Translators deformed the same text for opposite ideological purposes

Evidence

The Hebrew translation (Qehiliot madumaynot) came out under the auspices of the Open University of Israel, and was intended as a critical intervention against prevailing Zionist-Likudist orthodoxy. It included an introduction by Azmi Bishara, the foremost Palestinian Israeli politician, and a scholar of Marx and Hegel who completed his PhD at the University of Jena when the DDR state still existed. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 813 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

His Arabic seems to have been worse than his Persian and the twentieth-century Arabist, R. A. Nicholson, remarked of Hammer-Purgstall’s rendering of a mystical poem by Ibn al-Farid that ‘“translation” of a literary work usually implies that some attempt has been made to understand it, I prefer to say that Hammer rendered the poem into German rhymed verse by a method peculiar to himself, which appears to have consisted in picking out two or three words in each couplet and filling the void with any ideas which might strike his fancy’. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 269 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Translation into other languages distorted Bantu philosophical terms. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 210; Hammer-Purgstall’s translators fabricated content by guessing from a few words — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists…, 269; A translation can be deployed as an explicit intervention against state ideology — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 813 (+1 more)

Related

• A translation can be deployed as an explicit intervention against state ideology (similarity 0.84)
• Hammer-Purgstall’s translators fabricated content by guessing from a few words (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Christian polemicists distorted Qur’anic verses with small, impactful translation shifts #exemplifies (0.85)
• A translation can be deployed as an explicit intervention against state ideology #exemplifies (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 813
• Translation into other languages distorted Bantu philosophical terms. #exemplifies (0.75) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 210
• Hammer-Purgstall’s translators fabricated content by guessing from a few words #exemplifies (0.75) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 269