Activist Translation as a Means to Oppose Imperialism in Iran: The Case of Translation of Literary Works from 1925 to 2021

Translation can be considered an activist means and an influential instrument of furthering large programs of political and social change. One such change can be promoting the ideas against imperialism within a society from many different perspectives using a variety of practices. Accordingly, the present study aimed to analyze the activist role of translation in developing ideas on anti-imperialism in Iran from 1925 to 2021 in terms of selecting works for translation. To this end, a historical analysis of translations of highly circulated literary works focused on anti-imperialism was conducted using an exploratory-analytical approach. The data were collected based on “What” question from among the set of questions proposed by D’hulst (2010) to analyze the history of translation. Accordingly, to find the answer to “What” question, it was first attempted to identify the literary works focused on anti-imperialism that have been translated and published from 1925 to 2021. The paratextual resources of the translations were also investigated to check if there was any particular information, directly or indirectly, suggesting that the translation of the literary work was used as a means to define an autonomous identity. The activist role of translation was determined based on the stage translation could be placed in, from among the three stages of activism in translation against imperialism. The results revealed that in dimension of selecting literary works with anti-imperialism as one of their main themes, the activist practice of translating works with an anti-imperialist stance stands within the second stage of activism. This stage suggests activist practice of translation in opposing cultural imperialism has taken place but still no autonomous identity is sought to be defined beyond polarized thinking and binary oppositions set by the dominating powers.