Following Franco Moretti’s observation regarding proportions between translations and local production and Sean Cotter’s definition of minor cultures as “translated nations,” this research arrives to the conclusion that the “translated nation” is a stage within semi-peripheral and peripheral literatures when shifting their orientation within the world system. The article also depicts the situation of small cultures and their specific behavior towards translations. Translations of novels are thus accommodators for new dependencies within the world system. This points out to a complex system of legitimation, through which state-building processes are followed by periods of translation growths in order to secure the alignment to the new center of influence. Shifting consequently its subaltern state from Ottoman to Western influence, from Western to Soviet, and from Soviet to Western again, the Romanian administration also ensured the growth of literary translations-at least in respect to novels. The data used is an exhaustive account of the ratio of local productions to translations provided by Andrei Terian in 2019. Abstract: This article analyzes the growth of translations of novels in Romania in relation to historical events that changed the administrative orientation of Romanian Principalities and the Romanian state within the world system.
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