Venturi e l’Armenia

Marcello Venturi was introduced to Armenian readers in 1973 through the Armenian edition of "Vacanza tedesca", published in Yerevan by Hayastan. Yet Venturi was already known in the USSR, as his works had appeared in Russian translation since the 1950s. The Armenian version was based not on the Italian original but on the 1962 Russian translation published in "Inostrannaja Literatura", reflecting the Soviet practice of translating through Russian intermediaries. The publication of Vacanza tedesca illustrates the cultural policy of the 1970s Soviet Union, where literature and translation served ideological goals such as antifascism and socialist patriotism. Despite Armenia’s rich translation heritage dating back to the fifth century, translations from Western languages were often mediated through Russian. The translator, Rafayel Avagyan, an Armenian from Baku, had a multifaceted career as teacher, journalist, and literary translator, rendering works by Hemingway, Dumas, and others. Archival research in Armenia reveals that Venturi’s novel was widely distributed across libraries, suggesting notable readership and cultural impact. Although no evidence confirms its inclusion in school curricula, its circulation testifies to the novel’s alignment with Soviet literary and ideological frameworks.