Jewish History 16: 263282, 2002. c 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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The role of translation in shaping the Ladino novel at the time of westernization in the Ottoman Empire (A case study: Hasan-pasha and Pavlo y Virzhinia)
OLGA BOROVAIA
Moscow, Russia Abstract. Sephardic literature in the Ottoman Empire was born soon after the expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. It went through various stages and died in the 20th century with the emergence of nation-states. The Holocaust dealt it the last blow. But before this literature perished, it had a last period of bloom. The last third of the 19th century witnessed the birth of secular mass literature in the vernacular, where the leading role belonged to the novel. The very genres in which Ladino secular literature was written had no counterpart in previous epochs, deriving instead from European literary experience. Thus, the majority of Ladino novels, without being translations proper, were to a varying degree dependent on foreign-language sources, which became an important factor in the formation of the genre. In this paper, I explore the function of translated literature in the development of the Ladino novel. After a description of the studys historical and theoretical framework, I go on to analyze two sample texts. One of them has an obvious foreign original, while the other is believed to be an original Ladino creation. I argue that both texts were produced by means of amalgamation of domestic and imported elements, where foreign sources serve as catalysts.

In this paper, I will analyze and try to dene the role of translated literature in the development of Ladino ction at the turn of the 20th century. By translation I mean a transfer of meaning from a text that was produced in a certain language and in a certain cultural context, to another cultural setting, where it is reformulated through amalgamation into a dierent literary system using a dierent language. Most scholars today agree that translation is a form of rewriting, which is a more appropriate term for the texts I am dealing with.1

My gratitude and appreciation go to my friend Professor Steven J. Zipperstein, who made possible my research at Stanford University. I am very much indebted to Sylvia and James Katzman for their generous nancial support of my annual visits to Stanford. I am very grateful to my former academic advisor Professor Aron Rodrigue (Stanford University) for the warm encouragement he has always given me. Finally, I thank my Moscow friends who persuaded me to write this paper. All translations from foreign-language sources are mine.

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The problem of translation was always a crucial issue for Sephardic literature which, for most of its history, was derivative, consisting of translations and adaptations. The participation of European ction in the literary development of Ladino belles-lettres in the Ottoman Empire began in the last third of the 19th century, as a consequence of Westernization and secularization. Among the freedoms implemented by the Tanzimat, starting in 1839, the most important one for the Jews, was equality before the law of all Ottoman subjects, irrespective of religion. At the same time, the state called for the restructuring of the ethnic communities, and as a result, they lost their autonomy and moved towards secularization. In this context it was fortunate that the Damascus Aair (the blood libel) of 1840 attracted signicant attention of Jews in Western Europe. Ashkenazim considered it their duty to aid Ottoman Jews, educate them, and bring them right Western ideas. Their rst enterprise in the East, in which French Jews played the most active role, was organizing a new system of schools under the auspices of the newly established Alliance Isralite Universelle (AIU). Founded in Paris in e 1860, the Alliance opened its schools in the Ottoman Empire in 1865. Their goal was to bring Western cultural values, progress, and moral education to Oriental Jews, who, it was said, had spent four centuries in slavery. With a good command of French and as adepts of Westernization, many graduates of Alliance schools, became (re)writers and journalists. Their periodicals, the idea of which was also imported from Europe, became channels for new cultural items, the most important of them being secular mass literature. In the situation of polyglossia, the only language suitable for the texts addressed to the poorly educated Sephardic readership was the vernacular.2 Alongside the concept of secular ction, a great number of texts were inspired by and borrowed from Western literature. The preferred genre of the general public was the novel, which usually appeared in serialized form. Most of the rewritten novels were abridged, sometimes down to 1620 pages and were published with the indication trezladado, rezumido, imitado, adaptado, aranzhado, reescrito, por, etc., which basically meant translated, or rewritten.3 It was common practice to publish rewritings without any reference to the foreign source, its author, and sometimes even the rewriter. Ladino titles can dier from the originals, making the task of the researcher of this literature especially dicult. It is also for this reason that there will always be room for new discoveries in the eld of the Ladino novel. Thus, Scolnik was recently able to prove that the famous series of detective stories about Nat Pinkerton,

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allegedly created in Ladino, was actually a translation from German, n mediated by a French version.4 Barqu showed that the novel Leonidas el nadador, usually attributed to Ben Ghiat, was an adaptation of a story by the French writer Leon Gozlar. It is remarkable that Barquin did not nd the French original, but only its Spanish translation.5 Indeed, many texts are at least on some level related to foreign language sources. Elia Karmona himself acknowledges that some of his novels (e.g., El vendedor de leche, El chiko Zhak, etc.) were based on a combination of the French plays he had seen in the theater when he was unable to invent anything on his own.6 That is why I nd that D az-Mas overstates when she contends that the number of original novels approached fty percent.7 Besides, neither she, nor Altabe,8 when they count the proportion of translated and original texts, dene what exactly is meant by translation and authenticity (let alone use any translation theory). Yet, even a quick glance at the material shows that the borderlines between the two types of texts are blurred. Moreover, in most cases those works, that have known foreign sources, reveal more common features with each other than with their respective sources. This raises the question of originality, which I suggest to approach not individually, as it is usually done, but on the level of genre. I nd it more productive to discuss the originality of the genre of the Ladino novel as a whole, rather than of each particular piece. It is evident that one cannot deal with Sephardic literature without analyzing translated literatures role in it. However, as far as I know, the function of translated literature in Ladino literature has never been studied as a separate issue. I believe that this can be explained by the fact that Sephardic literature did not produce any masterpieces that would enrich world culture, and, hence, it never attracted the attention of literary critics. Ladino literature has often been looked upon either as a component of Jewish history and ethnography or as a valuable source of evidence for Romance linguists and folklorists. Nevertheless, Ladino literature, irrespective of its artistic value, is part of a larger literary development and can be productively studied and described in general categories, thus oering a fruitful eld for comparative studies. Because the problem of translation in the shaping of domestic ction is important for many literatures, the rst step will be to relate Ladino literature to a broader context. This should enable researchers to apply to its study various approaches and theories, available to the Humanities at large.

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Any theoretical approach to this problem entails answering the following two questions: under what circumstances does translated literature actively participate in the target literature? What are its main functions there? Structuralism, which describes literature as a system, provides an adequate basis for a consistent answer. Thus, Itamar EvenZohars hypothesis9 oers a frame of reference and a helpful research tool for describing the role of translated literature in a given literature. To the best of my knowledge, his is the rst attempt to construct a comprehensive model of translated literatures participation in a receiving literature. Moreover, I nd that this hypothesis works very well for the Ladino literature of the discussed period, since it conforms to the conditions outlined by Even-Zohar. In a literary polysystem translated literature forms a co-system in its own right. I believe that only approaching translated literature as a separate literary system makes it possible to reveal its specic role. It is more productive to regard translated literature as a corpus of texts structured in a particular way and governed by its own principles, rather than as a number of individual translations. This means that in some way translated literature relates to the target polysystem, because the selection of texts for translation is almost never arbitrary, even when it seems so at rst glance. It is much less a matter of personal choice than translators themselves would like to think. Further, these texts, if they are to survive, have to adopt the norms of the receiving culture. The position of this co-system is not static. Even-Zohars hypothesis is part of his polysystem theory, largely based on the general literary theory, developed by Russian formalists such as Yuri Tynianov in the twenties, which dened literature as a system. According to him, the system is not an equal . . . interplay of all elements, but presupposes a prominent position (dominanta) and deformation of the rest.10 Borice Shklovsky emphasizes that this system is not a static one and is constantly in the process of evolution, where the younger line is moving to the center, replacing the older line in the process of canonization.11 The formalists view of literature reveals its dynamic and hierarchical character and serves as a basis for the concept of the literary polysystem whose sub-systems are constantly in the process of shift and replacement. Therefore, it follows that translated literature can occupy the central (primary) position or a peripheral (secondary) one. Even-Zohar argues that translated literatures primary position testies to its innovatory character, since in that case it actively participates in the major events of the literary history of the target literature by modeling the center

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of the polysystem. This implies in fact that no clear-cut distinction is maintained between original and translated writings,12 when the most important translations are made by the leading writers. This situation, of course, introduces new matrices and techniques, but the crucial question is whether the domestic literature can assimilate and successfully use them for its further development. Thus, in Russian poetry of the 19th century, Romanticism was mainly initiated through translations of European poetry, made, for example, by Zhukovsky. His work contributed to Russian literature and in most cases can be regarded equally as translation and original poetry. Typically, when leading writers actively participate in translation whether they articulate it or not they recognize that there is some gap in the domestic literature. In 1925, Carles Riba, a major Catalan writer and translator, declared that the only option for his native literature, which was missing the novel as a genre, was taking a branch of novelistic tradition from abroad, and planting it in Catalan soil until it becomes independent.13 I do not know if any declarations to that eect were ever made by Sephardic authors and to what extent they were concerned about the future of their literature, but they actually contributed to similar processes. At the turn of the 20th century, when the literary market was ooded with translations, most of them were produced by those who were also authors of original works. Thus, Aleksander Ben Ghiat, a well-known journalist and writer, produced 50 translations just in the period between 1902 and 1914. This was done in accordance with his plan, which today one would call an educational project, where the majority of translated texts may be best described as adaptations. Under such circumstances, the very distinction author vs. translator is obscured. However, the question of the number of translations is not the only factor that should be considered: the new ways of thinking inevitably enter the writers mental world and impact his work no less than domestic literary innovations, thereby greatly bluring the borderline between an original creation and translation. Even-Zohar argues that translated literatures position is primary in 3 cases: (1) when the domestic literature is young and in the process of crystallization; (2) when it is peripheral, or weak, or both; (3) when the culture is at a turning point, experiences crises and the literature discovers vacuums that need to be lled.14 Of course, this clear-cut differentiation is somewhat articial because in reality it is hardly possible to attribute a given literature to a single type, since pure types seldom exist, if only because every literature was once young. Though these three characteristics tend to intertwine, I consider the suggested model

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useful despite certain ambiguities. In these terms, Ladino secular ction was certainly very young, weak, and the Sephardic culture as a whole was at a turning point. In other words, in the absence of a domestic secular prose demanded by the new market, it is only logical that translated literature should occupy the central position. This situation corroborates Even-Zohars hypothesis regarding translated literatures functions. In the case of young literatures, translated literature can provide certain genres, which simply did not exist before, thus oering the reader what is still lacking. In Sephardic literature, it is the novel, which was by no means rooted in Ladino literature and had to be imported from Europe where this genre ourished in the 19th century. Translated literatures other function, specic for young literatures, is linguistic. Translated literature helps to develop and expand the rediscovered language, in some instances never written or used for high purposes before, in new and dierent directions. In the 19th century, spoken Ladino was used for the rst time for writing ction. Naturally, it lacked many words that had never been needed before. Living in diaspora, the Sephardim had no academy or other authority that would professionally regulate the language. Another possible resource that became available to Yiddish in the early 20th century is authoritative literature in the vernacular that can set a high standard, but Sephardic secular prose was just emerging. So, many writers tried to do their best by introducing new words and concepts and even by compiling dictionaries, but this was always done inconsistently and ad hoc, since the language was always an object of ideological rather than philological debates. Still, translations served as a vital linguistic instrument. In weak literatures, translated literature is a major source of innovations and oers models for imitation. A strong literature can borrow from its peripheral co-systems, whereas weak literatures and even weak subsystems have to rely on translations until a certain point in their development when they become independent. Obviously, the new Ladino prose had no resources in the home literature, as there was hardly any secular ction. Regarding Meam loez the only authentic canonized work, or group of works, in the vernacular it was of no use to belleslettres in the epoch of modernization: in spite of its popularity, it belonged to the past. I would distinguish one more function of translated literature, relevant for the rst two cases. Translations of foreign, especially canonized, texts demonstrate a certain continuity of the domestic literature with a larger polysystem. They permit a given literature to determine its

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own place in the macrosystem and to declare to the world its cultural aliation. In dependent literatures, translated literature considerably contributes to the shaping of the readers cultural identity. Obviously, translations from Hebrew were meant to remind Sephardim of their ties with Palestine, whereas translations of Western novels revealed the cultural orientation of the translators and announced to the addressees that they belonged to the great European tradition. Since, on the one hand, for a number of reasons the Alliances inuence was more significant than that of Zionists, and, on the other, the repertoire of Western secular literature was much larger, Ladino translators by far preferred European sources. Finally, when a culture experiences a historic moment, the inner dynamics of the literary system breaks the established canons but is unable to immediately create the required genres and types. At these turning points, when the old can no longer satisfy the reader and the new does not yet exist, even a strong literature recurs to translated literature, which temporarily assumes the central position. Normally, revolutionary periods pass, and indigenous literatures start producing the required genres. And if they do not, translated literature will occupy the central position, which is a symptom of stagnation, and eventually, according to Even-Zohar, the respective literature dies. This theory consistently deals with intrinsic literary processes but largely disregards external factors, thus leaving much room for arbitrary, post-factum interpretations; one thinks of the impact of translation on medieval European literatures. That is why it can be successfully applied only on the synchronic, rather than diachronic, level. No genre is born overnight, and some literatures, including Ladino literature, for various external reasons did not have enough time for further development. So, rather than speculating about how translated literatures position would have changed under dierent historical circumstances, I propose to deal with the Ladino novel at a certain stage of its formation as an autonomous genre. My goal is to reveal the function of translation in this process. Translated literatures role in dierent situations, described by Even-Zohars hypothesis, is that of a catalyst. Keeping in mind this perspective, I will try to expose the literary mechanism at work here, which implies a close analysis of the authors work technique. I will, so to speak, take apart two novels in order to see how they were put together.15 Wendy Griswold presents literary transmission from Western to Third World countries, as it is performed by local writers, in terms of elective anity, because this model recognizes that such an author

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is a cultural agent who operates analytically in a number of sociological elds. Among other things, he is a craftsman working within a genre as understood by himself and his readers.16 This description perfectly ts the development in the Sephardic publishing and literary environment at the time of Westernization, where Ben Ghiat was one of the new craftsmen. Obviously, authors of popular ction, because they are particularly dependent on their readership, visibly exhibit their specic decisions in their production, making Ben Ghiats work convenient for research. For my analysis, I chose the following novels, (re)produced in Ladino: Pavlo y Virzhinia 17 and Hasan-pasha el terible.18 The former has an obvious French original Paul et Virginie, by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, rewritten in Ladino by Ben Ghiat; the latter, due to the indication on the title page (por Alexander Ben Ghiat), is generally attributed to Ben Ghiat himself. Pavlo y Virzhinia A graduate of an Alliance school, Ben Ghiat probably read Paul et Virginie in his student years, without knowing much about French literature. As a Westernizer with evident educational aspirations, which were declared in his newspaper El Meseret, he was always looking for an appropriate European book to be rewritten in Ladino. His colleague Abraham Galante notes that El Meseret . . . greatly contributed to spreading the taste for reading among the backward groups of the population. Written in a simple language, this newspaper was very popular. Ben Ghiat published a great number of adaptations in the form of chapbooks [brochures de vulgarisation], accessible to everybody and always sold for one metallik . . .19 Ben Ghiats choice of sources for rewriting and their treatment were mainly determined by the internal rules of the genre of serialized ction. In fact, he did not so much make his own selection, but rather, accepted the existing repertoire of serialized novels almost indiscriminately. Most likely, this canon came to him as part of his professional knowledge; through the reading of French newspapers, which were full of romanfeuilletons. When Ben Ghiat published a list of 22 works of Western ction in the 1914 Passover issue of his paper, Paul et Virginie was among the novels he considered worth translating into Ladino. In the 19th century, Paul et Virginie was translated into many languages and

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became very popular. In Ladino, it was rewritten twice; the second version was issued by Serre in Constantinople in 1901. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (17371814) was a French sentimentalist, greatly inuenced by Rousseaus concept of man. Paul et Virginie, appeared in 1787, as a supplement to his Studies of Nature. It is a story of two island-children, whose innocent love for each other began in their infancy, developed in an unspoiled natural setting, and ended tragically, when civilization interfered. The girl, invited by her wealthy and heartless aunt, goes to France, but cannot adjust to the immoral life of the rich, and decides to return home. However, when the ship approaches the island, a violent gale breaks out, and Virginie drowns. Heartbroken, Paul himself becomes ill and soon dies. The action takes place on Ile-de-France (now Mauritius, but, in 1787, a French colony called by this name) far away from the mtropole. In the story, the e island is represented through the eyes of the people there, who have been educated by nature. Indeed, nature, in the form of owers, birds, landscapes, storms, etc. plays a very important role in the novel. It is more than a background for the events: it is an expression of the authors ideas and an active participant in the protagonists life. The story is told by an old man, witness to the events, and a signicant part of it belongs to the narrators monologues on history, morality, and religion. The old man directly expounds the writers worldview, which is illustrated by the story of Paul and Virginie. This novel is an important expression and manifesto of French sentimentalism and is far from being merely an entertaining love story. Ben Ghiat obviously does not care about de Saint-Pierres message, or, more likely, has no idea about it. It is not dicult to reconstruct his strategy in dealing with Paul et Virginie. The attractive aspect of the novel was the sad love story, whereas the long monologues of the old man could not interest most Sephardic readers and were deleted. The rewriter also deleted all philosophical discourses and descriptions of nature. They did not advance the plot and were alien to Ladino belles-lettres anyway. Consequently, the readers received a 21-page long moving story about the love of two young people, separated by implacable circumstances, which caused their tragic death. As a skillful rewriter, Ben Ghiat recurred to what may be called a technique of creating bestsellers. Here is one of the possible strategies of doing so: . . . [O]n the one hand, if the text is to speak to current issues, the novelist must create a world the reader recognizes. On the other, the escapist nature of the ction demands a certain degree of fantasy. Simplicity of language, reliance on stereotypical and trite

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images, the absence of psychological subtlety, and readily identiable characters permit the reader easy access to the imaginative world because the values these characters represent are obvious and well known.20 Ben Ghiats work perfectly corresponds to this recipe. His readers could easily relate to the sad love story, which after all irrelevant elements had been deleted became a straightforward narrative with just enough action to ll twenty-one pages. Since the source itself lacked psychological subtlety, the idyllic characters and their feelings were easily recognized, and, at the same time, the setting was suciently exotic to entertain the audience. The heroes names were acceptable; the use of foreign names and far-away places was a common feature of Ladino novels. As is often the case in Ladino novels, alongside innumerable deletions, Pavlo y Virzhinia contains additions to the original material. Four of three additions deserve special attention; the rest are minor additions, the result of abridgment or simply the rewriters carelessness. The events related by de Saint-Pierre took place in 1787 on Mauritius, as noted above. This name was restored in 1814, and Ben Ghiat decided to update his readers. His version thus opens with what sounds like a footnote: he explains that the events took place in a port town which once belonged to the French and now belongs to the British (p. 3). Ironically, however, he does not mention the name of the island, so the reader never learns that it is an island. A second addition is clearly intentional. In the Ladino version it says about the two children: Every day, they had a little time set for learning to read and write . . . (p. 5). De Saint-Pierre, however, insists on their illiteracy: [T]hey were as ignorant as the Creoles and could not read or write.21 This ignorance is crucial for the authors message. He emphasizes that Paul had to acquire these skills only because the hostile European civilization separated him from his beloved: Soon this young man, indierent, like a Creole, to what was happening in the world, asked me to teach him to read and write, so that he could correspond with Virginie (p. 166). The immediate cause of Virginies death in both the original and the rewriting is her chastity. When the last sailor on the sinking ship asks Virginie to take o her dress, so that he can help her to swim, she refuses out of modesty. The French source says: He [the sailor] respectfully approached Virginie. We saw him as he knelt and even tried to take o her clothes; but she pushed him away with dignity and looked away from him (p. 302). The same scene appears in the

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Ladino rewriting, but Ben Ghiat (this is the third addition) wanted to dramatize the picture even more. In his version, Virzhinia refuses to undress three times: A sailor approached her and advised her to get undressed and jump into the sea, so that he could save her. She refused. The captain of the ship advised her the same, but she still refused. And those who were still able to save her advised her the same thing (p. 20). The scene has certainly become more emotional. Yet I suspect that this was not Ben Ghiats only goal. Observance of propriety in Ladino belles-lettres was required both by secular and rabbinical authorities, sometimes making the rewriters transform their sources. But quite often they reinforced this concept as part of their own educational agenda. This particular addition is so elaborate that it makes one wonder whether the rewriter himself wanted to convey moral values. This suggestion is indirectly corroborated by the deletion of the originals description of the girls awakening sensuality, which she cannot explain to herself, makes her mother worry, and conrms her decision to send Virginie away from Paul. Ben Ghiat must have judged the subject inappropriate for his readers. Taken together, Ben Ghiats additions to de Saint-Pierre encapsulate his educational agenda. According to the rewriter, his addressees needed to be enlightened; they had to understand that their children must be taught to read and write; and women, who were the majority of his readers, had to understand the need to be modest. Ben Ghiats Pavlo and Virzhinia was intended to set an example for Sephardic Jews, a love story enhanced with an unambiguous didactic slant. The fourth addition concerns the old man. Since Ben Ghiat deleted the old mans monologues, the function of the old man in the novel is minimized: he becomes simply the narrator of the sad story, who hardly ever participates in the events. In fact, the readers, especially those who read the novel in serialized form,22 were likely to forget this character. Therefore, Ben Ghiat had to remind them about him in the middle and at the end of the story. Thus, on p. 14 he adds in parenthesis: It is the old man, whom the traveler met, that is speaking. On p. 23 the following paragraph in parenthesis introduces the nal section of the story: The old man, who was telling this story, began to cry. The tears did not permit him to continue, and when nally he found his words, he nished the story like this . . . This change in the narrative organization may explain another structural transformation. The Ladino text, unlike de Saint-Pierres novel, is told in the third person, so that the rewriter becomes the only narrator. This shift, unimportant to the reader, is interesting for the researcher

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as another element revealing the rewriters attitude toward his source. The important thing is what happened rather than how it is presented. Alongside specic changes, Paul et Virginie underwent a major transformation. Its Sephardic version is a perfect case of decontextualization, typical of many translations and other rewritings. This kind of transformation is frequent in modern translations of medieval poetry. When the translator is unfamiliar with the history of the given literature, in his translated version, a xed poetic form transcends its genre boundaries and becomes contemporary lyrical poetry that represents contemporary sentiment. Similarly, we could say that Ben Ghiat misread de SaintPierres novel, since he regarded it from a dierent genre perspective. The ability to recognize a genre depends, after all, on the recipients cultural background and reading experience and the rewriter is one of the recipients. Pavlo y Virzhinia may be described as a formulaic Ladino novel produced at the beginning of the twentieth century. If we did not know the source text, we would consider it as just another sad love story that takes place in a faraway country. However, because Paul et Virginie is well-known, even if the French authors name is not given by the rewriter, we would still recognize it. This is a clear case where the rewriters work is exposed, open for the researchers scrutiny. Ben Ghiat took a French source and retold the story of the two main characters in his own language for his own audience, arbitrarily changing the original. In his work, he used some imported elements (plot and setting) and removed others (historiosophical discourse and characterization of the protagonists through descriptions of nature). The additions are not very signicant, but the text and its message are largely modeled by the deletions. A more crucial change is the shift in genre, made by the rewriter in accordance with the domestic repertoire, so that the new text has more in common with other Ladino novels than with the foreign source. Pavlo y Virzhinia is thus much more than an abridged translation: it is a Ladino novel, dependent on de Saint-Pierres work. Hasan-pasha My second sample text Hasan-pasha according to the indication on the title page, could have been created by Ben Ghiat in Ladino. But, for the sake of my hypothesis I propose to analyze it assuming that it, too, has a foreign language source, so far unknown to us. Such an assumption is especially feasible, since we are dealing with Ben Ghiat who produced more translations than original works. Most likely, the novel is attributed to him, because of the indication por (by)

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Alexander Ben Ghiat, but, as was convincingly shown by Romero (see n. 3), this term could be employed as a synonym of trezladado, etc. Hasan-pasha is described by the publisher as a historical novel romanso istoriko which does not mean that its protagonist is a historical gure.23 Yet, the piece very much looks like a biography of a great and righteous man, the genre known to the European literature since the Hellenistic period. The novel tells us how Hasan started his career, became a great man, and died as a hero. This narrative contains many elements of other genres, such as the fairy tale, thriller, and history textbook. Although the narration opens with a precise indication of the time when the events happened (17701800) and the place (the small town of Rodosto, situated between Dardanelles and Kostan p. 3), the account of Hasans early years looks like the beginning of a fairy tale. It sounds almost literally like this: Once upon a time there lived a hardworking man, a good Muslim, who had a slave. And when death came close, he summoned the slave and promised to set him free because in his dreams he saw Hasan as a great man, dressed in gold, walking in the sultans palace. In return, the master asked the slave to take care of his widow. But the slave did not keep his word, abandoned the widow, went o in search of adventures, and became a cruel pirate. (Of course, if it really were a fairy tale, Hasan would have been punished for this.) Such is the intrigue (onset of action) of the story. The next part sounds like an adventure story interrupted by textbook passages on the history of the Ottoman Empire. Hasan participates in the war between various Berber tribes in Algeria, and one of its beys becomes his enemy. Hasan ees to Europe and gets letters of recommendation from European monarchs, which should ensure him a safe return to Turkey. But his enemies betray him, and he is imprisoned in the sultans jail, awaiting execution. At this very moment, the sultan (Mustafa III?), disguised as a guard, visits Hasan, is impressed by his courage, and saves him. Thus, the climax of Hasan-pasha is also a fairy tale clich. e Then the story resumes its hagiographic character. The sultan releases Hasan, who soon becomes a captain-pasha and eventually the grand vizier. He later dies during a war with Russia. The battles with the Russian eet are described in great detail, with numbers of big and small ships. This narrative is interrupted by an anecdote about Hasans lion, which is followed by a story that demonstrates Hasans wisdom in bringing about justice. He dies while ghting enemies, yet an exact medical diagnosis (typhus) is cited. As if to complicate matters more, Ben Ghiat adds Chapter 2, whose function is entirely didactic: it

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introduces the reader to the history of the Ottoman Empire. It oers precise facts (sometimes, irrelevant to the story), dates, and names of the sultans. It even speaks about the geo-political situation at the time. Actually, this data is scattered all over the text and presented in an entertaining way, so that the information is easily absorbed by the reader. In other words, the novel is not only thrilling and edifying, but also instructive. It seems obvious that Ben Ghiats goal was to speak about Ottoman history in an entertaining way, and this could be achieved both by translations and original works. In the Sephardic community it was common to publish various materials, including ction, about the Empires history.24 Many Jews, not only the proponents of Turkicization, believed that Sephardim had to be grateful to their hosts and should know their history25 and language. Hence, the story of a Turkish hero was not an unusual subject for a Jewish writer. It is clear that Ben Ghiat, even if he invented the plot himself, had to use some reference text(s) in order to get the data. The bizarre combination of various genre and stylistic elements in the novel testies to the presence of, at least, two dierent components: the ctional part (original or borrowed, possibly, also composite) and the quasi-scholarly discourse. Most probably, the historic source was written before Abdul Hamid II came to power in 1876, because, unlike Selim III and Mustafa III, Abdul Hamid I is referred to simply as Abdul Hamid. There is an evident discrepancy between precise, historical references that are scattered throughout the text (especially in Chapter 2) and the arbitrarily changed facts found in the rest of the story. In order to demonstrate Hasans greatness, the author tells the unsophisticated reader that, thanks to Hasan, Russia lost its maritime wars to Turkey, whereas, in reality, when Hasan allegedly destroyed the Russian eet in 1774, Abdul Hamid I was compelled to sign the humiliating Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji with Russia. This makes me suggest that one of Ben Ghiats sources could have been a biased Turkish text. However, that would mean that Ben Ghiat was able to read in Ottoman Turkish, which was possible but not common among Sephardim. Besides, if Hasan-pasha was a translation from Turkish, he must have adapted it extensively for Jewish readers, changing the perspective of the original Turkish writer. Thus, on page 3, it says that Hasans master lived in a small house as is common among Turks, and his death is described in a rather peculiar way: A good Muslim, he bent his head before the will of God, tied his arms, and waited for his last hour (p. 3). No doubt, this description could only belong to an outsider, since the

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author distances himself from the Muslim ways he depicts. Yet, the closing sentence of the novel is an expression of outspoken Turkish patriotism: Such was the great and strong man, whom Turkey had at its service, such was the great Hasan pasha, of whom the Ottoman history keeps a memorable souvenir (p. 20). The toponyms in this text do not help to establish the original language. Izmir and Ismirna are often used in the same sentence (passim), the name Rodosto is explained in parenthesis as Tekirdag, (p. 3) and Istanbul is called Kostan (its Ladino name) and Konstantinopl interchangeably. Finally, the structure of the narrative is not consistent or homogeneous. While most of the story is a third person narrative, Chapter 2 is introduced by the following phrase: For the understanding of our readers, we nd it necessary to dedicate a chapter in order to let them know, what Algeria, Tunisia, and even Morocco were like 100 and 100 [sic] years ago (p. 5). Thus, the presence of an educator, typically betrayed by minor interferences, like the opening of Pavlo y Virzhinia, or explanation of new words (see below), becomes explicit in this novel. For Ben Ghiat, it is a convenient way of introducing another source. There are also reasons to suspect that he translated a French text, as there was a large choice of such works, and French was the language of culture for Sephardim. In fact, France is the country mentioned in the text more often than any other one. Thus, we are told that France suffered from the pirates more than other countries had. At one point, the writer suddenly tells us that France was interested in Algeria (as well as in Tunisia and Morocco) and colonized it in 1830. This information is irrelevant to the story, especially since these events happened 40 years after Hasans death. The writer mentions the French again when Hasan has to solve a problem, brought to his attention by the French consul. Finally, when Hasans lion attacks the French ambassador he saves the ambassador. This episode, we learn, could have ruined the diplomatic relations between Turkey and France. I believe that on the content level there is enough evidence to suggest that Hasan-pasha, even in its ctional element, could have been originally meant for French readers and written in French. Very often, translations betray themselves through their language, which tends to reect the source. However, by the turn of the 20th century Ladino, which had never been standardized, was Gallicized to such an extent that French loans and calques are not indicative of translations. Moreover, it was common among Ladino writers with educational aspirations to introduce new words, borrowed from other languages or

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coined in accordance with productive models, and to explain them in parenthesis. In the course of my work, I became convinced that there is no regularity in this linguistic eort. The author would explain a new word or substitute a customary expression in one piece and leave the same item unchanged in another. Thus, in Pavlo y Virzhinia Ben Ghiat uses the common Ladino word papas (priest), which a few years earlier he substituted with the word prete seven times in his rewriting of Manon Lescaut, translating it in parenthesis each time. The number of such linguistic innovations may vary from two to twenty over the same number of pages. In Pavlo y Virzhinia just two new words appear: uragan (fuerte tramontana) (hurricane) on p. 8 and nievla (duman) (fog) on page 17. Otherwise, the language of this rewriting has no particularities, is quite simple, and will hardly attract the attention of a researcher. In short, on the linguistic level this text does not strike one as foreign. By contrast, the language of Hasan-pasha raises many questions regarding its origin and the background of the writers potential audience. Its vocabulary is remarkably rich and contains a great number of learned words without explanations, e.g., lisensia, karakter, realizarse, meter en pratika, fantaziya, ipokrita, entuziazmo, reorganisar, intervalo, etc. He also uses the words devenir (become) and imenso (immense), which can be found in other texts of the time with explanations. (For example in Menashes translation of Zolas Nantas.) On the other hand, this novel has surprisingly few words of Turkish origin. In fact, Ben Ghiat uses only those words that are necessary for a story about Turkish life, that appear in many languages and are employed and understood by everyone: sultan, pasha, vizir, etc. Here, only one Turkish term is explained in Ladino: divan. Thus, the text is suciently exotic, but does not manifest any linguistic relation to Turkish. The vocabulary of the novel also makes one wonder about the texts addressees. Unlike most other texts of its kind, Hasan-pasha is full of bookish words. It would be logical to conclude that it was meant for advanced readers (to use the term of foreign language textbooks). Yet, if the addressees of the novel had been well-educated people, they would have hardly wanted a schoolbook-type lecture, contained in Chapter 2. Nonetheless, the treatment of lexical innovations indeed reminds one of instruction aimed at beginners. Ben Ghiat introduces only two new items with denitions: korsario (pirate) and armator (ship owner). In the other two cases, the words, followed by parenthesis, may already be familiar but require further discussion. Corer las aventuras (go into adventures) is simply expanded by por

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estos mundos adelantre (in this world) (p. 4), and vapor (steamboat) is accompanied by the combination el viazhar con vapor (travel by steamboat) (p. 5). I see no simple explanation for Ben Ghiats linguistic inconsistency in Hasan-pasha, but I am convinced that the abundance of bookish words (of international origin) means that this work is dependent on a foreign-language source, most probably a French one. While it is impossible to prove the existence of a French original, it is rather unlikely that the novel was initially written in Ladino. I believe that in this case Ben Ghiat was not just a translator or writer: he compiled and edited his sources and introduced some new words with explanations. The outcome was an amusing and thrilling Ladino novel, useful for educational purposes. Of course, this conjecture leaves a few questions about Ben Ghiats work unanswered, yet, this is not surprising. In Ladino texts of the time many things were done ad hoc and inconsistently. One may also argue that the original could be a Turkish text, since what is related there is unlikely to be the sort of thing a French author would write. At the same time, given the linguistic evidence, Ben Ghiat might have read his source in a French translation. We should also note the pro-Ottoman bias of the ctional part of his work, but while trying, too, to square this bias with the many references to France and the French throughout the novel. All this may suggest that we are dealing with a rewriting of the second order, which in Ladino literature is not unusual, as I have already written in a study of Ben Ghiats rewriting of Gullivers Travels.26 That would also mean that the hypothetical French translator of the probable Turkish original changed the narrators point of view in some instances and left it as it was elsewhere. In which case, Hasan-pasha may be seen as a combination of a piece of Turkish ction, translated into French, with a reference text written in French or translated into it; it seems undeniable that Ben Ghiats rewriting was based on a French text or more likely on two French language sources, which, in their turn, may themselves have been translations. This hypothesis is easily open to challenge or further elaboration, but I doubt it may be discarded completely. *** Where does this all leave us? Hasan-pasha, which presumably belongs to a Ladino author, may in fact be a translation. On the other hand, Pavlo y Virzhinia, which has a known source, looks like the more original of the two texts. It certainly has less in common with de SaintPierres work than it does with Hasan-pasha. Both are amusing stories

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about exciting events that took place in the 18th century, and both are short, have straightforward plots, and are edifying, though in dierent ways. This similarity makes it possible to subsume them under the same corpus of texts that includes a few hundred works (rewritten and original) that were usually identied as romansos. I think it is legitimate to describe this group of texts as a local genre and categorize it as the Ladino novel. Synchronically, rewritings similar to Pavlo y Virzhinia can be dened as contextualized translations, but, if viewed diachronically, i.e. as a stage in a certain literary development, this group of texts may appear as a new genre in the making. One of its constitutive features is its dependence on translation, which sometimes results in hybridization. Therefore, it is not enough to say that translations of Western ction inuenced the Ladino novel, as all researchers agree. Rather, translated literature actually shaped the Ladino novel through amalgamation with it and by often assuming domestic features that eventually brought it to have more in common with the receiving culture than with the source literature. There are a few faithful translations, as well as unquestionable domestic productions. Yet, almost every Ladino novel may be suspected of having a foreign language source. It is not simply dicult to draw a border between an original work and a translation; it is virtually impossible. To pinpoint this distinction, even to try to do so, is methodologically unjustied and unproductive. By calling a given text a translation we remove it from the context in which it functions and forcefully relate it to another literature. More than that, since, in Ladino ction, the borderline between translations and those works commonly described as originals is extremely blurred, I propose to regard the Ladino novel as an integral genre that comprises all novels published in Ladino regardless of their origin. In Even-Zohars terms, this conclusion means that translated literature played a formative role in shaping young and still weak Ladino ction. A Western type of literature was transferred to a non-Western polysystem and reconstructed there by domestic authors, who used both imported and indigenous elements, to varying degrees, in their task. This development puts Ladino belles-lettres into the larger context of new or re-emerging literatures, especially post-colonial ones, that often recur to other literatures as if they were part of themselves, which may sometimes be an important step toward the new literatures eventually standing on its own.

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Notes
1. In fact, it is quite dicult to nd a Ladino narrative that would qualify as translation in the narrow sense of the term. One of the few cases is M. Menashes translation of Zolas Nantas (Cairo, 1904). I have reasons to suspect that such translations remained alien to Ladino literature. 2. On the linguistic situation in the Sephardic community, see Olga Borovaia, Translation and Westernization: Gullivers Travels in Ladino, Jewish Social Studies 2 (2001), 153. 3. For a detailed discussion of these and other terms see Elena Romero, Nuevos aspectos de la narrativa judeoespaola, Proyeccion histrica de Espa na en sus n o tres culturas 3 (1993), 177194. 4. Julie Scolnik, Tras las huellas de la novela detectiva en lengua sefard Misgav , Yerushalayims Sixth International Congress on Languages and Literatures of Sephardi and Oriental Jews (2000). Scolnik notes that the name Pinkerton originated from the American detective agency of that name but nds no literary links. 5. Amelia Barqu Edicin y Estudio de Doce Novelas Aljamiadas Sefard de n, o es Principio del Siglo XX. (diss., Universidad del Pa Vasco, Bilbao, 1997), 307. s 6. See the transliterated edition of his Autobiography contained in Robyn Loewenthal, Elia Carmonas Autobiography: Judeo-Spanish Popular Press and Novel Publishing Milieu in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, circa 18601932 (diss., University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1994), 306. 7. Paloma D az-Mas, Los Sefard Historia, Lengua y Cultura (Barcelona, 1993), es: 171. 8. David Altabe, The Romanso, 19001933: A Bibliographical Survey, Sephardic Scholar 1 (19771978), 96107. 9. Itamar EvenZohar, The Position of translated literature Within the Literary Polysystem, in J. S. Holmes, J. Lambert and R. van den Broeck, eds., Literature and Translation: New Perspectives in Literary Studies (Leuven, 1978), 117 127. 10. Yuri Tynianov, O literaturnoi evolutsii, in Tynianov, Arkhaisty i Novatory (Leningrad, 1929), 41. 11. Victor Shklovsky, O Teorii Prozy (Moscow-Leningrad, 1925), 41. 12. Even-Zohar, The Position . . ., 120. 13. Quoted in Silvia Coll-Vinent, The French Connection: Mediated Translation into Catalan During the Interwar Period, The Translator : Studies in Intercultural Communication 2 (1998), 209. 14. Even-Zohar, The Position . . ., 121. 15. This method of analysis was eectively used by Russian Formalists. In fact, Eikhenbaums famous paper was entitled, How Gogols Overcoat Was Made (Kak zdelana Shinel Gogolia, in Boris Eikhenbaum, Literatura (Leningrad, 1927), 149165. 16. Wendy Griswold, Formulaic Fiction: The Author As Agent Of Elective Anity, Comparative Social Research 11 (1989), 118. 17. Pavlo y Virzhinia: Romanso/por Bernardin de Saint-Pierre/Imitado del Franses por Aleksander Ben Ghiat (Jerusalem, 5672 [1911 or 1912]), 23 p.

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18. Hasan-pasha el terible: Romanso Istoriko. Por Aleksander Ben Ghiat (Jerusalem, 5671 [1910 or 1911]), 20 pages. In Sherezlis catalogues it sometimes has a longer title: Hasan-pasha el terible, gran vizir. 19. Avram Galante, Histoire des Juifs de Turquie (Istanbul, 1985), 3: 76. 20. Reza Dudovitz, The Myth of Superwoman: Womens Bestsellers in France and the United States (London and New York, 1990), 4748. 21. Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Paul et Virginie (Paris, 1839), 31. 22. The novel was originally published in El Meseret, in 1905 or 1906. 23. On the contrary, the term romanso (unlike fato) implied that a given story was invented. Thus, in La dama alas kamelias we nd a direct conrmation of this. Dumas insists that the story of Marguerite Gautier is a true one, and the anonymous rewriter relates this idea in the following way: Lo ke lio vo a kontarvos, no es del todo un rommanso, ma un verdadero akontesimiento ke se paso en la sivdad de Paris unos kuantos anios antes. (What I am going to tell you, is not a romanso, but a true event that happened in the city of Paris a few years ago) (La dama alas kamelias; o Anzhelina del amor (Izmir, y [n. d.]). 24. These include (at least one of the texts was translated from French): (1) Istoriya otomana (Izmir, 1884) by David Hasan; (2) La istoriya de Turkiya (Constantinople, 1900) by Bekhor Sabetay Ben Coen; (3) Los primeros sultanes (Constantinople, 1910) by M. Fresco; (4) Mehmed pasha, su vida y su obra (Constantinople, 1908) trans. from French by B. Farhi; (5) Yeldiz y sus sekretos. El reino de Abdul Hamid (Constantinople, n.d.) by Isaak Gabay. 25. Eyal Ginio, describing similar processes in Greece in the inter-war period, speaks of the books on Greek history, published in Ladino at that time. They combined newspaper information with invented dialogues and were not written from an outsiders point of view, but pretended to represent the attitude of the Greek Jews. (See Ginios contribution to the present volume.) 26. See note 2, above, for the reference.