That’s not my name: Translation of proper names in Croatian and Russian (re)translations of George Orwell’s Animal Farm: A Fairy Story

The procedures for rendering proper names have been studied mostly in works belonging to the fantasy genre and children’s literature. Although George Orwell’s Animal Farm belongs to neither of the two categories, it is affiliated with the subgenre of allegory, which represents quite a challenge to any potential translator. However, the real motivation behind the choice of this book lies in its criticism of the Soviet Union, especially since it was published in 1945, meaning that the political and socio-cultural context influenced its publication and reception to a great extent. This study aims to identify the procedures applied in rendering proper names from Animal Farm in two Croatian (the first translation and retranslation) and four Russian translations (the first translation and three retranslations), and to determine the differences among the translations into the same target language, as well as the differences between Croatian and Russian target texts. Finally, a study of first translations and subsequent retranslations will enable us to detect diachronic changes in the general translation orientations.