The Translational Anatomy of a Children’s Magazine: The Life and Times of Doğan Kardeş

S¸ehnaz Tahir Gürçag˘lar

Boğaziçi University

This paper explores the explicit and less obvious connections of Dog˘an Kardes¸, a children’s magazine, with translation. It departs from a theorization of the potential links between translation studies and periodical studies and argues that both fields have a great deal to offer each other as emerging and flourishing disciplines. The paper further argues that the study of the periodical and the place of translation and translators within it, needs to go beyond discrete case studies of specific works, authors and translators and set out to reconstruct the broader context in which they gain fresh meanings. The main focus of the study is to explore the translational habitus in Dog˘an Kardes¸ and its contributions to the common habitus of the magazine.

key words Periodical studies, children’s magazines, concealed translation, community building, common habitus

La anatomía de la traducción de una revista para niños: la vida y la época de Dog˘an Kardes¸

Este artículo explora las conexiones explícitas y también las menos obvias entre Dog˘an Kardes¸, una revista para niños, y la traducción. Parte de la teoría de las relaciones potenciales entre los estudios sobre traducción y los estudios periodísticos, concluyendo que ambos campos tienen mucho que ofrecerse entre sí como disciplinas emergentes y de éxito. El artículo va más allá, argumentando que el estudio de publicaciones periódicas y el lugar que las traducciones y traductores ocupan dentro de estas deben ir más allá de los casos de estudio aislados sobre trabajos, autores y traductores específicos, debiendo proponerse la reconstrucción de un contexto más amplio con el que adquirir significados más actualizados. El estudio se centra principalmente en explorar los habitus de traducción en Dog˘an Kardes¸ y su contribución a los habitus comunes de la revista.

palabras clave Traducción y prensa periódica, revistas para niños, traducción encubierta, formación de comunidades, habitus comunes

The present study traces translation as a compositional device in a children’s magazine published in Turkey from 1945 to 1993. Recognized as a successful and progressive publication, Doğan Kardeş (‘Brother Doğan’) has left a strong legacy among generations of Turkish children. This was not due to the scarcity of such magazines in the Turkish market during the time Doğan Kardeş (DK) was published, but to the way in which the editorial strategy of the magazine aspired and managed to build a community out of its readership and forged an interactive relationship with its readers. My study sites translation as a textual tool which played a large role in shaping the makeup of the magazine in terms of the weight of concealed or manifest translations within the overall content of the publication. In addition to the field of translation studies, the paper will make use of some of the concepts and tools from the relatively new field of periodical studies.

Why study magazines in the context of children’s literature?

Focusing on children’s magazines is not a common choice for scholars working on children’s literature. Studies on fiction and poetry printed in book form by far outweigh studies on the magazine or even on individual stories or poems published in magazines. The reasons for this are many, and I will discuss some of them in the following section exploring potential links between translation and periodical studies. Here I would like to argue that children’s magazines which publish both translations and indigenous material offer the possibility of situating translation in a larger context. They enable the researcher to observe the position and function of translation in a mixed environment composed of both translated and non-translated material, which is rarely the case in the printed book. The rich diversity of material in the children’s magazine becomes its main attraction, and literature, fantasy, poetry, activities, informative texts, puzzles, etc. are read consecutively. These short pieces which are often illustrated with colorful pictures prevent child readers from getting bored and make the magazines «the best vehicles of introducing children to the worlds of literature and art, nature, science and history, and for helping a great majority of children develop into enthusiastic, lifelong readers. Magazines are bridges to books, bridges to literacy» (Carus, 1996: 438).

Apart from offering a richer array of reading materials, magazines are more dynamic than books. This is partly due to the fact that they are periodical publications and are in much closer contact with contemporary developments in comparison to books—they are created for relatively immediate and regular consumption. Another aspect which makes the magazine more lively is the way it creates an interactive platform for its readers. Marianne Carus draws attention to the community-building aspects of the children’s magazine which are reinforced through readers’ letters and contests (Carus, 1996: 438-39). DK can be taken as a case in point: its success in building and maintaining a community out of its readers became the key to its existence over several generations. Translation became one of the anchors for the magazine’s community building enterprise, but it was not confined to this role. Translation also contributed to, in fact helped create, the textual richness and variety in DK.

Connecting translation studies and periodical studies

Although most research on literary translation continues to focus on the printed book, periodicals are becoming popular types of material taken up by researchers as their primary or secondary sources. Weekly, monthly or quarterly journals, popular magazines, daily newspapers or newspaper supplements contain material that relates to translation in a number of ways. Periodicals publish translated fictional or non-fictional pieces, and therefore may serve as a target text in translation research. Apart from providing primary material for translation researchers, the periodical press also publishes various types of secondary material such as translation criticism, reviews of translated books or interviews with translators, as well as advertisements of translated books. A major value of periodical research for translation historiography entails the proximity of periodicals to their readers: Periodicals often have a well-defined readership with which they have regular contact through readers’ letters. Furthermore, there is an element of immediacy in the consumption of periodicals which is hardly present in the case of published books, which are regarded as relatively more «timeless». These elements make the periodical a fruitful ground for a fuller contextualization of translation(s).

In my opinion, despite a few notable exceptions (e.g. Wadsö Lecaros, 2001; Meylaerts, 2004; Pym, 2007), this large potential of periodicals for translation research has not yet been sufficiently tapped. Periodicals are spaces where translation can be traced as part of a holistic field, often juxtaposed with non-translated material; the newspaper or the magazine can be studied not only as an instrument for exploring isolated issues relating to translation, but also as integral phenomena in themselves which build specific kinds of dialogics and networks involving translation(s) and translators. We need to learn to see periodicals «not as resources to be disaggregated into their individual components but as texts requiring new methodologies and new types of collaborative investigation» (Latham and Scholes, 2006: 518).

I would like to argue that closer dialogue and exchange between the fields of periodical studies and translation studies can open up a fruitful ground for exploring textual and social aspects of translation as it manifests itself in the periodical.

Periodical studies is a relatively young discipline which came of age in the first decade of the 21st century. The major scholarly publication catering the field (The Journal of Modern Periodical Studies) only started to be published in 2010. Periodical studies emerged as a side product of the study of modernist magazines in the Anglo-American context, but it owes its rise to recent digitalization projects. The growing numbers of digitalization projects around the world have started to provide large amounts of data for periodical scholars, who discovered new aspects of the periodical which were not available in bound volumes, such as ads, and responded to the challenge of working with magazines in different ways. The challenges mainly stem from the complexities of the periodical as a mix of genres, texts and voices (Philpotts, 2013; Bandish 2001).

Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism has also been used in order to account for the rich variety and at times contradictory diversity of discourses and texts in periodicals. Dialogism operates both between individual entries in a specific issue or over the course of numerous issues among groups of texts constituting a meta-narrative (Bandish 2001: 242). Cynthia Bandish (2001: 241-242) writes:

Extrapolating from Bakhtin’s dialogism, we can view the composite of texts in a literary magazine as an extended dialogue. Here the stratification of language occurs not only in the grammatical units of individual sentences, but also in the thematic concerns and the varieties of genre. Within individual essays and fiction, we can still find varying mixes of voices–the dialogism of characters and narrators, the competing dictates of fashion, social behavior, or politics.

Translation adds further voices to the already rich mix in the periodical. The translator’s voice in the translated texts, as well as the dialogism among translated and indigenous texts needs to be taken up in the context of the periodical as additional strata to be considered.

In their seminal article marking the rise of the field of periodical studies, Latham and Scholes (2006: 519) stress that digitalization projects have supplied the needed object of study for periodical scholars. They argue that the time is now ripe to concentrate on developing new and interdisciplinary sets of methodologies for the study of the periodical.

The diversity of these resources reveals that one of the key elements for the creation of periodical studies is already falling into place: the assembly and dissemination of a core set of objects. Now that they are readily accessible, we are prepared to begin work on a second essential element for this field: the creation of typological descriptions and scholarly methodologies. This will be a collaborative effort that takes place in an evolving set of conversations and debates across, within, and between the traditional disciplines. Latham and Scholes hardly have translation studies in mind as one of their «traditional disciplines». I believe that periodical scholars are not aware of the relevance of translation (both as an activity and concept) for their objects of study. In many cultures translation remains a major textual and editorial tool in the creation of the content of magazines and newspapers, but is rarely taken up critically.

Periodical scholars are in the process of developing new theoretical perspectives and methodologies to address questions of authorship, genre and the lack or presence of a unitary voice in periodicals. Incidentally, these are also issues which are at the heart of translation studies. While questions of authorship dominate literature printed in book form, the periodical is shaped and regulated by editorial forces, which may or may not be so easy to detect. Arguing that the title of a periodical seems to designate the whole run as a single work, instead of a fragmentary structure composed of individual articles or issues, Matthew Philpotts maintains that «the periodical is a form of publication which resists and disrupts a conventional idea of the author as the principle of circulation for literary texts» (Philpotts, 2013: 1). According to Philpotts the periodical provides space for both anonymous contributions and multiple authorship which requires a different approach than that used for the printed book. Philpotts conceptualizes the journal as a «field» marked by its own structure and struggles, and resorts to Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to situate the editor as an agent negotiating the complex economic, cultural and artistic relations that are articulated in the magazine (Philpotts, 2012: 42). The individual habitus of the journal editor encounters the institutional habitus of the periodical to create what Philpotts refers to as a «common habitus», based on Bourdieu’s brief discussion of a European review journal, Nouvelle Revue Française. This common habitus is to be understood as a shared set of dispositions which generate practices and perceptions in a periodical (Philpotts, 2013: 4). A possible interdisciplinary approach involving periodical and translation studies can depart from an exploration of the place of translation in the making and maintenance of this common habitus. This will be the main topic my case study on Doğan Kardeş will explore.

In their search for the common habitus in a study on the German literary journal Sinn und Form, Parker and Philpotts (2009) refer to translations or translation debates published in the journal, but not from a critical point of view. They do not elucidate the place of translation in the larger context of the journal, neither do they question how the translated works contribute to the common habitus embodied by Sinn und Form. Yet the pivotal role played by translation in the journal is evident from their account of the way Sinn und Form put readers in contact with international literature. Parker and Philpotts write about how Sinn und Form served as a showcase for international contemporary poetry especially in the 1950s, including works by Neruda, Mayakovsky, Mao, Lorca, Sachs, Mistral, Jimenez, Asturias, Viteslav Nezval, Langston Hughes, Louis Aragon, Rafael Alberti, Nazim Hikmet and Attila József, as well as selections of French resistance poetry, new Polish poetry, Finnish poetry, Latin American poetry, and American workers’ songs (Parker and Philpotts, 2009: 224). An exploration of how these poets and works were selected for translation and publication or of the translation strategies employed by translators and the physical positioning of translation vis-à-vis German works would no doubt reveal invaluable data about the concept of translation the editors held. Although Parker and Philpotts make the translators quite visible and mention their names and functions, they do not present them as real agents capable of shaping the form and content of resulting translations or of contributing to the images of foreign literature and authors conveyed in Sinn und Form.

In his continued search for a method to better capture the common habitus of the periodical, Philpotts has developed a set of «periodical codes» to serve as heuristic tools. Brooker and Thacker’s notion of «periodical codes» (2009) was modeled after Jerome McGann’s bibliographical codes (1991: 12-13). Bibliographical codes constitute the materiality of the published periodical, including typefaces, page format, bindings, etc. McGann suggests that meaning resides in the interaction between the bibliographical and linguistic codes, inviting researchers to consider textual aspects that are often overlooked in the analysis of literature. Philpott elaborated the notion of periodical codes further into five sets: temporal, material, economic, social and compositional codes. The interaction among these codes help create a distinct identity for a journal, i.e. a common habitus represented by the journal’s title. I find these five codes highly relevant for exploring the position and function of translation in a journal and will refer to them in my analysis of DK as a translational product.

In the remainder of this article I will first proceed with offering a general background and overview of DK’s emergence, development and closure. This section will also provide information about the political context of the magazine and the way its outlook changed along with changes in society and politics. This will be followed by look at the specific place of translation in the magazine from a macro perspective. I will offer some figures and statistics about the actual space occupied by translation and translational trends over the years. This section will include a discussion of periodical codes and the place of translation vis-à-vis those codes. The last part of the article will feature a case study of 12 monthly issues of Doğan Kardeş published in 1961. The case study will offer a micro view on translation as it surfaces in a textual study of the magazine. The findings of this section will also enable a discussion on the possible existence of a translational habitus in the magazine.

An Overview: Who was doğan kardeş?

As mentioned in the introduction, DK was one of the most popular and long-lived children’s magazines in Turkey. The end of the 1930s and early 1940s appeared to be a moment when many children’s magazines flourished, and when Doğan Kardeş was launched in 1945 there were already eight children’s magazines available in the market (Eker, 2006, Appendix 1). DK turned out to be the most resilient among its peers; most of its contemporaries ceased publication after a couple of years while DK continued to be published until 1993 with two intervals and a total of 1247 issues (Arzuk, 2007: ii). The longevity and popularity of the magazine also piqued the interest of researchers. So far four M.A. theses (Eker, 2005; Günaydın, 2006; Yıldırım, 2006; Arzuk 2007), and one PhD dissertation (Gürdal, 2004) have been carried out on DK. In addition to these, one of the leading authors and columnists in Turkey, Mine Söğüt, published a book chronicling the birth and growth of the magazine (Söğüt, 2003). These studies focus on the magazine especially in terms of its interactions with the changing external environment and the changing image of the ideal child as it evolved over five decades. Although they all acknowledge translated literature as an important component of the magazine, they do not problematize its functions or focus on the social agency of translators. Nevertheless, they are to be commended for their close scrutiny of the individual issues of the periodical and for providing data such as the titles of DK’s translated material and the names of the translators. These studies form the backbone of the next section, which focuses on a macro view of translation throughout the publication life of DK.

DK bears the hallmark of two major figures. One of them was its founder and patron, Kâzım Taşkent, and the other, Vedat Nedim Tör, the editor of the magazine. Both men were educated in Germany and were the product of a similar social and cultural environment. After working for the public sector for many years, Kâzım Taşkent founded the first Turkish insurance company, Doğan Sigorta, in 1942 and the first private bank in Turkey, Yapı Kredi Bank, in 1944. His business acumen led both of these enterprises to great success, and he put some of the economic capital accumulated in these business enterprises towards the cultural field. The critical moment in Yapı Kredi Bank’s presence in the cultural field was when Kâzım Taşkent began his collaboration with Vedat Nedim Tör, a renowned man of culture. Tör became the Culture and Arts Advisor for the bank in 1945¹ and retired from this post in 1977. Apart from a four-year interval where he worked for another bank, Tör was fully in charge of all Yapı Kredi Bank cultural activities (Tör, 1976: 68-121; Gürdal, 2004: 442-444; Arzuk, 2007: 15-16). The collective agency of Taşkent and Tör was the driving force behind not only DK but a number of other magazines such as Aile, Sanat Dünyamız, and Küçük Kardeş. DK embodies their vision for Turkish society in a compact and clear manner and the same vision can also be traced in their other publications.

Doğan Kardeş Publishing House was launched in 1946, one year after the founding of the magazine and Tör became its editor-in-chief. The publishing house mainly published children’s literature and placed a very strong emphasis on translated literature. Its products were often advertised in the magazine and children were given recommendations about other in-house publications. Furthermore, the publishing house produced book versions of novels serialized in the magazine. I will return to the activities of the publishing house in the next section, which deals with a macro perspective on translation in DK.

The title of the journal, Doğan Kardeş, is also quite revealing. In my opinion, there are three main functions served by the title. First of all, the title refers to the founder’s son who died in an unfortunate accident 6 years prior to the launching of the magazine. Secondly, by including the word «kardeş» (‘brother’), often used as a form of address among Turkish children, the title personifies and designates the journal as a child, tearing down social and intellectual hierarchies between the adult editors and contributors and child readers. This function may be seen as a reflection of a possible «common habitus» heavily marked by a search for constructing an ideal Turkish child, while avoiding a didactic tone. The ideal of the child changed throughout the various periods of the journal’s publication, but the title remained a constant and became the bearer of changing perceptions of the ideal child. The third function of the title only surfaced years after the launch of the journal: The title became synonymous with a specific modernization project tailored for children, and it therefore acquired a symbol status. As this third function is of lesser critical importance for the purposes of the present paper, let me now pursue my presentation of the «life and times» of Doğan Kardeş by further analyzing the first two.

Doğan Kardeş as a gift from grieving parents

The founder of DK, Kazım Taşkent, was one of the leading entrepreneurs of the republican era. Educated as an engineer in Germany, he was deeply attached to the secular and westernist values Turkey seemed to be dedicated to following the founding of the republic in 1923. He had two sons whom he wished to raise in a Western manner. Despite his wife’s objections, he sent them both to be educated abroad. The oldest of the two sons, Doğan, attended a boarding school in Switzerland from the age of 7. On a sunny April day in 1939, when he was ten years old, Doğan was caught in a landslide with 18 others. His body was never recovered. Kâzım Taşkent and his wife never fully got over the trauma of losing their son; encouraged by Vedat Nedim Tör, Mr. Taşkent decided to immortalize his son’s name by including it in the title of a children’s magazine (Söğüt, 2003: 13-22). Interestingly enough, when DK was launched for the first time in April 1945, there was no mention of this tragic event anywhere in the magazine. The only ones who knew about the origin of the title were the immediate friends and family of the Taşkents and the editorial staff at the magazine. The readers did not find out about Doğan Taşkent and his death until much later, and the magazine portrayed «brother Doğan» as a real flesh and blood person; he was one of the personalities «writing» for the magazine and conversing with his reader brothers and sisters. Doğan Kardeş was the very image of the perfect Turkish child dreamed up by Kâzım Taşkent. Vedat Nedim Tör made this image of the perfect child a reality for the readers of the magazine (Söğüt, 2003: 38).

Doğan’s real story was only revealed to the readers in a piece by Tör published on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the magazine in 1955. The piece was written in a highly dramatic tone, and Doğan’s tragedy was linked to his legacy in the magazine, asserting his spiritual presence in both the magazine and in the activities of the publishing house carrying his name (Tör in April 1955 issue of Doğan Kardeş, reprinted in Söğüt, 2003: 134).

Doğan Kardeş as a reflection of the ideal child

The title and its personification helped create a strong and friendly bond between the magazine and its readers. This bond was carefully reinforced through textual, paratextual, and extratextual strategies. Arzuk and Gürdal argue that there were two different voices in the magazine. One was the friendly voice of the writers, while the other was an adult voice present in the texts written by the editorial board; the latter appeared to take children seriously and avoided didacticism (Gürdal, 2005: 159-160; Arzuk, 2007: 26).

Textually, the children were provided a great deal of space in the magazine. They were asked to send in their letters, stories and poems, and they responded with great enthusiasm. There were even two translations by two young readers published in 1961.

In terms of the paratextual features of the magazine, children always played a pivotal role in the color covers of the magazine which featured a specific theme in each issue. Even if the cover did not show a real reader, it often showed an ordinary child: sometimes a village girl, a young worker boy, or a student, with whom the readers would automatically identify. Moreover, the magazine frequently published photos of readers as well as pictures and drawings by young readers, which must have been a great source of pride and excitement especially in the 1940s and 1950s.

DK also held a number of activities that exceeded the boundaries of the magazine. It held competitions, including a planned swimming competition which never actually took place, probably because of a lack of children who knew how to swim (Söğüt, 2003: 57-58). Talent shows were also held regularly by the magazine. These shows offered many opportunities to young artists, and they allowed the readers to physically meet one other as well as the editorial staff and writers of the magazine.

Through its engaging and interactive style, DK offered a vision of an ideal child to its readers. Arzuk and Gürdal have identified chronological shifts in the discourse of the magazine and the way the image of the ideal child changed throughout its various decades, paralleling Turkey’s many social and political transformations. These shifts can be traced both through editorial articles addressing children directly and the thematic choices of fictional and informative material published in the magazine, including translations. The first decade was marked by an emphasis on collective responsibilities over individual rights, physical education and health, hard work, and frugality. This period (1945-1955) could be considered an extension of the nation-building efforts in Turkey and this was especially reflected in the importance given to children’s choice of a profession. In Arzuk’s words (2007: 70), «in the first decade of Doğan Kardeş, the definition of the children by their futures rather than their presents was amalgamated with the newly rising idea of the child as an individual». The second decade of the magazine (1955-1966) corresponded to Turkey’s increased Americanization and the interruption of democracy by a military coup in 1960. This was a period when the magazine provided a great deal of room for informative and fictional material from different cultures. A shift from themes of development, progress and participation dominant in the previous decade towards intellectual stimulation and intercultural awareness took place in this period. This decade also placed a focus on the rights of the individual child as opposed to social duties and responsibilities (Arzuk, 2007: 110). The third decade of Doğan Kardeş (1966-1978) overlapped with youth movements around the world and the increasing politicization of Turkish society. In 1965-1966 the magazine went on a 10-month hiatus and returned with a total makeover featuring color pages and new comics. In this period, DK started including more popular literature and comics with increasingly adult themes, which blurred the borders between children and adults. Translation was instrumental in supplying material for this shift. However, sexuality and politics remained off limits. Arzuk (2007: 132) suggests that DK readers of the 1970s were presented «stereotypical gender roles, an increasing dose of violence, and a homogenous society that demanded uniform identities». The ideal of frugality present during the first decade was now replaced by the ideal of consumerism. Young artists such as child musicians, painters or cartoonists, who were discovered and encouraged by DK in its early decades, were no longer visible in the magazine. They were replaced by child movie stars or pop singers (Söğüt, 2003: 204-205). The end of this period also marked the first closure of DK, which was faced with financial difficulties and had to cease publication during the general strike of 1978. Doğan Kardeş was published for one last five-year run, from 1988 to 1993, in an attempt to revive the conceptualization of the ch++ild created in 1955-1966 period. However, it could not compete against television or survive in an environment where extracurricular reading was undervalued (Söğüt, 2003: 233). The magazine bid a final farewell to its readers in December 1993 but promised that the publishing house would continue its operations. Since then, the publishing house has also become somewhat dormant, but is still operational as the publisher of the Harry Potter series.

This very brief overview of the diachronic development of DK has been possible thanks to the work of researchers who carried out a thorough analysis of the themes and discourses in the magazine throughout its existence. The analysis by these researchers demonstrates that the vision of the ideal child projected by the magazine is the end result of a collective endeavor. Although the magazine was composed of short texts and serialized fiction, these were dialogically linked to each other and managed to create a meta-narrative in the magazine. This is not the work of an individual editor: Tör was active for most of the publication life of the magazine, but the official editorial board often changed to include other editors such as Şükrü Enis Regü, Orhan Tercan, Sezai Solelli or Şevket Rado. So rather than an «editorial habitus,» the practices and discourses observed in the magazine need to be tackled in the framework of a «common habitus,» as argued by Philpotts. The carrier of that common habitus is the very title of the journal, Brother Doğan, an imagined and imaginary figure representing and shaping the shifts in the dispositions of a community of child readers for nearly half a century. Let me now turn to the function and position of translation in Doğan Kardeş and its possible role in the creation and maintenance of the magazine’s common habitus.

Translation in doğan kardeş: A macro study

Before I start tackling the place and role of translation in terms of the periodical codes of DK as well as translation’s possible contributions to the magazine’s common habitus, I would like to problematize DK’s presentation of translated material. As I will demonstrate in this section, interlingual translation (in the sense of the transfer of a source text in a foreign language into a corresponding Turkish target text) was one of the main textual production strategies in the magazine. Although there are diachronic shifts in the text types and themes chosen for translation, DK’s reliance on texts from foreign cultures and languages never decreased. Nevertheless, the magazine was not consistent in the way it presented translations to its readers. While novels serialized in the magazine in the 1945-1954 and 1966-1978 periods were often credited to both foreign authors and their translators, this was hardly the case for short stories, biographies and other informative items about nature, animals, health, etc. A frequent strategy for short stories was the localization of names, and in some cases it became rather difficult to distinguish between translated and indigenous material. Therefore, in my discussion of translated texts in DK, I will use translation in a wider sense to include texts which are likely to have been the end result of translation processes even when this was not clearly specified in the texts. For example, most biographies of foreign individuals were not credited to an author or a translator, but it was clear that they were directly or indirectly based on foreign sources. In this context, Gideon Toury’s emphasis on translations which remain concealed is highly useful. Translations may remain concealed in cultures or historical periods where «the very distinction between ‘translations’ and ‘non-translations’ is non-operational, sometimes so much as blurred» (Toury, 2012: 94). I have argued elsewhere that concealed translations do not always replace whole source text segments and that they can come in the form of target texts compiled from a wide range of foreign sources (Tahir Gürçağlar, 2010). DK made wide use of concealed translations in both senses, i.e. as wholesale translations of foreign sources which are not marked as translation and as a specific strategy for producing Turkish texts based (to varying degrees) on foreign sources. I will offer examples for both types of concealed translating in the next section.

The presence of concealed translations means that translation has a much larger role to play within the textual composition of DK than that revealed by previous researchers. In fact, researchers have also argued that translation was pivotal tool in the textual production of the journal. Gürdal (2004), Arzuk (2007), Eker (2006), Yıldırım (2006) and Günaydın (2005) have offered lists of translated texts published in the magazine. Their main strategy of designating a text as translation revolves around the presence of a foreign author or the name of a translator in the text. When concealed translations are excluded from the framework, the main bulk of translated material appears to be in novels and comics. My detailed analysis of the 12 issues that appeared in 1961 in the next section will show that this was not necessarily the case, and that translation occupied a much larger place in terms of the compositional codes of the magazine. Following McGann and Philpotts, I understand «codes» to mean material and linguistic principles utilized in the structural and semantic organization of periodicals.

Translation and the Periodical Codes of Doğan Kardeş

In the following paragraphs I will elaborate further on periodical codes as developed by Philpotts (2013) and explore how translation interacts with each of these. I will argue that each of the codes have a bearing on the practices of and discourses on translation in the magazine.

Temporal Codes: These codes pertain to the date of publication, periodicity, regularity and longevity of a periodical (Philpotts, 2013: 2). DK has relied on translated texts and translators throughout its publishing life, but, as pointed out earlier, there were shifts in its choice of material. Certain patterns are specific to certain periods. Serialized novels could only be published in times when the magazine was published weekly, which meant that there were no serialized novels in the 1955-1966 period. On the other hand, the proportion of translated comics increased in DK’s final period, perhaps in an attempt to make the magazine visually more attractive to young readers at a time when it had to compete with television (Söğüt, 2003).

Material Codes: These codes relate to the physical features of the periodical, such as binding, paper quality, number of pages, etc. Translated texts, especially serialized novels, occupied a large physical space in DK. The changes the magazine went through in 1966 were also significant for the way translated comics were presented and received in the journal. The new printing method, photogravure, and the color printing technique made comics more prominent in the magazine. Nowadays, many readers are interested in old issues of the magazine because of the translated comics it published. There are two Internet communities² in Turkey where subscribers upload comics and make them available to readers. The interest shown in these websites is so large that they occasionally have to restrict the number of new subscribers.

Economic Codes: The economic codes of Doğan Kardeş were largely defined by Yapı Kredi Bank which was the financial force behind the magazine. From the start DK chose subscription as its main distribution mechanism. This also ensured that readers living in remote areas could also receive copies of the magazine. Furthermore, DK was also sold at the bank’s branches. Translation can be linked to the economic codes in DK in at least three major ways: its affordability vis-à-vis indigenous writing, its popularity among the readership, and its promotion of the books (which were mostly translations) printed by the Doğan Kardeş Publishing House.³ There was an organic tie between the magazine and the publishing house in terms of the publication of translated books. This was especially pertinent during their first decade: 16 out of 32 translated novels serialized in the magazine in the 1945-1954 period were published in book form by the Doğan Kardeş Publishing House (based on Arzuk, 2007: 171 and Eker, 2005).

Compositional codes: These are the textual, visual, and design codes active in a periodical (Philpotts, 2013: 3). Translation is built into the textual codes of DK. As mentioned earlier, manifest or concealed translations constituted a major part of the magazine throughout its various decades. During the first two decades, serialized translated novels, short stories, and informative articles were the main outlets for translation. This changed in the later decades and from 1966 translated comics started to occupy a larger space in the magazine, overtaking the share of translated fiction (Söğüt, 2003: 190). DK promoted comics since its establishment and provided room for young local cartoonists, allowing them to be trained by the famous cartoonist Cemal Nadir (Söğüt, 2003: 41). However, most of the comics published in the magazine were translated from foreign sources. Among these were Tarzan (Russel Manning), Tin Tin (Hergé), Dennis the Menice (Hank Ketcham), Thimble Theatre (Elzie Crisler Segar), Tom and Jerry (William Hannah and Joseph Barbara), Superman (Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster), various Walt Disney comics, etc. (Arzuk, 2007: 173-179). These comics introduce a complexity to the role and position of translation in DK: they include both textual and visual codes, proving that translation not only dominates the written word but may also have close ties with visual texts.

A specific theme, which expanded over the first two decades of Doğan Kardeş was intercultural communication. Starting from the first issue, until the very last, the magazine introduced different countries and cultures to the readers. The material used in this intercultural effort was the product of various forms of concealed translation. The texts did not bear names of translators, and sometimes they were credited to Turkish authors –this is the case for the series covering African countries published in January-July 1961. However, the information contained in them was based on foreign sources and it was unlikely that a children’s magazine could employ foreign correspondents in faraway countries who could write these texts from scratch. In the first decade of the magazine, there were many fictional or informative pieces about different cultures and parts of the world. Nevertheless, there was no cohesive narrative behind these pieces: Regions of the world depicted in the magazine such as Africa and Scandinavia appeared to have been chosen due to their extreme differences from Turkey, especially in terms of climatic conditions (Arzuk, 2007: 42). According to Arzuk, in the second decade of the magazine, the choice of different cultures for their curiosity value was replaced by a drive to point out similarities among children in different parts of the world, trying to establish a «universal republic of children» where all children lived in harmony (Arzuk, 2007: 101). In this period, countries and cultures which were remote by the Turkish standards of the day, such as Afghanistan, Hawaii, Korea, Liberia and Tanganyika, became a setting or theme for texts published in the magazine. Arzuk has counted 47 regions, countries or peoples mentioned by DK in the 1955-1966 period (ibid.). As mentioned previously, concealed translation was the method mostly used in creating these texts. For instance upon the request of Tör, the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru sent an elephant to Turkey as a gift to Turkish children in 1950. DK gave the happy news to its readers that the elephant was on its way to Turkey. The news article also included a message from Nehru, written in Turkish (published in DK on 14 December 1950, no. 220, p. 3, reprinted in Söğüt, 2003: 122). There was no mention or sign of a translation process resulting in Nehru’s Turkish message. Another example is a letter from a boy in Mombosa published in 1955 (published in DK in the August 1955 issue, no. 437, p. 13, reprinted in Söğüt, 2003: 137-138). The letter is addressed to the readers of DK and informs them about nature and life in the African continent. Again, the boy, named Tonuka, appears to have written the letter in Turkish. In the first example, there was probably an actual message from Nehru, very likely written in English, and the resulting target text was a concealed product of translation. On the other hand, in the second example there may not have been a source text to start with. The letter from Tanuka may well have been written in Turkish as a technique of conveying information, while misleading the readers to the assumption that the text was a translation, thus making the letter a case of pseudotranslation –a text presented as, or assumed to be, a translation, while it is an original piece of writing (Toury, 2012: 47).

The existence of marginal forms of translation, such as concealed translations and pseudotranslations in DK, offers clues about a possible translational habitus in the magazine. This habitus needs to be seen as part and parcel of DK’s common habitus, and the reliance of the magazine on foreign material and its emphasis on intercultural awareness mean that the common habitus cannot be fully understood and revealed without a full examination of the translational habitus.

Social codes: These cover the network of actors involved in the creation, circulation and reception of the journal (Philpotts, 2013: 3). While exploring the position of translation in DK it is imperative to inquire about the position of the translator at DK. I have already mentioned that translators were not always visible in the magazine; however, a number of well-known translator-writers who worked for DK were quite visible–so much so that at times their names appeared as translators next to a text, but there was no mention of a source author. As the editor and leader of DK, Vedat Nedim Tör is to be credited for shaping the editorial policies of the magazine. In that sense, his editorial presence in the translational habitus needs to be explored in more detail, by looking at his choice of translators and at the various translation practices he encouraged or discouraged. The same needs to be done for other key editorial staff and subsequent editors at DK. Furthermore, the translators whose names appeared frequently in the magazine and the professional networks they established in and out of DK are a crucial component in the making of the magazine’s common habitus. Although the limits of this paper make an in-depth study on the agents of translation at DK impossible, a few facts may help reveal interesting points.

Based on the list of serialized translations compiled by Arzuk (2007: 171) we can identify two main translators active in the first decade of the magazine: Nihal Yalaza Taluy and Füsun Barbarosoğlu. These two people translated all of the novels serialized in 1945-1955. Interestingly enough, there are many more translators during the second period where serialized novels reappeared in the journal in 1966-1978. Arzuk’s list (2007: 172) reveals 10 different translators for this period. This diversification may be the result of different factors: the increasing availability of translators, an increased interest in the act of translation by individuals, a lack of satisfaction with any particular translator and the subsequent need to hire new ones, the reluctance to stay with the magazine due to low wages, etc.

Nihal Yalaza Taluy (1900-1968) merits a fuller study as the main translator for the magazine, as one of its writers, and as a member of the editorial team. Taluy was one of the best-known translators of Russian literature into Turkish, and her translations still receive positive reviews from readers, especially in terms of their fluency.⁴ Taluy was born and educated in Russia and learned French and German in her youth. Once in Turkey, she worked as a translator for various journals and publishing houses, including the Doğan Kardeş Publishing House (http://www.onkajans.com/artists/view/taluy-nihal-yalaza/143). During her active period at DK, Taluy translated 27 serialized novels and countless short stories. Some of the novels she translated were originally written in English, and it is likely that she translated those via either French or German. This finding adds another dimension to DK ’s translational habitus. DK remained indifferent to the heated discussions of the day on the need to translate directly from source languages (Tahir Gürçağlar 2008), and continued to publish mediated translations. The discourse on originality and directness prevalent in canonical adult literature did not seem to have permeated the translation practices of this children’s magazine. This was also around the time that Taluy was actively translating for the state-sponsored Translation Bureau, and her strength was her ability to translate directly from Russian. This shows that the professional profile of a translator like Taluy could involve diverse practices, not necessarily consistent with each other. The findings also confirm a well-established fact: the norms and expectations prevalent in the field of adult and children’s literature can be different, and in many cases, contradictory.

Translation in doğan kardeş in 1961: A micro study

This final section will take a closer look at how translation appears in the twelve issues of DK in 1961. DK was published in a monthly format throughout 1961, which meant that it could not publish serialized fiction due to a shortage of space. This is one of the reasons for my choice of 1961 as a year to focus on (the other being that it corresponds to the middle of the 1945-1978 period). Serialized novels were an obvious site for translation in the magazine where authors and translators were often identified, and the translation status of the text was readily declared. As I have argued in the previous section, concealed forms of translation were a part of the magazine’s common habitus and therefore it is much more interesting to explore the way translations were used in a context where they were positioned and read alongside non-translations, or even presented as indigenous works.

In terms of their compositional codes, the twelve issues of DK published throughout 1961 feature 19 manifest translations, i.e. translations which are presented as such. Manifest translations are presented in three different ways –a diversity which reveals a lack of standardization when it comes to crediting translations:

• the mention of a translator (çeviren) at the end of the text with or without the name of the source author (6 cases in12 issues) ⁵
• the mention of a foreign source author without the name of a translator ⁶
• attribution of a short story to a foreign culture, i.e. «An American story», «A Hawaiian story» etc. (9 cases in 12 issues).

As for concealed translations, these feature both fictional and informative texts. An example is a series of informative articles introducing African countries including Algeria, Kenya, Kongo, Nigeria, Tanganyika, and the Union of South Africa in January-July 1961. All of these articles contain factual and historical information and they are all attributed to Semra Özin. Özin features very strongly in the first eight issues of 1961 as a writer in the magazine, however, all of the texts credited to her appear to be compiled or translated from foreign sources. For instance, she has her initials at the end of what are presented as American, Dutch, and Sumatran short stories. I consider these manifest translations, because the foreign source cultures are acknowledged in the title, making it likely that the readers would also initially assume these to be translations. Özin’s career outside DK was spent as a translator, and not as a writer. She was introduced as «translator» of several books, and she authored one original title.⁷

Other informative texts such as biographies of great men are available in each of the issues in 1961. These are mostly of famous individuals from various countries around the world, such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Edison, or Hans Christian Andersen. These biographies are usually anonymous, but it is clear that they were compiled from foreign sources of information, if not directly translated.

Although informative texts occupied considerable space in the magazine, fiction was indispensable. In just one issue (April 1961), no less than 15 short stories and a play were published. What is also interesting is the fact that many of the informative texts were written in a narrative form. For instance, an informative text about a bird reserve started: «Have you ever seen a pelican children? Come on, let’s go to Bird Paradise in Manyas lake near Bandırma to see one.»⁸ (Kosswig, 1961: 38-39) Even medical advice from the magazine’s pediatrician-writer was narrativized. Dr. Şenel started his article on the whooping cough as follows: «Last Sunday we visited a neighbour. Kids were playing in one room and we were sipping coffee in another room, talking about the day’s events. All of a sudden the maid dashed into the room with her eyes wide as a saucer.» (Şenel, 1961: 39). While fictional material attracted the child reader to the magazine and helped to instill a habit of reading literature, the fictionalization of informative material both informed and entertained children.

Another form of concealed translation that has a great deal of presence in the magazine is short stories featuring foreign names and foreign settings —none of which are presented as translations. The readers have to start reading them before figuring out their translational status; therefore, I did not consider them to be manifest but concealed translations. In the meantime, most of the short stories with local settings and characters lack the name of an author, making it impossible to confirm their status as indigenous stories. They may well be foreign stories translated into Turkish with domesticated features. In a meeting organized for children by a community centre in Istanbul in December 1946, young readers were asked to discuss their experience of reading children’s magazines. During these discussions a child requested to have foreign names changed into Turkish names in translated literature (originally published in DK on 15 January 1947, reprinted in Söğüt, 2003: 65). This demonstrates that the domestication of foreign names in translations was sought after.

Yet another unacknowledged form of translation used in DK is comics and comic strips. Educational comic strips covering foreign sources published throughout 1961 were biographies of Alfred Nobel, Guiseppe Verdi, Robert Fulton, George Washington, Gioachino Antonio Rossini, George Stephenson, Edwin Drake, and informational segments about the USS Nautilus (the submarine) and The Liberation of the Israelites.

Two texts published in Doğan Kardeş in 1961 are worthy of special mention, because they are translations sent in by readers. DK adamantly encouraged its readers to engage in creative writing and often published poetry and prose sent in by children. I argued previously that this was one of the strategies in which DK promoted an interactive reading environment and built a community of young readers. It is interesting to see translations published as part of that effort, and the place provided for young translators in the magazine is significant in terms of its social codes. One of the translations published in DK in 1961 is by M. Metin Altuğ and it is a translation of a short text by Jules Michelet titled «Cesaret ve Çalışma» (Courage and Hard Work) (Michelet, 1961: 22). The second text was published in November 196; it was a short story bearing the title «Akıllı Kedi» ‘The Clever Cat’ translated from the English by Erol Keskin (p. 16). The text was not credited to a source author. It is a three-paragraph story addressing younger children and probably not a work by a canonical writer, which might be the explanation for the lack of an author’s name. DK had previously encouraged its readers to engage in translation. In 1947, in a letter to the magazine a reader asked the editors whether translating short stories was a good idea. The response was enthusiastic and the editor said «You will do very well by translating. This will improve both your Turkish and your English. I will be happy to publish a nice Turkish translation you will produce» (originally published in July 1947, p. 11, reprinted in Gürdal, 2004: 87).

To take a closer look at the compositional codes of Doğan Kardeş let me focus on a single issue and see the extent to which translation was used as a tool for textual production.

The April 1961 issue of DK contains 52 pages and only half a page is presented as a translation in this issue. However, fiction with foreign names, a cartoon strip on Gandhi, some informative pieces relaying foreign information, such as biographies, the invention of the telephone and musical instruments, are also products of translation. When this material is considered, the proportion of translations to indigenous material in the magazine increases to 41.5 per cent (20.75 pages in 52 pages). In fact, more translational material can be discovered in this specific issue of DK, including two anonymous comics. This proves the importance of translation within the compositional codes of the magazine and demonstrates that its common habitus can only be properly unearthed if due attention is paid to its translational habitus.

Translation appears as the main tool for facilitating intercultural communication in the magazine. It is used as the major way in which a background in Western culture is offered to young readers, including history, science, literature, music and art. In spite of the heavy use made of Western sources, no care was taken to acknowledge the writers and translators of texts conveying these sources into Turkish.

There seems to be a major indifference to the provenance of the texts used in the magazine. Translations are not credited as such and the translators are often completely invisible, as well as the source authors. So it is impossible to claim that the magazine establishes a hierarchical relationship between source authors and translators, both are equally absent. The same indifference is also valid in the way the magazine advertised books by Doğan Kardeş Publishing House. An ad published in the January 1961 issue advertises Wilhelm Tell and Halime as newly published books but does not mention that these are translations. The names of both the authors and the translators are absent from the ad. This indifference seems to subside when it comes to canonical writers: the four source authors properly credited in 1961 are Leonore Kosswig, Voltaire, Jules Michelet and La Fontaine, and all four texts are also credited to their translators.

Paradoxically, despite the indifference regarding authorship, translatorship, and literary provenance, the activity of translation is praised and encouraged by the magazine. The magazine acknowledges being translated into foreign languages as a form of prestige for Turkish authors. An anonymous notice published in the April 1961 issue congratulated author Cahit Uçuk for her international achievements, mentioning that her book Türk İkizleri had been translated into English and German (p. 49). Both of these attitudes, i.e. indifference to and awareness of translation and translators, also mirrored two diverse literary habitus that were prevalent in Turkey, especially in the first two decades of DK. Thanks to the activities of the state sponsored Translation Bureau (1940-1966) and a number of writers and intellectuals, translation was positioned as an important activity which helped import modes of Western thought and literature into Turkey. This made translation a prestigious activity in the field of canonical literature and the visibility of translators increased–leading to the emergence of a new type of literary habitus. On the other hand, a much more relaxed attitude towards questions of authorship and literary provenance reigned in the fields of popular and children’s literature. These fields remained immune to the newly developing literary habitus for a considerably longer period than canonical literature (Tahir Gürçağlar, 2008). There are signs of both literary habitus in DK, and they are constitutive aspects of the magazines makeup.

Conclusion

Doğan Kardeş occupies a special place in the childhood memories of several generations, because of its communicative approach to children and the wealth of the material it published. In the previous sections I showed the position and role of translation within the broader makeup of the magazine and argued that a comprehensive study of the translational habitus is necessary for a thorough analysis of the common habitus of the magazine. Instead of focusing on the individual translations published in DK as discrete texts to be studied from a translation studies viewpoint, I attempted to construct a larger perspective on the translational features of the magazine by making use of the concept of periodical codes as elaborated by Matthew Philpotts. I showed how translation interacts with each of these codes and argued that the translational habitus of a magazine can be traced by means of exploring translations and translators vis-à-vis the compositional and social codes of a magazine. Although carrying out a comparative textual study is beyond the limits of the present paper, an investigation on the norms of the translators is needed to arrive at stronger conclusions regarding the position and role of translation within the larger periodical codes of DK.

Children’s magazines are a popular, yet often neglected medium for children’s literature. They provide a wide range of data for translation scholars through the texts that they publish. These texts can be studied from a variety of perspectives individually, i.e. in terms of specific translation strategies, selection criteria, perspectives on foreign cultures, to mention only a few. However, before delving into such details, it is beneficial to consider the broader role and position of translation in a children’s magazine, and its contribution to the magazine’s meta-narrative. This broader view can be enabled through the methods and concepts developed by the growing field of periodical studies.

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