Cenzura literatury angielskiej w Polsce Ludowej w latach 1948-1967

Abstract

The influence of censorship on the shape of literary translation in the Polish People's Republic is a subject relatively rarely touched upon not only in the British but also in the Polish scientific discourse. The basic aim of the article is to look at the changing status of translations of English literature and to place them, firstly, in the context of the increasing Soviet domination in the sphere of culture (in the years 1948-1955), and secondly, in the more liberal period after the October events. The year 1967 purposefully chosen to be the closing date for the analysed period allows to compare how differently censorship affected two writers' literary works: V. Woolf's The Years and G. Greene's The Power and the Glory. Both texts were put on the list of censored books sent to the Culture Department in early 1958. The Years, in spite of corrections, were published by Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza "Czytelnik" by the end of 1958. Greene's novel was rejected by censorship and had to wait for almost a decade to be published. The last part of the article is devoted to the story of the two works in the Main Office of Control of Press, Publications and Shows. As a result of the lack of final answers to be found in the archives regarding the decision about suppressing or postponing the publication of The Power and the Glory to 1967, it is only possible to present working hypotheses regarding the described situation.