“At Trieste, in 1872, in a palace with damp statues and deficient hygienic facilities…” : translation and the construction of identities in a context of language plurality and cultural diversity

In this article I place the role and function of translation within the multicultural and plurilingual context, of the city of Trieste, with the complex plethora of its manifestations. Translation will be considered here not merely in its textual aspects but mainly as a performative act and a culturally charged action, as a spectrum through which agencies and agents, identity and otherness, representations and constructions are conveyed. The problem of strictly identifying and equating culture with a definite location and space will be addressed through the consideration of discourses and doxas of translation, constructed in relation to the plurality of languages in question which calls for a re-articulation of the context itself. The case of Trieste is paradigmatic in this regard, as nowadays an idealization of what looks like a cultural “microcosm” (Magris Microcosmi) is often taken for granted, a hybrid individuality which is considered as highly representative of wider hybrid contexts. However plural and multiple this context can be conceived, it is seen as a circumscribed and isolated whole, rooted in a place and somehow self-sufficient. To this effect, I will discuss whether translation can be taken, in this sense, as a challenge to fixed, unquestioned definitions of contexts and an interrogation of relations that imply agencies, effectiveness and modalities of articulation (Grossberg) as a way to avoid models of interpretation framed within a strict localism.