Abstract:
The Polnische Bibliothek, founded by the German Institute for Polish
Culture in Darmstadt, financed by Robert Bosch Foundation and published by the
Suhrkamp Publishing House, remains a unique attempt at presenting Polish literature
in the German book market. This paper focuses on the historical, political
and cultural background of the series and the conflicts at the backstage of its
initiation. The analysis, based mostly on the so far unpublished archival correspondence
of the publishing house has two aims: on the one hand, a historiographic
description of the so far unknown processes of Polish literature transfer lies
at its centre, on the other, it addresses the need for appropriate conceptualisations
of such phenomena. The study is framed in the category of Histoire croisée in
this case applied to an analysis of translation production. Activities of all the
actors involved, the conflicts and solutions to them constitute the starting point.
These generate an argumentation space which offers insights into the history of
production of the series that had since its beginning been marked by conflicting
expectations.
