Klasikler, Montaigne, Eyüboğlu

Abstract

After the establishment of the Republican regime, Turkey embarked on the process of voluntary Westernization, and the Ministry of Education undertook its intellectual and cultural expansion. The Translation Bureau, established within the Ministry of Education, had the mission of translating into Turkish the classical literary and philosophical works of the West as well as of the Eastern Muslim world. One of the prominent members of the Bureau and an important figure in the domain of culture in that epoch, was the translator of Montaigne’s Essays, known in Turkey as Denemeler, which actually was the translation of only a very small part of the original text. This disproportionality has been vehemently criticized, claiming that it is not compatible with the translation ethics. This article, on the one hand, attempts at revealing, basing on an article by Ergin Günçe who approaches Denemeler from an unusual point of view, the translator’s intention, and on the other hand, at situating Denemeler in the perspective of the Turkish humanistic project.