The uneasy transfer of feminist ideas and gender theory: Post-Soviet English-Russian translations

This chapter approaches translation of English texts in the post-Soviet countries as a process of creating a new type of economy of discourse. This occurred not only in gender studies but also in the other social sciences and humanities. Economy of discourse refers to a certain mode of organizing texts (and communication in general) related to a specific institutional framework. The chapter consists of four sections. The first three deal with the institutional and discursive settings of the translation of feminist texts into Russian and the major differences between the Western economy of discourse and Russian economy of discourse. It demonstrates that the lack of public register in the Russian economy of discourse was a serious constraint to the reception of the critical approach specific to gender studies and feminism. Another constraint was the theoretical gap between the so-called Marxist-Leninist explanatory schemes and the conceptual design of gender studies. Section four is an empirical analysis of the conceptual challenges the Russian translators faced in their attempts to appropriate the Western discourse of feminist and gender studies.