Ivan Cankar in Italia oggi: qualche considerazione sulle traduzioni italiane

Starting from the state of research into the reception of Ivan Cankar (1876-1918) in Italy, which culminated at the very beginning of the new millennium in a serious and exhaustive evaluation from the Slovenian side, this contribution tries broadly to present the widespread commitment to translation of Cankar over almost a century (with particular regard to the fifty years 1931-1983) in bringing the opus of the greatest Slovenian prose writer closer to Italian readers. In particular, of three of his best-known works of fiction, the two novels Hiša Marija pomočnice (1904) and Martin Kačur (1906), as well as the collection of short stories Podobe iz sanj (1917). For these works some selected passages are presented, comparing two different translations of Cankar’s prose for each. In the light of the specific strategies implemented by each of the six different translators which thus emerge, in addition to the obvious differences due to the aesthetic criteria and personal creativity of the individual, some recurrent divergences can be identified which may be traced back to the diachronic distance and the linguistic cultural system more familiar to each translator.