The Image of Bosnian Franciscans in Travnička Hronika and Its Transfer to French Culture

Abstract

Ivo Andrić’s Travnička hronika is deeply rooted in the historical and cultural landscape of Bosnia, which is shaped by the permanent presence of the Franciscan tradition. In his novel, Andrić enters into an intertextual dialogue with Franciscan chronicles from the monastery of Bosna Srebrena, and additionally presents the image of a Bosnian Franciscan through culture-specific elements and the specific manner of speech and behavior of Bosnian “uncles” in a multi-ethnic and historically turbulent environment. Such a culturally and historically colored picture represents a special challenge for translators. This paper investigates how much of that image has actually been preserved and how much has been lost in the transfer to French culture. The research seeks to identify the translation strategies used to convey these elements and to assess the extent to which the target text preserves this layered historical discourse of the novel. Using the methods of contrastive linguistic analysis, we compared the original text with two translations of the novel into French. The results can contribute to broader discussions about literary translation, especially regarding the challenges of presenting intertextuality and culturally embedded narratives to a foreign readership.