Censoring The Betrothed by A. Manzoni in the Context of the Social History of Literary Works in Translation

The article explores the censorship history of the early Russian translations of Alessandro Manzoni’s novel The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi). Examining the specific institutions of cultural transfer, the Foreign Censorship Committee that regulated the circulation of foreign language books and the rank-and-file censorship departments that were responsible for the translations into the languages of the Russian Empire, the author focuses on the institutional mechanisms of decision-making, ideological and social contexts of judgments and actions. Using archival documents and materials from the Rare Books and Manuscripts Departments of the Academic Library of St. Petersburg State University and the Academic Library of Moscow State University, the article reconstructs the history of the Russian translations of The Betrothed of 1833, 1840, and 1854, as well as the Polish translation of 1836; the author of the first translation of Manzoni’s novel, published in book form (1833), is identified, numerous censorship omissions and alterations in Vasiliy Mezhevich’s translation (1854) are noted. The study focuses on the analysis of translated literature within the internal political climate of the Russian Empire in the 1830s. This approach to translated literature, treating it through the prism of the reception of the foreign editions, expands the boundaries of Translation Studies on Russian material, as well as enables us to place the history of translated literature into the broader context of the social history of Russian literature of the Imperial period.