161 Do Respectable Ladies Buzz, Grumble or Hum: An Analysis of Slovenian Translations of Ibsen’s Et dukkehjem1 Marija Zlatnar Moe Abstract Et dukkehjem (A Dolls’ House) by Henrik Ibsen is one of the most central texts of world theatre and literature, but at the same time, it is also a text written by an author coming from a relatively peripheral source language and culture. Nevertheless, soon after her en- trance to the European stages Ibsen’s Nora found her way to the Slovenian theatres, albeit via German translations more often than not. This paper will show how the fact that the translations were done between two peripheral languages has affected all existing Slove- nian translations, direct or indirect. Keywords: literary translation, drama translation, Ibsen, translation between peripheral languages, (in)direct translations 1 The author acknowledges the financial support received from the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding No. P6-0265). ACTA NEOPHILOLOGICA UDK: 821.113.5.09-2Ibsen H.:81'255.4=163.6 DOI: 10.4312/an.56.1-2.161-174 Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 161 4. 12. 2023 12:36:05 162 Marija Zlatnar Moe INTRODUCTION Henrik Ibsen is one of the central authors of the world drama and literature, of- ten compared with William Shakespeare, and called one of the initiators of the modern drama. But, unlike Shakespeare, Molière or Goethe, he comes from one of the lesser known, more peripheral cultures and languages, which makes him vulnerable (Rem 502) in a way that the above-mentioned are not: as Rem notes, authors writing in smaller, peripheral languages as a rule depend completely on the taste, opinion, competence and willingness of different intercultural media- tors, such as translators, editors, agents and impresarios: “There are inescapable transformations taking place when an author who was originally from the periph- ery, who wrote in a ‘small language’ and was perceived as provincial in the cultural centres, appears in the world’s famous classics lists” (ibid.). Rem was talking about translating Ibsen into English, a language which he, together with David Crystal (1-71) calls “the probably first truly ‘global’ language,” a target language that is de- sirable for the source author and his agents, editors, etc. to be translated into. But when we talk about translating Ibsen into Slovenian, we talk about translating into another peripheral language, which makes the author even more vulnerable, especially if there are no intercultural and interlingual mediators with direct ac- cess to the ultimate source text, culture and language. Already in the 1930s, Fran Albreht (Stanonik 284-285), the (probably indirect) translator of Sigrid Undset’s novel Jenny, wrote about the difficulties of translating a Norwegian novel and called for university-level courses in peripheral languages, saying “Yes, the Slovenian University really should establish a chair specializing in cultures and literatures of small nations” (ibid. 284). The reasons he gives are patriotic: studying other small nations and their languages would teach Slovenian people some resilience and pride, and show them that “in the spiritual world, na- tions are not divided into big and small, but only in spiritually fertile and barren.” “In any case,” he adds, “the need of the time is that Slovenian translators acquaint their people with the best mental creations of small nations” (ibid.). Since then, there have been established several university chairs for peripheral languages, but the large majority of them can still be characterized as “vulnerable” as Rem called them, and both Slovenian and Norwegian definitely belong in this group, regard- less of what literary system and hierarchy of world languages we choose.2 This vulnerability is not visible only in the mediation and reception of literary texts from such languages, but also in the translation process and the final product itself. Albreht (see above) presented only one of them, namely the inability to 2 For a detailed discussion on different language systems and translating peripheral languages see for example Zlatnar Moe et al. Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 162 4. 12. 2023 12:36:05 163Do Respectable Ladies Buzz, Grumble or Hum receive formal instruction in the majority of peripheral languages in one’s home country and mother tongue. In the case of the Slovenian-Norwegian pair, one can neither study Norwegian at University level in Slovenia, nor Slovenian in Norway. A student who wishes to study Norwegian has to go abroad,3 which brings us to the next characteristic which influences translations from Norwegian (and other peripheral languages): the involvement of other (often more central, very often the hyper-central English) languages besides the ultimate source and ultimate target languages. This influence can be very visible and strong as in the case of indirect translations – Ibsen was translated only indirectly into Slovenian until the 1960s – or less direct and more difficult to observe: translators learn the ultimate source language via another language, either a central one or one that is similar to the ultimate source language; they use language and translation tools in those other languages, their support network (for example editors, directors, dramaturgs) read the text in a central translation, etc. In this paper, I will present several translations of Henrik Ibsen’s Et dukkehjem (A Doll ’s House in English, Nora in Slovenian) into Slovenian and how the target texts show all the difficulties the translators faced because they translated a text that they either had no direct access to in its ultimate original version, or that they were able to translate directly, but with all the complications, limitations, and loneliness that come with translating from a language that nobody but yourself can speak. The research questions the paper will mainly focus on are: 1. How did the fact that the text was translated from one peripheral language into another affect the Slovenian translations of Ibsen’s Et dukkehjem? 2. What changes can be observed in the five translations of Ibsen’s Et dukkehjem? TRANSLATING IBSEN FROM NORWEGIAN Just as in Slovenia, language and literature were considered key elements of na- tional awareness in the 19th-century Norway too, and drama was declared the most important genre in that respect (Holledge et al. 72). The central Norwegian theatres, however, were led by Danish managers and artists, and Henrik Ibsen, among others, worked hard towards the establishment of truly Norwegian the- atre houses (ibid.). By the time Et dukkehjem arrived on the Christiania stage in January 1880,4 this goal had been achieved: The play was directed and performed by Norwegians, and actors from other Norwegian theatres were often invited to 3 There are general language courses available in Slovenia. 4 The very first performance, however, was not in Christiania but in København, “the capital of the colonial power that was responsible for the 400-year long night, which took away Norway’s social, cultural, economic, and political power” (Holledge et al. 72). Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 163 4. 12. 2023 12:36:05 164 Marija Zlatnar Moe take part, bringing different practices from their home theatres, thus helping to develop modern realistic drama and connect Norwegian theatre. By 2016, there had been over 850 performances of Et dukkehjem in the Nordic countries, in theatres ranging from national theatres to local theatres and theatre groups; the promotion has been supported by media and different public institu- tions which continue to subsidize new productions and international tours (ibid.). Three key reasons for the international success of the play are usually mentioned, namely, that it is a dramatic presentation of human striving for personal freedom and self-realization; that Nora herself was an icon of emerging female subjectivi- ty; and that it brought dramatic innovations such as the development of dramatic realism and a modernist aesthetic (ibid. 9). Another important factor, according to Holledge et al., were the numerous international tours and guest performances in other countries, and particularly the actresses who played Nora and were very often also managers of their troupes: “[T]heir transnational touring is crucial to an understanding of the global success of Et dukkehjem. Wherever they went, they left behind a legacy that informed the ongoing production history of the play. It was their persistence that secured Et dukkehjem a place in the repertoire of world theatre” (ibid. 29). Another group of key players were of course individual trans- lators such as William Archer (into English), Moritz Prozor (into French) and Wilhelm Lange (into German), as well as individual critics and dramaturgs. Ibsen was well aware of the importance of translation, and was already in the 1860s actively promoting his work abroad (D’Amico 69). While his texts were per- formed in their original form in Denmark, the Swedish theatres used translations, as did theatres elsewhere. Ibsen actively contributed to the German translations because he was fluent in German, but was more dependent on the translators for the English and French versions, as he was not as proficient in those two languages. Those three were the core mediating languages which helped Et dukkehjem reach the world stages: in the first wave of productions in the late 19th century, the play was translated into 27 languages, and the German translation was the mediating text for twelve among them, including Slovenian (Hanssen 104-105). By 2018, the play had been translated into at least 72 languages, more and more frequently directly from Norwegian, and English had become the most used mediating lan- guage – as a source text for the ultimate target texts as well as an auxiliary text for ensembles working on a new production while waiting for the translation. TRANSLATING IBSEN INTO SLOVENIAN Ibsen arrived on Slovenian stages at the roughly same time as elsewhere in Eu- rope, translated indirectly via German. He kept being translated into Slovenian Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 164 4. 12. 2023 12:36:05 165Do Respectable Ladies Buzz, Grumble or Hum indirectly until the mid-20th century, when the first direct translations were pub- lished, and while the mediating languages might have varied, Et dukkehjem was, by all accounts, translated via German. There are two possible sources for the first Slovenian translation, both German, namely that of Wilhelm Lange, who made the first translations of many of Ibsen’s plays and worked closely with him; or possibly a newer translation by Maria von Borch that appeared in 1890, only two years before the first production in Ljubljana.5 We have no information what the later translators used as their source texts, but we can discern from the texts (see below) that they were translated from German, and not from one of the other two core mediating languages. The Translators Et dukkehjem is one of the few texts that has been translated into Slovenian nu- merous times – certainly five, and there are also reports of a sixth translation by Hinko Nučič, but it remains lost, if it ever existed. The five translations that we have access to were done by five different translators between the 1890s and the 2010s: Fran Gestrin, Miran Jarc, Andrej Hieng, Janko Moder and Darko Čuden. Three of them remained in manuscript/typescript, and two were published, but only one in a book. This state of affairs changed in 2022 when two of the already existing translations were published as books because Et dukkehjem was part of the obligatory reading list for the secondary-school leaving exam, and the publishers could count on healthy sales. The first translation was done by Fran Gestrin, a secondary school teacher who was also a literary translator; he often worked for the Dramatic Society in Ljubljana, the predecessor of first professional theatre in the Slovenian language. His translation is mostly lost, but the part of Torvald Helmer is preserved in its entirety. This translation was used in the first production, and all subsequent ones until 1920, but it was never published. While this translation was done when the controversy about the ending of Et dukkehjem was still very much alive, the alter- native ending where Nora stays was not used; the producers of the performance decided to use the original ending. This production was staged twice in 1892, in spring, and then again in the autumn. One of the reviews of the second produc- tion says that the “ending was mildened by the director” (Moravec 26). In 1920, a new production in Ljubljana used a new translation. This time, the translator was Miran Jarc, a Slovenian author and literary translator, and the head of the Slovenian puppet theatre before World War II. Although he later gradu- ated in French, he was only 19 when his translation of Et dukkehjem was put on 5 For first German translations of Et dukkehjem see Hanssen. Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 165 4. 12. 2023 12:36:05 166 Marija Zlatnar Moe stage, so it is safe to assume that it was done from German, especially as there are traces of the characters’ German names throughout the play. The translation was long available only in manuscript, but in 2022 it was published as a book – the spelling and punctuation was modernized, but all the interventions either by the translator or in his German source text remained unchanged. The next translation came nearly 30 years later, in 1952, for the production of the Slovenian Civic Theatre (SSG) in Trieste (Italy). The translator this time was Andrej Hieng, a notable Slovenian playwright, author, director, screenwrit- er, and dramaturg. Of all Slovenian translators of Et dukkehjem, he is the most prominent as a literary figure, but his translation of Et dukkehjem came before he became prominent and Et dukkehjem remained his only translation of Ibsen. His text remains in typescript; it was not even published in 2022, when the other two remaining complete translations appeared in book form. In 1966, the first Slovenian direct translation of the text finally appeared. The translator was Janko Moder, one of the most prominent literary translators of the 20th century. He translated literature from more than 20 Indo-European languag- es, in all genres, but especially drama, and he provided the first direct translations from many minor languages. The translation of Et dukkehjem was included in a book with two other plays by Ibsen, namely Ghosts and The Pillars of Society, and accompanied by an extensive study on Ibsen and his plays, written by Marta Vozlič. His translation was the authoritative one for 50 years, until 2016; it was reprinted many times, read in schools, included in the secondary-school leaving exam, and put on stages. In 2016, the Celje City Theatre (SLG) commissioned a new translation for their production of Et dukkehjem. The translator was Darko Čuden, a professor of German at the University of Ljubljana, and a literary translator working with different languages, most notably with Norwegian. This translation, too, was done directly from Norwegian, and was at the time published in the theatre programme, but appeared in a book edition in 2022. The translation was also used in the pro- duction of the Ljubljana City Theatre (MGL) in 2023. The Translations In my analysis I used one modernized and one unchanged edition of the ultimate source text, the manuscripts of Gestrin’s and Jarc’s texts, the typescript of Hieng’s translation, the 1996 edition of Moder’s text, and the first published version of Čuden’s translation. I did not include the 2022 editions of Jarc and Čuden, as the text analysis was finished by the time they appeared, but random checks in these published texts did not show any differences from the versions I used in the study. Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 166 4. 12. 2023 12:36:05 167Do Respectable Ladies Buzz, Grumble or Hum As mentioned, Gestrin’s translation is only partially preserved and is held by the Slovenian Theatre Institute in Ljubljana, in the same file as Jarc’s later trans- lation. The best preserved is the part of Helmer, which has been preserved in its entirety, 68 pages long. The title of the manuscript is “1. Helmer,” and on the first pages there are detailed instructions on Helmer’s look in all three acts. The main text includes Helmer’s cues and lines. Some parts of the text are crossed out, and there are words or phrases added in pencil; these changes were most probably made during the production. Although there is no title included, we know from other sources that the play was staged as Nora. The second translation, also in manuscript form, bears the title Nora. Igra v treh dejanjih [Nora. A play in three acts]; the title page gives the names of both Ibsen and the translator Miran Jarc, as well as the date of the translation (1920). The text itself is 136 pages long, accompanied by extremely detailed instructions for the stage, including a sketch of the Helmers’ living room, cues for the music and similar. The text is full of changes that were added to the manuscript later, possibly during production: parts of it are crossed out, other parts added, there are many reorganizations of the texts indicated on the margins, etc.; most of those changes were probably done during the rehearsals. All the names were originally Ger- manized, but were crossed out and overwritten with their Norwegian versions. In addition to the manuscript, there is also a typescript of Helmer’s part. This is especially interesting because this typescript includes the alternative ending. This alternative ending is entitled Varijanta [Variant] and is crossed out. There are no indications that it was ever used. As mentioned, this translation was published in 2022, without major interventions – but the title was changed, in order to adhere to the title in the leaving exam, to Nora (Hiša lutk) [Nora (A Dolls’ House)].6 Hieng’s translation is preserved as a typescript with the title Nora (Dom punčk) [Nora (A Dolls’ Home)]. The main text is 69 pages long, with no visible changes except for emphasis marks on individual words, added in pencil, probably during production. Also, the whole part of Nora is underlined, which indicates that this copy was used by the leading actress. The few manuscript additions in pencil are mostly stage directions. In 1966, the first direct translation from Norwegian, Moder’s, was published with the title Hiša lutk (Nora) [A Dolls’ House (Nora)]. It seems that the translator and publisher wanted to introduce a version of the original title with this edition, but as the years went by, it became clear that the title Nora was already too estab- lished to be changed completely. The original edition as well as the one from 1996 came with extensive paratexts explaining Ibsen, his plays, his life and his works, 6 The official list of required readings is available at https://www.ric.si/splosna-matura/predmeti/ slovenscina/. Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 167 4. 12. 2023 12:36:06 168 Marija Zlatnar Moe and were primarily aimed at students and use in schools. The 1996 version of the text is 76 pages long, and at some points enhanced with footnotes explaining cul- ture-specific elements. The newest translation to date is from 2016, was published as a book in 2022. This, too, is a direct translation, titled Nora ali Hiša za lutke [Nora or the House for Dolls]. The text itself is 41 pages long and accompanied by photographs of the performance and several discussions of the text, the author, etc. Just as was the case with Jarc’s text, Čuden’s too was published in 2022 in a book with the adapt- ed title. But the production of it in 2023 went back to the roots and called itself simply Nora. METHOD In order to determine how the translations were influenced by the fact that they were done between two peripheral languages, I did a detailed text analysis of the four complete translations, and a separate analysis of Gestrin’s Helmer. I compared the translations to the Norwegian original text as well as with other translations, examining changes in various grammatical (tenses, grammatical number, verbal as- pect, etc.), lexical (synonyms and near synonyms, changes of lexical meaning, idioms and collocations, etc.) and cultural categories (changes in formality, culture-specific elements), as well as additions and omissions in the five Slovenian texts. WHAT DO RESPECTABLE LADIES DO, THEN? Across all four translations, I detected nearly 5000 changes, most of them in the older, unpublished indirect translations ( Jarc ( J) and Hieng (H)), and the fewer in the most recent ones by Moder (M) and Čuden (Č). Table 1: Number of Translation Changes in All Five Translations Category Number of changes Omission 613 Replacement 585 Punctuation 381 Calque 343 Addition 334 Grammatical change 316 Formality change 292 Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 168 4. 12. 2023 12:36:06 169Do Respectable Ladies Buzz, Grumble or Hum Syntax 283 Wordiness 269 Non-normative solution in the target language 237 Intentional change of meaning 229 Mistranslation 223 Borrowed word/phrase 169 Summarizing 120 Antonym 98 Change of culture-specific element 81 Explanation 73 Omitting repetition 71 Other 67 Reorganization 63 Change of metaphor 45 Exclamation or expletive 45 Addressing changes 38 There are several likely reasons for this falling trend: the more recent translations (M and Č) are more or less direct, which means that there is one set of changes (that of the mediating translation) less than in the older indirect ones; the famil- iarity with the ultimate source text, language and culture has been gradually in- creasing (even though the knowledge of the late-19th-century society and culture has been decreasing at the same time); the trend towards foreignizing7 literary translations has become ever more pronounced; and finally, only the recent trans- lations had been published (and were not available only in manuscript) at the time of the analysis, which means that only those two translations went through an editing process before reaching their final available form. The most frequent translation change was omission (most omitted elements were forms of address, exclamations and other markers of spoken language), which accounts for over 600 occurrences; it is followed by replacement of source elements with similar but not identical ones (“mask” instead of “costume,” for example), word-for-word translations (such as “ugly weather” instead of “bad weather,”), additions (most obvious is the addition of a whole scene in Jarc), gram- matical changes (mostly of tense and grammatical number), etc. There was a sur- prising number of non-normative elements in the target texts, many of them clear grammatical mistakes (e.g., incorrect case forms of Slovenian nouns) – I counted 7 For discussions on foreignizing/domesticating translations see for example Venuti. Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 169 4. 12. 2023 12:36:06 170 Marija Zlatnar Moe 237 examples – and changes that can be only described as lexical mistakes, a result of misunderstanding a word or phrase (often a phrasal verb or a colloquial expres- sion) in the source text. The numbers on their own do not tell us what was going on during the trans- lation process, but they give an indication: The rather high number of spelling and punctuation errors can be traced to the fact that two of the texts were in manu- script and did not go through editing.8 The high number of calques, non-norma- tive use of Slovenian, grammatical and lexical changes and inaccuracies, as well as the high number of replacements on the lexical level point to the possibility that the translations were done from a source language that was not the strongest foreign language of any of the translators, and from a culture that, even today, remains somewhat remote for the majority of the target readers/spectators. In addition, more time-specific factors have likely played a role: the first two trans- lations were done from a German source, which brought with it a whole new set of changes (most visible were the Germanized or partly Germanized names of the characters); and the latter two were done when the cultural knowledge of the late-19th-century bourgeois society had decreased (the most visible were changes in the way characters address each other).9 The analysis shows that the four complete translations, as well as the extant part of the fifth, could all be categorized as “reverent” (Aaltonen 64-73), i.e., complete translations without large interventions by the translator – and that trend becomes stronger with time. The only major exception is Jarc’s transla- tion, which comes with an additional scene not found in the two possible medi- ating source texts for his translation. Most interventions, where they happened, did not affect levels above that of word and phrase. Most omissions happened in stage directions, speech markers, addresses, diminutives and rhetorical ques- tions – they did not influence the plot itself, but they did change the charac- terization and the relations between the characters. The one element that has been changing with surprising regularity is the title (see below), but the much discussed controversial ending did not seem to cause trouble for Slovenian translators and theatres. The influence of the mediating texts is most visible in the names of the charac- ters: in the older translations they were either fully or partially Germanized (and then changed to the original) names, while the newer translations have Norwe- gian names. Stage directions change more frequently; characters enter and exit through different doors, and their actions are described in different ways: At the beginning of Act 1, Nora is supposed to be “humming” (“nynne”), which was 8 Here are included only clear mistakes, not solutions that were normative at the time when the translations were performed. Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 170 4. 12. 2023 12:36:06 171Do Respectable Ladies Buzz, Grumble or Hum translated to Slovenian either as “popeva” [is humming], “brenči” [is buzzing] or “brunda” [is rumbling] – this detail sets up Nora as either more (in the rumbling and buzzing translations M and Č) or less (in the others) of a childlike and silly character, a trait that is most expressed in M. As far as punctuation could be studied, the analysis shows a tendency from weaker punctuation (like periods) towards stronger (for example exclamation marks). Emphasis, often marked by the font in Ibsen, was mostly marked by the word order in all translations, although in the newer two the emphasis is just as often absent. There was a surprisingly high number of grammatical changes and the ma- jority was the result of interlingual interferences either between Norwegian and German, or between Norwegian and Slovenian: these include inaccurate use of verbal tenses, especially the translation of the present perfect with the past tense, and of different future tense forms with the present tense; or the incorrect use of Slovenian forms not found in either of the source languages, such as dual and supine, which were often replaced by plural and infinitive. Some of the (non-nor- mative) changes might have been normative at the time (the use of infinitive/ supine), while others have always been regarded as grammatical mistakes (such as the incorrect use of reflexive possessive pronouns or inaccurate declination of individual words). Syntax seemed to cause quite a few problems – most of those changes happened because translators replaced source connectors (mostly con- junctions) with different ones, which changed relations between (parts of ) the sentences; sometimes it is not clear what the pronouns refer to, and the sentence emphasis is altered because of the chosen word order. Lexical changes were the result of three different strategies, namely expla- nation, summarizing and especially replacements of words with synonyms (but in a different register) or near synonyms. Several reasons for this were apparent: the source expression was ambiguous, or had different possible meanings; very often, there was some kind of interference. There were also examples that can be attributed only to the individual choices of the translators, such as Moder choosing to give Nora a “small drum” (“bobenček”) instead of a “tambourine” (“tamburin”) for her dance. With the exceptions of interferences, the changes were mostly neutralizations, affecting the style and register, and occasionally subtly changing characterization, relations and even the plot. When it comes to lexical changes due to interference, we are talking about a rather complex web of interferences between all three languages. One example is from Čuden’s transla- tions: the Norwegian word “bitte” [tiny] was translated as “prosim” [please] be- cause that is what the word means in German – the translation in question was done directly from Norwegian, but the translator’s strongest language is Ger- man. Another group of interferences involves false friends between Norwegian Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 171 4. 12. 2023 12:36:06 172 Marija Zlatnar Moe and German (such as “sorg” which means “sadness” in Norwegian, but “worry” in German), whether because they were translated inaccurately in the mediating translation, or simply because Slovenian translators were affected by their profi- ciency in German. A third group consists of words that have different meanings in Norwegian (such as “ganske” [rather] or [wholly]), where one meaning is similar to German “ganz” [wholly], and the other is not. In those instances, Slo- venian translators more often than not opted for the more German meanings. There was a surprising amount of non-normative use of words, phrases and collocations in all four translations; it could be divided into intentional (the above-mentioned Nora’s “buzzing”) and non-intentional. A typical example of non-normative use is from M: instead of the usual Slovenian word for entrance hall, “predsoba” [fore-room], he consistently uses “vežica” [small hall], a word which was possibly used to mean “entrance hall” in the past, but is now used almost exclusively in the phrase “mrliška vežica,” meaning “cementary chapel.” Stylistic changes mostly resulted in neutralized style: the already very mild swear-words were left out or weakened, as were diminutives, exclamations, hedges and fillers. Different jargons, such as the language of banking, were neu- tralized as well; and the level of formality also changed: in the older translations it was mostly slightly increased, and in the newer ones decreased, especially in Moder’s translation, in which the translator occasionally uses either very infor- mal or dialectal words which visibly stand out from the context. Culture-specific elements are largely preserved; the one that changes most seems to be the name of the main meal, normally eaten in the afternoon (“middag”) – sometimes it is rendered as “kosilo” [lunch], and sometimes as “večerja” [dinner]. CONCLUSIONS The fact that Et dukkehjem comes from a culture that could be described as mi- nor or peripheral, influences all the analysed translations on every level: from the choice of the source text and directness of the translations to the choice of individual translators, and their translation strategies on the micro-level. The first translators all came from the theatre and did not specialize in liter- ary translation, the Norwegian language or Ibsen. Moder, the first translator working directly from Norwegian, did specialize in peripheral languages, but not in Norwegian especially, and only the most recent translator can be de- scribed as a literary (drama) translator specializing (though not exclusively) in Norwegian literature. The translations of Et dukkehjem also stayed unpublished for a long time – only in 1966, when the first direct translation appeared, was it published in book form Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 172 4. 12. 2023 12:36:06 173Do Respectable Ladies Buzz, Grumble or Hum – and first new translation came almost 60 years later, as a part of the materials for the secondary-school leaving exam, when also one of the older indirect trans- lations was published. While all the translations themselves could be described as more or less “rev- erent,” the older translations show several larger additions and omissions (such as the added scene in Jarc), but such interventions stop in the mid-20th century. All the translations also show results of different interferences on the grammatical, lexical and syntactical levels. Sometimes these originate in the source text, but others are simply the result of the fact that all the translators were less proficient in Norwegian than in German. It is also telling that to date the play still has no definite title: every translation came with a different title, and they all differ from the title decided by the Slovenian National Examination Board in 2022, which is certainly a curiosity. In conclusion: even though we are talking about translating one of the most central authors of the world, the translation process and its final products proved to have more in common with translations of other texts from peripheral languag- es, than with translations of other world classics. BIBLIOGRAPHY Aaltonen, Sirkku. Time-Sharing on Stage: Drama Translation in Theatre and Socie- ty. Vol. 17. Clevendon, Multilingual Matters, 2000. Crystal, David. English as a Global Language. Cambridge, University Press, 2003. D’Amico, Giuliano. Domesticating Ibsen for Italy: Enrico and Icilio Polese’s Ib- sen Campaign. Doctoral Dissertation. Oslo, University of Oslo. 2011. Hanssen, Jens-Morten.  Ibsen on the German Stage 1876–1918: A Quantitative Study. Vol. 53. Tübingen, Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, 2018. Holledge, Julie, et al.  A Global Doll ’s House: Ibsen and Distant Visions. London, Springer, 2016. Ibsen, Henrik. “Helmer.” Manuscript. SLOGI Archive sig. AD181, 1892. Ibsen, Henrik. Nora. Igra v treh dejanjih. Translated by Miran Jarc. Ljubljana, Manuscript, SLOGI Library sig. AD 181, 1920. Ibsen, Henrik. Nora (Dom punčk). Transl. by Andrej Hieng. Typescript. Ljubljana, SLOGI Library sig. T3409. Ibsen, Henrik. Hiša lutk (Nora). Transl. by Janko Moder. Ljubljana, Državna založba Slovenije, 1996. Ibsen, Henrik. Samlede verker. 19th ed. Oslo, Gyldendal, 2006. Ibsen, Henrik. Et dukkehjem Skuespill i tre akter. Bergen, Vigmostad & Bjørke, 2014. Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 173 4. 12. 2023 12:36:06 174 Marija Zlatnar Moe Ibsen, Henrik. Nora ali Hiša za punčke. Gledališki list. Transl. by Darko Čuden. Celje, Slovensko ljudsko gledališče, 2016. Moravec, Dušan.  Slovensko gledališče Cankarjeve dobe (1892-1918). Ljubljana, Cankarjeva založba, 1974. Rem, Tore. “The Penguinisation of Ibsen.” Nordlit 34, 2015, pp. 497-504. Stanovnik, Majda, ed. Prevajalci o prevodu. Od Trubarja do Župančiča (antologija). Ljubljana, Založba ZRC, 2013. Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation. New York, Routledge, 1995. Zlatnar Moe, Marija, et al. Center and Periphery: Power Relations in the World of Translation. Ljubljana, Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete, 2019. Marija Zlatnar Moe University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts marija.zlatnarmoe@ff.uni-lj.si Spodobne gospe brenčijo, brundajo ali popevajo? Analiza sloven- skih prevodov Ibsenove drame Et dukkehjem Et dukkehjem (Nora (Hiša lutk)) sodi med središčna dela svetovnega gledališča in knji- ževnosti, hkrati pa gre tudi za besedilo, ki ga je napisal avtor iz razmeroma periferne kulture in v perifernem jeziku. Kljub temu je Ibsenova Nora kmalu po svojem prihodu v evropska gledališča našla pot tudi na slovenske odre, čeprav se je to večkrat zgodilo s pomočjo nemških posredniških prevodov kot pa neposredno. V prispevku bom pokazala, kako je dejstvo, da je šlo za prevajanje med dvema perifernima jezikoma, vplivalo na pre- vodni postopek in na vseh pet prevodov drame, tako posrednih kot neposrednih. Ključne besede: književno prevajanje, prevajanje dramatike, Ibsen, prevajanje iz perifer- nih jezikov, posredni/neposredni prevodi Acta_Neophilologica_2023_FINAL.indd 174 4. 12. 2023 12:36:06