How two different Slavonic cultures – Polish and Bulgarian – enter the discourse with the same literary work? What is the actual influence of particular translations on this process? Is it possible to identify the differences between Polish and Bulgarian reading of Dostoevsky’s The Possessed? This are some of the many questions raised in this book.
Key concept of the work is polyphony, „multitude equivalent of consciousness and their worlds” (Bakhtin), which in the context of translation studies extends from the level of a word in Dostoevsky's novel, to the multiplicity of possible readings of sense contained in his work – both, the level of interpretation, which is a translation, as well as ways of reading this interpretation, comprehend as an affirmation of its status and function in the target culture. That's why in the book, in addition to the analysis of Dostoevsky's translations into Polish and Bulgarian, the author examines stage adaptations of The Possessed, but also reveals the socio-political context and the mechanisms of the market behind publishing of particular translations of the novel in both countries.

Magdalena Pytlak – Slavist, Bulgarian philologist, translator. Lecturer in the Institute of Slavonic Studies at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow. Her research interests include translation studies and contemporary Bulgarian literature and culture.