5. Research Report | The Radical Translations Project Some Challenges in Using Translation as an Approach to Revolutionary History

Abstract

The relation between translation studies and historical research is often one of missed encounters. This article suggests that beyond conceptual differences, this lack of encounter is also due to practical difficulties. My focus is the UK-based project Radical Translations: The Transfer of Revolutionary Culture between Britain, France and Italy (1789-1815). We are a small team working on a corpus of approximately 500 revolutionary-era translations and a prosopography of some 250 translators to create a significant database. Our aim is to track the mobility of revolutionary language—not only what it says but how it travelled, where it went and what it became. How did translation enable democratic movements to extend radical ideas of liberty and equality into new contexts? And how was a transnational revolutionary idiom adopted, adapted, resisted or rejected in the effort to create locally and culturally specific tools for political action on the ground?

Keywords: Translation, Translators, Revolution, Radical Texts, Paratexts, Proposography, Digital Humanities