Goscinny and Translation
On Thursday evening, Arte broadcast an excellent documentary on René Goscinny, directed by Guillaume Podrovnik in 2017.
The film, entitled René Goscinny, mon oncle d’Armorique (René Goscinny, My Uncle from Armorica), is available on catch-up until 20 April 2020.
One part of the film particularly caught my attention.
Here is the transcript:
[13:00] Goscinny I check all the translations. There are languages I know [French, English, Spanish], and I check the translation myself.
And for the other languages, I have them translated back to check them.
Narrator: As for the German version, the Germans’ love for the indomitable Gauls exploded in 1963, when De Gaulle and Adenauer sealed the friendship between the two great countries.
Riding on Asterix’s popularity, a publisher brought out a, shall we say… alternative version.
Klaus Jöken (German translator of Asterix): Asterix very quickly became famous.
Goscinny and Uderzo were delighted, until the day they read in the newspaper that, in Germany, Asterix was spreading neo-Nazi propaganda.
They found out that their publisher had sold the rights without their consent and that the German publisher had completely changed the story.
The Gauls had become Germans and the story referred to the Cold War.
The Gauls had become West Germans and the Goths, East Germans.
And the occupiers, the Romans, were reminiscent of the Americans.
On top of that, it was riddled with far-right ideas and antisemitic innuendo.
Narrator: Since that version was banned, and still today, all foreign translations are translated back into French and checked.
You can’t trust anyone.
There are idiots everywhere.
And Goscinny is convinced of that.
