise”. Historical writing can be seen as translating between different mediums (LaCapra, [1983] 1994, p. 26), where the past is converted into written form and interpreted through contemporary concepts (Jenkins, [1991] 2003, pp. 15–16). In this context, historians act as translators bridging the past and the present. As Peter Burke (2005, p. 3) aptly states, “[i]f the past is a foreign country […], then historians may be regarded as translators between past and present.”

This conception, introduced by critical historiography, has recently been systematically explored in one of the most comprehensive and innovative works on the intersection of historiography and translation studies, La traducción y la(s) historia(s). Nuevas vías de investigación, by África Vidal Claramonte (2018). In this monograph, the author challenges the traditional view of history as an objective account of “reality”, positing instead that history is not a single text, but rather texts that rewrite and translate “reality” intralingually (Vidal Claramonte, 2018, p. 2). She thus encourages readers to reconsider history as an intralingual form of translation. Similarly, Luigi Alonzi’s (2023) History as a Translation of the Past: Case Studies from the West approaches historical interpretation as a translation process. In his introduction, Alonzi (2023, p.1) argues that interpreting the past can be seen as an “act of translation, both epistemologically and cognitively”. Another noteworthy contribution is Margarita Savchenkova’s (2024) work, La traducción emocional de la historia. La memoria traumática en la obra de Svetlana Alexiévich. Savchenkova explores how history, translation, traumatic memory, and emotions intersect in the context of (re)writing Soviet history.

Going further, it is important to note that the understanding of history through the lens of translation increasingly transcends the textual realm. For example, Peter Burke (1997) employs the concept of translatio to analyze the emergence of the carnival tradition in the Americas. In the same vein, Sergei Oushakine (2013) invokes the idea of translation when discussing the military parades that the Russian government organizes annually to mark the end of the war between Nazi Germany and the USSR. Scholars working within the field of conceptual history frequently draw on the notion of translation to illustrate the intricate process of both establishing and operationalizing concepts (see Pernau and Sachsenmaier 2016). Additionally, researchers within the history of emotions have turned to translation-oriented approaches. A prime example is William M. Reddy’s monograph ([2001] 2004), The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions.

Finally, when discussing history, it is essential to consider closely related concepts such as archives, memory, archaeology, and prehistory, all of which can be included within the framework of history and examined through the perspective of history as translation.

This special issue of Translation Matters seeks to engage with ongoing discussions by examining different dimensions of history as translation. It invites proposals on topics that explore the intersection of history and translation, focusing on how history can be understood through the lens of translation in
- Academic historiography
- Autobiographies and memoirs
- Archives and archival materials
- Archaeological studies
- Popular history publications
- Historical romance
- Graphic novels and comics
- Artistic expressions (theater, painting, dance, etc.)
- Audiovisual media and video games
- Tourism content and advertising
- Architectural heritage
- Museums and exhibitions
- Material culture

Articles, in English or in Portuguese, should be 6000-8000 words in length, including references and footnotes, and be formatted in accordance with the guidelines given on the journal’s website. Papers should be uploaded onto the site by December 15th 2025. http://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/tm/index. Any inquiries should be addressed to: [email protected]

For full list of references, please see the journal's website.

Linguistic Field(s): Translation