La traduzione della letteratura per l’infanzia dal finlandese all’italiano: l’esempio degli albi illustrati di Mauri Kunnas

Despite the increasing number of research on translating for children, no study has so far taken into consideration the translations of children’s literature from Finnish into Italian. This dissertation sets out to fill this gap with a comparative study of Finnish picturebooks and their translations into Italian. Besides being the first research in the field analysing the shifts between these two systems, the study thoroughly investigates the characteristics of the translation process of picturebooks. The works chosen as case study are the Finnish picturebooks by Mauri Kunnas and their Italian translations from the period 1979-2009 because they are characterized by a high number of linguistic and cultural complexities which challenge translators’ skills and knowledge. The dissertation establishes whether and how culture-specific elements (anthroponyms, toponyms, food and allusions) and the word-image interaction have a significant impact on the quality and the nature of the target works, and also whether these aspects are still consistent after the translation and the adaptation process to the target system. Since picturebooks are multimodal texts whose message is produced by both the verbal and the visual, it has been necessary to use a multimodal comparative analysis. Such a descriptive comparative study has allowed me to describe the textual and cultural manipulations undergone by Kunnas’s picturebooks translated into Italian. Indeed, it has helped to identify what kind of shifts occur when cultural specific elements are transferred from the source system to the target one, to determine the most frequent translation strategies used to ensure a higher degree of readability, and to establish whether particular translation choices have contributed to modify the word-image interaction. The results of the multimodal comparative analysis have shown that Italian translators have been deeply influenced by the preponderance of the illustrations and for this reason they have often verbalised the visual and added information not originally contained in the source written text. Moreover, the findings of the analysis together with the interviews to the Italian translator and publishing house have also demonstrated that the latter aimed at producing works “good for the child” – and at the same time “good for the adult” – and at minimizing Finnish cultural specificity, even to the detriment of the aesthetic nature of the original picturebooks.

Le relazioni Italo - Finlandesi nella documentazione del Ministero degli Affari Esteri italiano e nel "Memoriale" di Attilio Tamaro (1929-1935)

My doctoral thesis may be placed within the branch of studies on the history of international relations and it examines the development of Italian-Finnish bilateral relations during the mandate of Attilio Tamaro, the plenipotentiary Minister (1929-1935). The research is based exclusively on Italian sources, on the private documentation of the diplomat and on his “Memoriale”, which have been critically analysed, using theories, such as those on the policies of power, on the soft power and on foreign trade. This research aims to draw attention to the bilateral dynamics, and to bridge the gaps of the specific historiography, paying attention to the relations between the Lapua movement and Italian fascism, and to the role that the Minister Tamaro played. The 1929-1935 period is the most intense one in the bilateral relations, and it expands those already begun in the Twenties, thereby replacing the idea of a poor and backward Italy with that of a modern, strong and orderly country that fascism had been capable of building. The need for Finland to solve its internal problems led to the development of the lappist movement in the first few months of 1930 which, with its anticommunism and anti-parliamentarism, led conservative Finland to look towards the Italian political model with particular fondness. The Italian diplomacy, at least during the Grandi ministry, distinguished itself for its moderate involvement in its connections with lappism. After 1932, with the spread of universal fascism, opposing national-socialism, the relationships between fascism and the lappist movement intensified and led the IKL (Patriotic People’s Movement) into the Italian sphere. Actually, especially after 1933, what was the most effective instrument of Tamaro’s political action was culture: the Italian Readership, the cultural associations, and the use of the cinematic arts and art were the channels for the expansion of a cultural imperialism which abounded in political propaganda. With the War of Ethiopia in 1935, the good Italian-Finnish relationships partly cooled down because Italy appeared to be a dangerous nation for the stability of the security system of Finland. The research results are stimulating: they bring to light the ambitions of great power of monarchist-fascist Italy; they show the importance of the Italian example in inspiring the conservative Finnish right-wing; they allow one to hypothesize that there was at least an indirect influence of the Italian model on the development of Finnish events. The aspiration of our research is to stimulate further studies on diplomatic, military and trade relations between Italy and the Scandinavian countries from 1919 to today.