Rewriting the history of collaboration in Belgium during the First World War: translation and censorship in Les Archives du Conseil de Flandre.
Paper presented at the International Conference “Translation And Censorship – From The 18th Century To The Present Day”, Lisbon, 27-28/11/2006.
Reine Meylaerts
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Belgium
At all times, ‘language’, ‘language contacts’ and ‘translation’ are have been very loaded concepts in Belgian society. The country’s most fundamental socio-cultural, socio-political, and institutional evolutions, in fact, even its existential crises are closely interwoven with (non armed) conflicts between Dutch- and French-speakingF groups[1].[2] These conflicts are currently known as theunder the heading ‘language question’, a term that refers to the long and complex history of first socio-cultural, then socio-political and sometimes anti-Belgian struggles of the Flemish Movement for linguistic, but also cultural, political and economic emancipation. When Belgium was created in 1830 after a short revolution that made an end to (only!) 15 years of Dutch rule under the King William I, to which the so-called Southern Netherlands (now Belgium) belonged since the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. One of the most frequently advanced reasons for the separation from the Kingdom of the Netherlands is William’s language policy, making Dutch[3] the official language in Flanders. This was against the will of the Flemish elite, at the time mostly French-speaking. For them, The French then, was the language of the administration, justice, education, and army of the young Belgian nation. One of the outcomes of the language struggle was that Dutch (rather than French) became the official language for these matters in Flanders and that the principle of territorial monolingualism (Dutch in the North and French in the South) was enshrined in the law. Of course, since issues of linguistic diversity in institutions quickly turn into issues ofare readily interpreted as a potential threathto the coherence and even survival of the nation, accomplishing this was bound to be a long and difficult process (for all details see von Busekist 1998, Luykx et al 1985, Witte et al 1990). The most important linguistic laws creating monolingual Dutch institutions,, based on the principle of territorial integrity, thus creating as the basis for a monolingual Flemish territory, were voted in the 1930’s, one century after [I]ndependence (see below).
In other words, the long and difficult struggle of the Flemish Movement for equal language rights had its ups and downs. In the following, I’ll concentrate on what is presumably the darkest period of the Flemish Movement and more precisely on the crucial role played by translation and censorship in revealing and concealing information that was perceived as dangerous for the Belgian State. Indeed, part of the Flemish Movement, called Activism, discredited indeed itself during the First World War because of collaboration with the German occupier. One of the achievements of the German Flamenpolitik was the creation of the ‘Council of Flanders’, “an Activist puppet assembly (…) a pseudo-parliament” (Hermans 1992:19). In December 1917 “the Council went beyond the wishes of the German government and Chancellor, and proclaimed the ‘full independence of Flanders’” (Hermans 1992:19). Although the Flamenpolitik was only supported by a handful of Flemish, during the 1920s and 1930s, francophone opponents of the Flemish emancipation presented all the supporters of the Flemish Movement as Activists, as collaborators, as destroyers of the fatherland, in one sweeping ideological move. Not surprisingly, in this type of oppositional context, perceived as dangerous for the nation, what can/cannot/must be translated by whom and how in a certain geo-temporal context is likely to be subjected to various mechanisms of censorship.
Censorship will be defined here in a very broad sense as all "operations of power that rule out in unspoken ways what will remain unspeakable" (Butler 1997: 130). From this perspective, censorship has to be seen as a complex intrinsic feature of hegemonic text production that has more to do with the status and the habitus of translators than the machinations of a specific sinister institution. This is what happened in interwar Belgium with the translations of the Archives of the Flemish Council.
But a short survey of the country’s socio-linguistic and socio-political history up until the First World War is necessary to understand language and translation ideological debates during t
In 1928, the Ligue Nationale pour l’Unité belge [National League for the Belgian Union], a distinguished committee of professors, judges, and lawyers (i.e. hegemonic text production) published Les Archives du Conseil de Flandre (– Raad van Vlaanderen)[The Archives of the Flemish Council], a French translation of the Archieven van de Raad van Vlaanderen. These archives, originally written in Dutch, with a few passages in German, constituted politically very sensitive material since they provided written evidence of the precise modalities and circumstances in which Flemish Activists had collaborated with the German occupier during the First World War, with a view to obtaining Flemish autonomy. One year later, in 1929, a Dutch version of the Archives appeared,was published by the same league [Nationalen Bond voor de Belgische Eenheid] and with an identical title, Het Archief van den Raad van Vlaanderen. The history of the publication of these Archives – published in 1928 in French translation and in 1929 in Dutch – is until now undocumented. These two volumes appear as an extreme, but therefore also very telling, example of the use of translation and censorship and of specific translation strategies in linguistic and political struggles. Moreover, the publication of these Archives, some ten years after the facts, continued to agitate (part of) public opinion up to the early 1930s. Next to the publication of tracts on the matter,[4] newspapers and journals as antipodal as the activist Vlaanderen and the belgicist La Revue Belge took part in the polemics (see Meylaerts 2004a).
These reactions, as well as the timing and modalities of the publication of the Archives must be seen in the light of the immediate context of various francophone resistance strategies to the general climate of intensified language struggle in the years 1928-1932. During these years indeed the language question really dominated the political agenda for the first time. This eventually led to the adoption of the aforementioned linguistic laws on monolingual Dutch institutions,, based on the principle of territorial integritythus creating as the basis for a monolingual Flemish territory, . Moreover, in 1928, a law was enacted to grant amnesty to the Activists, followinglong and difficult negotiations in the Chamber of Representatives (von Busekist 1998:261). “It was the agitation around this law which, shortly before, had led to the biggest electoral upset of the interwar period” (Hermans 1992:23). At a by-election to replace a deceased liberal deputy in Antwerp in 1928, the Flemish Nationalists presented the ex-Activist August Borms, sentenced to death for treachery and imprisoned in Leuven, as their candidate. Having been deprived of his civil rights, Borms was ineligible, but still obtained an overwhelming victory over his liberal opponent. Although the election result was annulled, it “was dramatic evidence of the growing impatience and bottled-up frustrations of many Flemish supporters” (Hermans 1992:23). A little later, at the 1929 parliamentary elections, the Flemish nationalists almost doubled their seats, coming out of the elections as one of the victorious parties. One of the items on their program was the abolishing of the Belgian state and self-rule for Flanders through unification with the Netherlands. The Socialist Party, until then a supporter of French in Flanders, faced a severe defeat and “resigned itself to the inevitability of a monolingual status for Flanders” (Hermans 1992:23). In the eyes of some groups of Francophones, all these developments obviously constituted some of the most serious after-war to menaces to the survival of the Belgian nationaltogether.
It is in this climate of enhanced tension that, ten years after the actual collaboration, these Archives of the Flemish Council took place were published, and this in two stagesmoves. During the fFirst stage, only a tiny selection of the 1800 kilos of reports was heavily condensed and translated into a 502 page French volume. /or condensed in French was published. The goal of thise translation, according to ithes preface, was to render the documents, more than 1800 kilos of paper, more accessible to the public. Apparently,It seems, however, that in 1928 Belgium, this was the privilege of French, the majority language in 1928 Belgium, since the until then most negative episode of the minority emancipation struggle was revealed to the public only in French, the language of the opponents of this struggle. Although, still according to the preface, claimed that translations were made ‘so literally that it affected the elegance of the French text’ (1928:XI), (“quasi littéralement, dût l’élégance du texte en français en souffrir”), only 6 documents out of 194 or 15 pages out of 502among the 194 selecteddocuments no more than 3% (!!) were labeled as ‘integral translations’. These integral translations all formed all part of the section concerning the Council’s relations of the Council with the German authorities (“Les rapports du Conseil de Flandre avec l’Autorité allemande”) and projected a very negative image of the Flemish Council. In other words, condensation and translation in French, into the majority language, the language of the opponents of the Flemish struggle, formed the core of a policy of control and censorship, affecting one of the darkest episodes of the Flemish anti-Belgian movement. Not surprisingly, sympathizers of the Activist Movement Nonetheless In spite of its fidelity claims, the French translation again addeds to the bad image of the Activists through frequent interventions, e.g. adjunctions, suppressions, explications etc. All other documents of the French translation were extensively condensed: often a long Flemish speech of several pages was abridged into a few sentences at the end of the Flemish original and resuming the general ideas. The result was heavily attacked the French translation attacked in the Dutch-language press as fraudulent , and claimed full publication of the original Dutch-language Archives in order to reveal the true history of Activism. French translations of these – very sensitive – pro-Flemish reactions were published in the francophone press. Introducing the heterodox ideology into the dominant discourse, they in their turn caused polemics that were only to be expected (see e.g. above)e.g. in the above quoted pamphlet; through French translations of this type of documents, a polemic was also engaged in the Francophone press (see Meylaerts 2004a).
One year later, in 1929, a Dutch version of the Archives appeared,was published by the same league [Nationalen Bond voor de Belgische Eenheid] and with an identical title, Het Archief van den Raad van Vlaanderen. In its Dutch preface, the publication committeeThis Flemish versiondefended the honesty and the historiographical correctness of the French publication referred explicitly to the, previously published, French translation. The preface insisted on the historiographical correctness of the publication method and on the honesty of the publication committeeagainst the numerous objections caused by the 1928 translation. The texts published in Dutch, however, were neither the original whole Archives in extenso, which had been the demand of the Activists, nor the complete original Dutch text corresponding to the 194 summarized and translated French documents, nor a complete Dutch (back)translation of the 502 condensed French pagesFrench publication.,For the Dutch publication the committee chose ‘some particular documents of the Archives’ which were ‘published in extenso in their original form, leaving even language errors unchanged’ (1929:13, 71). As a result, the Dutch version was a tiny volume ofbut a partly different selection of 102 pages, i.e. 1/5 of the French translation. Moreover, there was only a 5% correspondence between the selected Dutch originals and the French documents, so that only those few pages (29 in total) could be used to test the fidelity claims of the French translation. Needless to say that a reconstruction of the ‘true story’ of the Council of Flanders, so much clamoured for by the Flemish Activists, never materialized. documents, some of them which awere absent lacking in from the French version. According to the preface, it was up to the reader to reconstruct, by means of a combination of the two versions, the story of the Council of Flanders. Translation was thus used in a subtle game of hiding and revealing; it functioned as the cornerstone of the majority’s control over what was to be known by whom, how,and when and in what language, about a dark episode involving the Belgiumnation’s worst enemies.
Evidence of this ideological function of censorship in translation is also given by the translation strategies that can be traced in the few corresponding pages of the two versions. The foundation manifesto of the Flemish Council offers a good example. As could be expected, the French translation reproduced only 25% of the Dutch original. The rationale of the extensive cuts seems double. First, everything that could be interpreted as too critical for Belgium and its (francophone) language policy and that risked making the Activists’ collaboration if not excusable then at least (almost) understandable, was deleted. This was the case for three paragraphs of the Dutch text explaining that not the Flemish but the Francophones were the first to contact the German occupier, whomthey asked for support for the idea to ban all Dutch and turn Belgium into a monolingual French entity after the war. In the original version, Activist collaboration was only a response to such francophone attempts and thus more ‘excusable’. By suppressing references to this, the French translation brushed up the image of the Belgian nation and toned down that of the Activists. Second, references to international agreements relating to the protection of minority groups (like the Flemish) guaranteed by the Entente and by the American President Wilson, were also cut out. Consequently, in the French translation the German occupiers remained the Activists’ only partners and protectors. This left their image and the legitimacy of their claims seriously tarnished. At the level of micro-structural translation strategies, smaller omissions and reformulations go in the same sense. The French translation further camouflages references to an independent Flanders, to a Flemish nation and people. This reluctance to name the adversaries’ political goals and aspirations is an attempt to silence their (discursive) existence. The French translation is a discourse that wants to avoid to create what it is actually referring to. In the following passage, “geliefd Vlaanderen” (beloved Flanders) is translated into “patrie” (homeland) which can also refer to Belgium, especially since it occurs after a reference to the Belgian army (“Belgisch leger”); the “Vlaamsche nationaliteit” (Flemish nationality) becomes “nationalité” (nationality) and “ons Vlaamsch volk” (our Flemish people) is rendered as “nos frères flamands” (our Flemish brothers). Two short references to the international recognition of minorities’ rights have also been deleted (see underlined passages).
Will the blood of our Flemish heroes, who make up 80% of the Belgian army, have been spilled in vain for their beloved Flanders? (…) If this war is indeed, as it is claimed, fought over the principle of ‘nationalities’ and the existence of minority peoples, we have the right and the duty in the face of the world and on behalf of the Flemish nationality, which has been oppressed for almost a hundred years, as well as on behalf of the misjudged Flemish people (…) to intervene. The factual recognition of the national righs of the Flemish people by the occupying forces has begun, in conformity with the above-mentioned declarations of the Entente, the Chancellor, and President Wilson ((Nationalen Bond 1929:72-73; my English translation of the Dutch text)
Le sang de nos héros flamands, qui comptent 80 p.c. de l’armée belge, aura-t-il coulé inutilement pour la patrie? (…) Nous avons le droit et même le devoir de nous dresser à la face du monde entier, pour la défense de notre nationalité opprimée depuis bientôt un siècle, pour nos frères flamands méconnus et écrasés (…). La reconnaissance légale des droits nationaux des Flamands a déjà reçu un commencement d’exécution par le pouvoir occupant… (Ligue Nationale 1928: 6)
In spite of its fidelity claims, the French translation thus seems to have exacerbated the bad image of the Activists. However, censorship mechanisms such as the actual chronology of the publications and the radical different text selection for the two versions made it impossible for the Activists [AR1]to base their critiques on an ‘authorized’ version. Again a polemic was engaged by some groups of flamingants who repeated their claims to give free disclose the entire original Flemish version. Both the option to translationeand the textual translation strategies find themselves is in the center of language ideological struggles in a multilingual society. Censorship has indeed revealed a complex intrinsic feature of hegemonic text production, a mechamism that can be powerful in a democratic state without being linked to the machinations of a specific sinister institution.