The role of multilingualism in Ukrainian-German literary transfer

Abstract

The article analyses social and individual multilingualism of actors in the German-Ukrainian translation field. The following aspects are within the focus of the research: the significance of multicultural regions Galicia and Bukovyna for Ukrainian-German literary transfer; factors influencing the language choice of cultural mediators’ self-identification; the importance of multilingual competence for the social role of translators. These aspects are investigated by means of using the language biographies and language decisions of three Ukrainian-German cultural mediators: Ivan Franko, Olha Kobylanska, and Oswald Burghardt.