Entry

 

 

SPA Venezuela

 

contents
Introduction | The pre-Columbian era | The Encounter and Conquest | Pre-Independence and Emancipation | Republic | Research potential

 

  Introduction

The history of Venezuela and most other countries in Latin America can be divided into five main periods: 1) the pre-Columbian era (the period preceding and lasting until the arrival of the Spanish); 2) the encounter and conquest (1492 until the downfall of Montezuma and Atahualpa in 1521 and 1533, respectively), 3) colonization (16^th-18^th centuries), 4) pre-independence and emancipation (late 18^th century and first half of the 19^th century) and 5) the Republic (from the mid-19^th century to the present).

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The pre-Columbian era

Many authors cite the need to consider and value the very long period prior to the arrival of the Spaniards. But this poses a challenge since we have relatively little information about this period and even less about translation that might have taken place during this time. Describing it as “pre-Columbian” would be another lack of vision for giving 1492 an importance that it does not deserve in the eyes of the populations that originally formed America and that continue to be the racial, cultural, and linguistic base of the Hispanic Americans of today, that is, the original peoples.

Three periods explain the evolution of human settlements in Venezuela: The Paleo-Indian period (20,000-5000 BC), the Meso-Indian period (5000-1000 BC) and Neo-Indian period (1000 BC-1500 AD). This periodization is neither precise nor rigid since, on the one hand, the beginning of a new period does not necessarily mean the end of the previous one and, on the other hand, Venezuela’s ethnic groups evolved and developed along different lines. These groups were characterized, initially, by nomadism, and, thereafter, by a semi-sedentary lifestyle. Several extant artistic manifestations painted or carved on bones or stones (petroglyphs) provide a glimpse into the lifestyle and times of these groups. A great mastery of the cycles of abundance and scarcity is also observed during this period, as well as the development of more precise topographic knowledge and ceramics. Likewise, there was a cultural exchange with the Colombian highlands and the Central Andean region. A kind of commercial network was also identified in which the area known as Los Llanos played an important role as a commercial connection axis between the Andes, the Caribbean coast, and the Orinoco River basin. These cultural and commercial exchanges between ethnic groups of different languages must have given rise to some oral translation activity. A 14-kilometer-long rock art wall has recently been discovered in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas, dating back 12,000 years.

Archaeological Park Piedra Pintada [Wikipedia].	Rock art wall in the state of Amazonas [National Geographic].	Ceramics with polychrome decoration—Original people. [Source].

The most emblematic region of the original civilizations—and where most vestiges of these indigenous societies can be found—is the city of Quibor, in the center west of Venezuela, in the state of Lara, 34 kilometers from its capital Barquisimeto. The valley of Quibor occupies an area of 30,000 hectares at 705 meters above sea level. The vestiges bear witness to the passage of three ceramic traditions that influenced the cultural development of western Venezuela.

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The encounter and conquest

Despite not having been a viceroyalty and attracted the attention of the colonial authorities merely for its fishing (the pearls of Cubagua and Margarita) and agricultural (cocoa) riches, the Spanish province of Venezuela has a rather rich translation heritage. On the one hand, it had its Indian interpreters who participated in the exploration of the territory by the conquistadors, and, on the other hand, it was a colony “religiously translated” like the others in America.

The interpreters

Let us take a general look at the first manifestations of translation, namely that of interpreters. Primer Diccionario de la Lengua by Sebastián de Covarrubias defined the characteristics of the profession as early as 1611.

Lengua: The interpreter who declares one language with another, intervening between two different languages.

Interprete: The person who turns the words and concepts of one language into another, which requires fidelity, prudence, and sagacity, and who has equal knowledge of both languages and what is said in them by allusions and metaphorical terms, to see what in this other language may correspond to it. (Covarrubias 1611: 739–740) [Our translation]

Likewise, in Book II, title 29 of Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias (Laws of the Indies), there are fifteen laws relating to interpreters, dated between 1529 and 1630 and signed by Charles V, Philip II, and Philip III. The first Law, dated 1529, describes interpreters as assistants to governors and justice, and establishes a regulation for this occupation: interpreters may not ask for or receive jewelry, clothing, or food from the Indians. The Law of 1537 authorizes the Indians to be accompanied by a “Christian friend” to confirm the veracity and accuracy of what the interpreters say. The laws of 1563 accord professional status to interpreters’ activity: a salary is determined based on the number of questions they interpret; working hours, working days, and the number of interpreters per audience are established; their duties are specified in the oath they take: “ … interpret clearly and openly, without covering up or adding, without being partial…”; in case of non-compliance with these regulations, they could be sentenced to pay a fine (Solano 1991: 62–64, our translation). The religious orders did not have to submit to these laws which applied only to the colonial administration and justices.

Elegía de Varones ilustres de Indias by Juan de Castellanos [Source].

The first mention of an interpreter in Venezuelan territory concerns a woman (Bastin 1996). In fact, “ … the conquistador Alonso de Ojeda, during his incursion into Lake Maracaibo in 1499, captured a Guajira Indian, after christening her Isabel, took her to Spain, brought her as an interpreter on his second trip and later married her…” (Alvarez de Lovera 1994: 83, our translation). The historiography also reveals two well documented interpreters’ names: Esteban Martín and Pedro de Limpias. Herren (1992: 55), Oviedo y Baños (1992: 31–33) and Marco Dorta (1967) mention Esteban Martín, interpreter for Ambrosio Alfinger, an explorer financed by German bankers Welser, and commissioned by Charles I to conquer Venezuela. Towards the end of 1531, Alfinger took Esteban Martín (also called Francisco) into his service as “lengua and interpreter of the Indians”, to organize a peaceful encounter between the survivors of his army and the local Indians, among other things. Martín addressed the Indians, “speaking to them in their language, which he knew better than they did”, and convinced them to give to the Spaniards “a place [for] a few days until it seemed time for the General to continue the journey […] they set out, taking Martín with them…”. Esteban Martín also appears in the longest poem in the Spanish language (more than 110,000 decasyllables in rhymes), Elegía de Varones ilustres de Indias by Juan de Castellanos, written not in Spain but in New Granada, Tunja (present-day Colombia). Interested readers will consult the literary and sociocultural study that William Ospina (1998) dedicates to this poem. They will also find in Diccionario histórico de la traducción en Hispanoamérica (Lafarga & Pegenaute 2013) the entries on the interpreters Isabel, Esteban Martín, and Pedro de Limpias.

Pedro de Limpias is another interpreter of the early colonial period who, like other interpreters, has been ignored by historians. In 1541, Felipe de Utre, lieutenant general “for matters of war and new discoveries”, took off in search of El Dorado. During his trip, he resided for a few days in a town in the province of Papamene, where he found an Indian “who according to the maturity of his actions, calmness of his words and gravity of his person, manifested to be of illustrious origin; de Utre tried to get informed from him very extensively about the convenience of the trip he was taking…” (Oviedo & Baños 1992: 82–83, our translation). The Indian, a “reasonable interpreter”, was Pedro de Limpias (Oviedo & Baños 1992: 93–94, our translation).

Angel Rosenblat affirms that “the indigenous woman was a remarkably effective collaborator”, and specifically mentions doña Maria, who would have accompanied Bartolomé de las Casas in 1521 near Cumana and, in 1537, another Indian with the same name who would have offered her services as “peace mediator” to the governor of Venezuela, Jorge Espira. The explorer Nicolas de Federman also reportedly used the services of an Indian for linguistic mediation. Other mentions of Indian interpreters appear sporadically in different chronicles. On the other hand, in the repertoire compiled by Silva (1983), there are some names (last names unmentioned) that correspond to Indian lenguas, such as Francisca (1639), Juliana (1584), Juanillo (1552), and Diosdado.

Most of the early missionaries who took an interest in the local languages were ecclesiastical interpreters. Rey (1995 and 2002) provides the names of several Jesuits who served as interpreters as part of their religious duties, among them José Dadey (1576?-1660), Domingo Molina (Molinello) (1591?-1661), and Miguel Jerónimo Tolosa, founders of the first College of Human Sciences in the city of Mérida in 1629. The missionaries also trained local interpreters, as Fernández (2000: 20, our translation) states: “There is evidence of the use of interpreters or lenguaraces, that is, indigenous people who with an elementary knowledge of the Spanish language gleaned from the Hispanics served as a bridge, and communicated the missionaries’ message to their fellows, with the risk that this religious message could be communicated in a distorted way”. These two categories of interpreters exercised their activities during colonization; however, their role was reduced as the Indians learned (often by force) the language of the conquerors, and the missionaries the languages of the Indians, and as written mediation became more available. Those interested in the subject will find in the Diccionario histórico de la traducción en Hispanoamérica (Lafarga & Pegenaute 2013), entries about the interpreters Isabel, Esteban Martín, and Pedro de Limpias.

Written linguistic mediation

Request for a salary increase for Don Vicente Salias, translator of foreign languages, Caracas, September 1803. [Source].

Little information is available about written translation during the colonial administration; paradoxically, Spain had created, as early as 1527, the Secretaría de Interpretación de Lenguas (SIL), an official office intended to provide the Spanish administration with translation and interpretation services (see Cáceres 2004). It is likely that similar services existed in the Americas. Evidence supporting this argument exists in the form of a document from 1803, discovered in the Archivo General de Indias de Sevilla (AGI), in which a Venezuelan translator, Vicente Salias, an official of the colonial administration in Caracas, claims a salary increase.

In any case, religious texts are the main subject of translations in Venezuela. The religious orders (mainly Augustinians, Dominicans, Capuchins, Franciscans, and Jesuits) have among their linguistic tasks the interpretation, translation, and development of grammars; of pedagogical manuals for local languages; and of monolingual, bilingual, and even trilingual glossaries and lexicons. In his biobibliography of the Jesuits in Venezuela, Rey (1995) cites no fewer than 30 members of the Compañía de Jesús who dedicated themselves to linguistic activities. Encouraged (sometimes forced) to evangelize in the language of the local populations, the missionaries dedicated themselves more or less successfully to such tasks. In fact, as can be seen from the titles, numerous catechisms were published incorporating a grammar or a lexicon. This demonstrates the close relationship that existed between these texts in the service of the same cause: spiritual conquest.

Catechisms published incorporating a grammar or lexicon – Fernández Heres (2000).

Books circulated in Caracas and several other cities of the province from 1600 onwards. At that time, books were procured by various means: loans, donations, manuscript copies, importation and, later, notwithstanding the controls imposed by the Inquisition, smuggling. Eighty percent of the books imported from Spain in the 17^th century were religious works (Leal 1979: 41–42). Catechisms, doctrines, and confession and prayer books, were the most common, being of critical importance to the missionaries (Fernández-Heres 2000: 13). Bastin (2007) describes the characteristics of the translations of 23 catechisms used in different regions of Venezuela.

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Pre-independence and emancipation

As stated in the Diccionario histórico de la traducción en Hispanoamérica (2013), it was from the second half of the 18^th century onwards that Venezuela became a sort of “translation model”. Several texts that inspired the emancipation and foundation of the republics were translated by Venezuelans or in Venezuela, and then disseminated throughout Spanish America. One has only to consider Viscardo y Guzmán’s Letter; the United States Declaration of Independence; the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of the French Revolution; the writings of John Locke, Thomas Paine, John McCullogh, and Adam Ferguson; and The Federalist by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, not to mention the numerous translations of the European and North American press brought together in the pages of the Gaceta de Caracas or the Correo del Orinoco. Translators such as Francisco de Miranda, Andrés Bello, Manuel García de Sena, José Domingo Díaz, and Juan Germán Roscio occupy a place in the pantheon of translators for their political, literary or scientific texts. The end of the 19^th century also had illustrious translators of the stature of Pérez Bonalde and Lisandro Alvarado, who were followed by notorious literary translators  as Alfredo Silva Estrada and Rafael Cadenas.

It was a prolific period for Venezuela in terms of the names of intellectual prominence throughout Hispanic America, people who eloquently exposed the search for roots and identity. They belonged, for the most part, to the group of politicians and intellectuals who had the opportunity to travel to Europe or the United States, attracted by the Enlightenment and inspired by emancipatory ideals. At their gatherings, they shared their travel experiences, discussed prevailing philosophical ideas, and reflected on and recently imported books that they had read. Thus, were dreams of independence incubated. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that for this group of humanists, translation was an indispensable activity, judging by the frequency of their work and the stature of the people involved. Translation in that period was rather literal, although there is no lack of examples of adaptations. The themes and main motivations were linked to politics, teaching, theater, and literary dissemination, not to mention military matters. Translation activity was also largely motivated by the creation of newspapers, literary bulletins, publishing houses and universities. The most translated language was English, especially with respect to political texts, but French, on account of literature, was also a frequently translated language. Italian and German and, to a lesser extent, Latin and Greek, were also translated.

Andrés Bello (Caracas 1781-Santiago de Chile 1865). [Source].

Venezuela displays several of the characteristics common to all Hispanic America: A choice of political and philosophical texts aimed at introducing republican and emancipatory ideas, the linking of translation to the pedagogical work in nascent universities, and creative freedom on the part of the literary translator. The greatest exponent of these characteristics was undoubtedly Andrés Bello (1781–1865), writer, pedagogue, jurist, and diplomat, whose poetic translations have received universal recognition for their beauty and originality.

Due to its favourable geographical location, Venezuela “was the entryway for new ideas which, at the end of the 18^th century, were to become part of the thinking that led to independence” (Grases 1981: 135, our translation). In this regard, we cannot fail to highlight the importance of Manuel García de Sena’s work as a translator. His translations into Spanish of some of the writings of Tomas Paine and John M’Culloch—in particular, the Declaration of Independence and several Constitutions of the United States of America—served as the “working documents” of the first American constitutionalists. Also worth mentioning is the Declaration of the Rights of Man (of 1793), translated from French by Juan Bautista Picornell on the occasion of the Conspiracy of Gual and España. On the other hand, Francisco de Miranda, with the publication of Viscardo y Guzmán’s Letter (originally in French), its translation into Spanish, and the promulgation of the English version, planted the seeds of Venezuelan and Latin American emancipation.

Viscardo y Guzmán’s Letter, original French version [Wikipedia].	Spanish translation of Viscardo y Guzmán’s Letter [Wikipedia].

Curiously enough, the first translation printed in Venezuela predated the arrival of the printing press in Caracas. In fact, between August 13, 1789, and November 10, 1789, five issues of Courier de la Trinité Eſpagnole were published on the Island of Trinidad. Trinidad, discovered at the same time as Venezuela, had been part of Venezuela since 1498. Charles III annexed the island definitively to the Province of Venezuela, granting it the status of Island-Province, and then, in 1786, it became a province under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia de Caracas, to pass into English hands in 1797. The editor of the abovementioned newspaper, an Irish settler named F. Jean Willox, opted for a bilingual (French-Spanish) format, with French as the original language (Bastin 2010), thus making this first Venezuelan newspaper the first bilingual publication printed in Venezuelan territory and, of course, the first translation printed in Venezuela.

Courier de la Trinité Eſpagnole. [Source].

The first translated political texts appeared among the papers seized from Manuel Gual, namely the “book” Derechos del hombre y del ciudadano con varias máximas republicanas; y un discurso preliminar dirigido a los americanos, published under a false imprint: Madrid, Imprenta de la Verdad, 1797. In reality, it was published in Guadalupe. The translation of the 35 articles of the second French Declaration by Juan Bautista Picornell is part of that “book”, as is the American Carmañola, also translated from French by Manuel Cortes Campomanes. Both translations, the latter in particular, are characterized by their distancing from the original text through liberties taken by the translators, a trait that would surface in many other translations of the time. We call this strategy “appropriation”, defined as “a creative modality of translation tending to consolidate the identity of the community to which the translator belongs. It is also a selective procedure in which the translator chooses only what is useful for his purposes.” (Bastin, Echeverri & Campo 2004: 72, our translation).

La independencia de la Costa Firme justificada por Thomas Paine treinta años ha. [Source].

Another telling example of the appropriation strategy is found in the translations of Manuel García de Sena. There is not only one original corresponding to the book La independencia de la Costa Firme justificada por Thomas Paine treinta años ha published by the translator in 1811. Rather, there are several originals, since García de Sena set himself the task of selecting from among Paine’s various works those fragments that served his purposes as a compatriot committed to independence and republican ideals. The translator makes his voice heard through his Advertencias al lector (warnings to the reader) and through notes such as the one he adds to the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776 [1811]: “To all this [the atrocities of the King of England] may be added in favor of the Americans of the South, and in relation to the late governments of Spain in Europe: They want to govern us with no more right than we have to govern them.” On the other hand, the translator adds to Paine’s original text paratextual glosses such as this one: “for the better understanding of Spanish-American readers” when he decides to explain some aspect of the original text. As an interesting example of epitext, we have García de Sena writing to his brother Ramón in December 1810 (Grases 1981: 406, our translation): “having ascertained by reading it that it does not contain a single word contrary to our religion, it should be allowed to circulate freely among my fellow citizens.” The historical importance of this translation is measured by its spread from Mexico to Argentina, throughout America. Five thousand copies of Paine’s work were printed. It should also be noted that on July 5, 1811, Antonio Nicolás Briceño read the translation of García de Sena before the young Assembly (Grases & Harkness 1953: 56, our translation).

The press was also a significant source of translations. Although the ideas of the Enlightenment played a key role in making the Americans aware of their colonial condition and the need to put an end to it, the epicenter and true breeding ground for the independence ideas was the press of the time (1808–1822). In Venezuela, there are six newspapers which duration and contents where unequal, but all of them played a key role in the country’s emancipation process. Most of them published numerous translations: La Gaceta de Caracas (October 1808 to January 1822) —El Semanario de Caracas (November 1810 to July 1811)— El Patriota de Venezuela (January 1811 to January 1812)— El Mercurio Venezolano (January to May 1811)— El Publicista de Venezuela (July to November 1811)— El Correo del Orinoco (June 1818 to March 182). The colonial press at the time of Venezuela’s independence (1808–1822) developed out of the link between the authorities and the ideologues of the independence process, public men and educated citizens. Edited, directed, and provided with content by politicians and scholars belonging to the Creole elite, the press reached a significant audience abroad as well as in the territory’s cities and towns. Among the translators-editors were Juan Germán Roscio (Gaceta de Caracas), prolific translator Francisco Isnardi, (editor, Mercurio Venezolano and Publicista de Venezuela), and Vicente Salias (co-director, El Patriota de Venezuela). Salias was also a translator for the Real Hacienda de Caracas (Royal Treasury of Caracas) and carried out a diplomatic mission in the English Caribbean. Finally, there was José Luis Ramos, another prolific translator of key excerpts written by Jeremy Bentham, Guillaume Tomas Raynal and Louis Sébastien Mercier, respectively, and of several articles published in three newspapers: Gaceta de Caracas, Iris de Venezuela, and Correo de Orinoco. Considering the substantial number of translations in these newspapers (around 800 in the Gaceta de Caracas alone), these are fertile grounds for observation of the emancipatory dialogue between Latin America and countries such as England, the United States, and France.

Correo del Orinoco. [Wikipedia].	Gazeta de Caracas. [Wikipedia].

Translators-editors employed commentary as one of their strategies to evaluate news published by foreign newspapers. This allowed them to legitimize their ideological positions by criticizing or correcting information or opinions disseminated both inside and outside Venezuela. This unique activity is something of a cross between translation and journalistic writing, a kind of “transediting” where the translator-editor not only translates but also cuts, adds, comments on or criticizes original texts in other languages. For example, there are frequent cases in which the editor-translators of the Gaceta de Caracas who in the first patriotic period identified themselves with America and sought through their texts to persuade other Americans to follow the Venezuelan example, did not translate the English term “province” as “provincia”, because it implied a link between Venezuela and Spain, but emphasized that Venezuela belonged to “Spanish America” by translating “province” as “parte de la America” (Navarro 2011, 2018). What is interesting in the case of Gaceta de Caracas was the constant alternation of power in line with the incumbent government (four royalists and four patriotic periods). Navarro observes that there were more translations during the republican periods than there were in the royalist ones, demonstrating the patriots’ great interest in foreign news and ideas. The Correo del Orinoco even published several texts in two or three languages. One such, published in Spanish, English, and French in three columns in an extraordinary issue of the paper (June 25, 1821), was the Proclamation of Simón Bolívar following his victory in the Battle of Carabobo. Thus did the translations published in the pro-independence press succeed in instilling in Venezuelan (and foreign) readers many republican values and in promulgating the achievements of the Venezuelan struggle for independence.

Press archives also debunk the belief that Miguel José Sanz was one of the greatest exponents of the Venezuelan emancipatory ideals. In fact, many of his ideas were published in the Semanario de Caracas as translations or partial adaptations of An Essay on the History of Civil Society by Adam Ferguson (1767) and then the French book Histoire Philosophique de la Revolution de France by Antoine Fantin Desodoards, originally published in 1796 (Falcón 1998). Falcón (2008) himself shows that some of the texts from William Burke in the Gaceta de Caracas bear a striking resemblance to El Federalista. In fact, much of what has been written by Burke in volume II of his book Derechos de la América del Sur y de México, reproduced in the form of articles in the Gaceta de Caracas, is a translation of the works of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. These examples amply demonstrate the relevance of the study of translation to clarify the history.

Miranda in La Carraca. [Wikipedia].

The first diplomatic missions of the Republic gave rise to a need for translation. According to Berruezo (1989: 90): “Venezuela was the birthplace of Latin American diplomacy and had its stronger encouragement and effectiveness in the actions of Miranda and Bolívar” (our translation). In particular, the work of Francisco de Miranda in London who pushed, using his own writing and documents, the publication, in fact, translation into English, of Interesting Official Documents relating to the United Provinces of Venezuela in 1811 by Andrés Bello and Luis López Méndez and Outline of the Revolution in Spanish America or an account of the origin, progress and actual state of the war carried between Spain and Spanish America; containing the principal facts which have marked the struggle by Manuel Palacio Fajardo. The work of Palacio Fajardo did not have the direct support of Miranda, because he was already dead when it was published 1817 but benefited from the cooperation of Andrés Bello and took advantage of the lessons and contacts of Francisco de Miranda. It is noteworthy that, through the influence of the Miranda’s network, another English edition was published in New York the same year. Irisarri, a representative of the Chilean government, made known other versions of such work, namely, the three French versions (1817, 1819 and 1824). A German version also became available in 1818. That means that by that time, it was translated into three languages in four different countries. The Spanish Translation by Pi Sunyer was not published until 1953 in Caracas under the title Bosquejo de la Revolución en la América Española. With a Foreword by Enrique Bernardo, Caracas. José Agustín Loynaz is another exiled translator (see Lafarga & Peganaute 2013: 242), who left Spanish versions of important works by Gian-Rinaldo Carli, by William Robertson and by Adam Ferguson.

Royalists such as José Domingo Díaz also made use of translation. In 1818, a work in defence of Spain was published in Paris in the face of slander by a so-called Abbé de Pradt. This work was translated in 1819 by José Domingo Díaz, in Venezuela, under the title Cartas al Sr. Abate de Pradt por un indígena de la América del Sur (1819), in his effort to establish the dignity of Spain in the newly independent colony. In Advertencia al lector (Note to readers), he states the reason for translating and disseminating this work:

It was my duty, after seven years of struggle with the rebellion, to join my efforts with those of the Indigenous, define their terrible arguments towards the territory of the six provinces of Venezuela, show with facts the rights of the Crown of Castile has over each part of its territory, and strike a decisive blow in front of the world at large to the troubling and their inconsiderate turbulent and their inconsiderate master. [Our translation]

During this period of pro-independence advocacy saw the translation of not only political and philosophical books, but also of scientific texts, done, in some cases, by translators with a political agenda.José Domingo Díaz, for example,  translated into Spanish, under the title Sobre la calentura biliosa, intermitente, amarilla, que se manifestó en Filadelfia en el año de 1793, a work by Benjamin Rush on the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.. José María Vargas, founder of the Medical Society of Caracas, former university dean and former president of the republic, translated Comenio’s Orbis pictus, several medical books to fulfill its pedagogical mission.

In the literary and educational fields, Andrés Bello is a dominant figure. Although he served as a translator of correspondence and “commercial” interpreter at hearings (audiences?), and translated Locke and Condillac, Bello is first and foremost a poet—mainly an imitator of foreign poetry. He translated many poems: From the classics— Virgil, Horacio, Tibullus, and others to the romantics, including Hugo, Delille, Byron, and Lamartine. His talent as a poet meant that his imitations were considered by critics to be superior to the originals as was the case of La oración por todos by Hugo (Crema 1948). Bello could, “in an original way, make other people's thoughts his own and transfer episodes that took place in completely exotic fields to American settings” (Caldera 1981: LXVIII) (Our translation).

Bello also introduces us to another type of appropriation, i.e., the transformation of the original text to express personal experiences. His translation of Hugo’s poem A Olympio, serves as a vehicle to express sum of his suffering in England arising from his political activities. According to Crema (1948), Bello erases from the original poem images he finds personally meaningless and replaces them with others related to his own existence. While Bello stands out for his creative translation talent, the depth of his “theorizing” about translation is also striking, namely the imitation, in forewords and reviews to translations by made third parties. In London, as editor of the magazines Biblioteca Americana and El Repertorio Americano, he translated texts on chemistry, natural sciences, and politics, among others. A humanist and an educator, Bello used translation for the benefit of the new American man.

For his part, Simón Rodríguez—“the Liberator's teacher” (Briggs 2010) —because of his travels and stays abroad, as well as his command of languages, had to resort to many foreign language texts, particularly those of Rousseau, to develop his pedagogical plans. His teaching vocation led him to translate Atala by Chateaubriand. Another figure, lesser-known, also left his mark on the translated Venezuelan literature of the independence period: Domingo Navas Spínola, editor and printer dedicated to the patriotic cause. His translated work includes Lecciones de Aritmética Razonada and Lecciones de Historia by Constantino F. de Chasseboeuf. His translation of Ifigenia en Aulide, originally by Jean Racine in 1832 as well as his translation of Poem 12, Book I of Horace’s Odes, rank Navas among the great translators of the time. Most of the translators mentioned here are the subject of an entry in Diccionario histórico de la traducción en Hispanoamérica (2013).

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 Republic

With the advent of the Republic, translation activity in the political field gave way to translation in the scientific, educational and, obviously, literary fields.

We found a somewhat paradoxical first case in the work the “Centauro de los llanos” (Centaur from the Plains), who translated Napoleon’s works. In fact, José Antonio Páez (the Centaur’s full given name), during his exile in the United States, published in 1865, translated and annotated Napoleon's Sayings on the Art of War and he is believed to have also? translated Lamartine. This curious character, a comrade-in-arms of Simón Bolívar and a hero of independence, added to his translation of Napoleon notes related to each of the sayings and inspired by his experience during the War of Independence. Other cases include the poetic translations of Juan Antonio Pérez Bonalde, whose works—namely the ones originally written by Heinrich Heine and Edgar A. Poe, respectively—have garnered universal renown and are widely studied and praised. The best-known translations of Lisandro Alvarado were the first seven volumes of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent by Alejandro von Humboldt, but Alvarado also translated from Latin the treaty De rerum natura, from Tito Lucrecio Caro, and wrote several essays and glossaries on Venezuela’s Spanish language.

Towards the end of the century, in 1892, was created the literary magazine that was to mark Venezuelan literary modernism: El Cojo Ilustrado, which lasted slightly longer than twenty years. In this magazine, the number of translations almost equals the number of original writings, which demonstrates, once again, the high degree of openness to foreign literature and the interest in modernizing Venezuelan productions. Numerous Venezuelan translators are featured in this magazine, some well-known, others less so, but all contributed to the rise of the national literature of the 20th century. This rise was enshrined in 1968 with the creation, using State funds, of the Monte Ávila publishing house (see Lafarga & Peganaute 2013: 280-281), whose first publication was a translation. Once again, a very large number of translators, translating from a wide diversity of languages (mainly French) made use of this publication. The subject matter, albeit varied, centered largely around narrative and literary theory and criticism, philosophy, and sociology. In terms of the diversity and quality of its publications, the impact of Monte Ávila remains unquestioned, even today, among Venezuelan intellectuals. The publishing house created a translation workshop coordinated by Julieta Fombona to review ongoing as well as published translations for eventual reprinting. As of 1998, with the inauguration? of the Chavez government and the advent of the 21st century Socialist regime, the editorial policy radically changed in the sense that new translations were neglected in favour of existing translations of local or foreign publications which were promoted to satisfy the great majorities. Interest in translation is/was? nonetheless alive on account of bilingual works (indigenous languages-Spanish) and “cross editions”, i.e., “a bilateral project designed to publish works by Venezuelan writers translated into foreign languages, and works by foreign language writers translated into Spanish” (LITERATURA Y CIUDADANIA | Venezuela).

In the 20th century, a number of notable translators emerged among the poets. The precursor of the Venezuelan poetic avant-garde, Juan Antonio Ramos Sucre, published his first translation of Italian historian Girolamo Benzoni in El Cojo Ilustrado at the request of his protector, Lisandro Alvarado, in 1911. Then in 1916, he published the translation of a series of poems by the German Ludwig Uhland. His command of several languages afforded him the opportunity to work as a translator and interpreter at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1915 to 1929. Another prolific translator, recently, deceased, was Alfredo Silva Estrada, Premio Nacional de Literatura (National Literature Award) awardee in 1997, and winner of the Grand International Prize of the University of Liège in 2001. Like Ramos Sucre, Silva Estrada never joined any group or movement.  His first translations were poems written by his friend Danish poet Uffe Harder, Ugo Foscolo, and Giacomo Leopardi, respectively. He translated numerous poets, such as Paul Valéry, Ives Bonnefoy, Fernand Verhesen, Andrée Chedid, and Francis Ponge. His most significant translation works were published by Monte Ávila. Without betraying himself, Silva Estrada tried to find the overall meaning of the poem to be translated and allowed himself to make additions to Valery’s alexandrine verses which were of varying length. Lastly, Rafael Cadenas, Premio Nacional de Literatura, Mención Poesía (National Literature Award, poetry 1985) awardee and Romance Language Literary Award (2009), translated extensively while producing his own poetry and essays. In 2005, all of his translations appeared in the volume El taller de al lado, among others, poems by Walt Whitman, Constantino Cavafy, Víctor Segalen, Robert Graves, Robert Creeley, D. H. Lawrence, and various Polish poets) and some Zen stories. Like Silva Estrada, Cadenas justifies his very personal choices because of the current reader and confirms the tendency among Venezuelan and Latin American translators to appropriate foreign texts to recreate personal works. Most of the translators mentioned here have an entry in the Diccionario histórico de la traducción en Hispanoamérica (2013).

Viaje a las regiones equinocciales del Nuevo Continente – Editorial Monte Ávila.

We cannot overlook the translation of travel stories. As described in “La mirada del Otro” (How the Other Sees Us) (Bastin in press), Latin America was a privileged destination of European and American travellers in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. More than 120 travellers went to Venezuela and many more, sometimes including the same ones, to Colombia. These travellers were, in the main, naturalists, diplomats, engineers, merchants, and artists, most of them (because there were also tourists) agents of a specialized knowledge. Most left written accounts of their travels. Some of the texts—which, for the most part, were written in French, English, and German—were translated into Spanish, sometimes long after their initial publication. The best known are, perhaps, the stories by Alexander von Humboldt (Alexandre de Humboldt 1799-1804 Voyages aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent. 30 volumes) and their Venezuelan version: Alejandro de Humboldt (1799-1804/1941-1942): Viaje a las regiones equinocciales del Nuevo Continente. Translation: Lisandro Alvarado, Eduardo Röhly, José Nucete-Sardi. Nine volumes. Edited by Venezuela’s Ministry of Education, which has dedicated nine of the thirty volumes to Venezuela.

This edition includes an editor’s note, an extensive preliminary study of Eduardo Röhl (thirty pages) and eight reproductions of engravings. The editorial note explains that the first seven volumes were translated by Lisandro Alvarado and the remaining two by Eduardo Röhl and José Nucete-Sardi. The peritext also provides an exhaustive genealogy of the different language editions of the masterpiece of Alexander von Humboldt: two reeditions, one in 1956 and the other in 1985. The 1985 edition, by Monte Ávila, is presented in a five-volume box set.

Voyage aux îles de Trinidad, de Tabago, de la Marguerite et dans diverses parties de Vénézuéla and its Spanish translation [Source]

Another example is the story of Jean Joseph (René Madeleine) Dauxion Lavaysse (1774-1829), published in Paris in 1813; the German version is published three years later, in 1816; and the English translation four years later,  in 1820, with a second edition in 1821. However, the complete Spanish version is not published until 150 years later, in 1967, in Caracas, although partial translations are produced earlier by Enrique Planchart, Joaquín Gabaldón Márquez, and Luis Villalba Villalba. These incomplete translations, frequently referenced by Venezuelan historians, mention the chapters focusing on the customs of the inhabitants of the Captaincy General of Venezuela. The Spanish translation is of no mean interest, accompanied as it is by an important peritext: a hint to the reader, a liminal quotation, a preliminary study running eighty pages as well as nine annexes and numerous footnotes.

On a more scholarly level, we draw attention to the work of academics belonging to the different Academies of Venezuela and several professors from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) who have occasionally or consistently produced translations to enrich the country’s intellectual heritage. UCV editions, in particular, offer a significant number of translations. In translation studies, three works deserve special mention. First, the Spanish version (1970) of A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965) by Catford, translated by linguist Francisco Rivera. Second, a collection of essays on literary translation, under the title La traducción: ¿Utopía o Reto? (Translation: Utopia or Challenge?) by writer and jurist René De Sola (De Sola 1978).  Finally, the Spanish adaptation of Jean Delisle’s manual, done by Professor Georges L. Bastin (Delisle and Bastin 2006). In the absence of available data, it can be inferred that, at present, few works are translated and published there. This is primarily because private and public  publishing houses as well as university-affiliated ones, such as Monte Ávila Editores and Biblioteca Ayacucho, are suffering from the country’s more than decade-long economic crisis. This situation is also attributable to the exodus of writers, translators, and university teachers. A similar situation obtains in the once flourishing audiovisual sector which now prefers importation to translation in situ. In Venezuela, the practice of dubbing started somewhere between the end of the 50s and the beginning of the 60s. Subtitling started later, in the 80s, with the popularization of technological tools (see Fuentes-Luque 2020).

Revista Núcleo - UCV [Source]	Revista Estudios. Universidad Simón Bolívar.

The 1970’s saw the emergence of the first translation schools within university faculties in Hispanic America: The Translation Department of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (1971), followed by the School of Modern Languages at Universidad Central de Venezuela (1974). UCV offers a five-year bachelor's degree program. Exclusive to in Latin America, the program includes translation and conference interpreting in three languages—Spanish plus two of the following foreign languages: English, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese (until recently, Russian featured among the two additional languages). Since 1985, UCV has published the journal Núcleo, while for the past 10 years it has celebrated Translator's Week in September, with international guests among the participants.

Graduates from UCV university account for the majority of Venezuela’s translation professionals. While provision is made under the Law on Public Interpreters for the position of “public interpreter”, whose duty it is to intervene in judicial acts, the lack of official recognition of the profession in general is at the origin of a rather intense union struggle on the part of Venezuelan translators and interpreters. Hence, the emergence, in 1980 of the Asociación gremial Colegio Nacional de Licenciados en Traducción e Interpretación (National Association of Graduates in Translation and Interpreting) (CONALTI, member of FIT) followed by other associations. In 2004, the journal Estudios at the Simón Bolívar University, published issues 24 and 25, devoted to “América Latina, espacio de traducciones” (Latin America, a space for translations), coordinated by Argentinian researcher Andrea Pagni.

Mention must be made of the blog Ritos de Ilación with its more than 300 posts, which highlights aspects of translation and the Spanish language, mainly Venezuelan Spanish.

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  Research potential

Translation historians study a wide variety of objects and topics: texts (literary, scientific, journalistic, and philosophical ones, among others); historical figures (translators and interpreters); institutions and translation agents (publishing houses, governments, and private entities, among others); regions and communities (social, religious, etc.); and events. They also study what has not been translated. The objectives of such studies are diverse: documentation (who, when, for whom, why, where, etc.); characterization (translator: portrait, project, impact); description (categorization, strategy, technique, etc.); and developments in translation. 

In the case of Venezuela, there is scope for further research, in particular because Venezuela, given its geopolitical situation, has become the gateway for a wide assortment of ideas and texts originating in Europe and North America. The conquest era had sits share of interpreters, some of whom rose to prominence—including those mentioned above—while many are yet to be discovered. A large number of religious texts remain to be studied.

The Spanish colonial administration period, mainly during the 18th and 19th centuries, had “administrative” translators and interpreters, such as Andrés Bello y Juan Vicente Salias, and others yet to be identified.

What must be made of the fact that Francisco de Miranda, Andrés Bello, Bolívar, and several others lived in Europe? What is evident is that certain interlinguistic relations, texts, and translations call for further investigation. Miranda’s diary, the Colombeia, archives a wealth of interesting texts that can be mined for the benefit of translation history. Bolívar himself, with whose library and reading habits we are well acquainted, undoubtedly practiced translation. Herein lies another avenue of research. It is necessary to find out which of his texts or excerpts of texts are translations since his speeches and writings do not provide details. Other well-known translators to be researched are Simón Rodríguez, Pérez Bonalde, José María Vargas and José Antonio Páez.

Just as Venezuelans travelled the world, so, too, did many foreign travellers visit Venezuela and leave texts related to their travel—texts that have been translated and have had some repercussion in the country. An untapped research opportunity presents itself in terms of translations of Venezuelan literary and scientific texts. Throughout the more than 1,600 pages covering five centuries of printing in Venezuela, Blas Bruni Celli (1998) makes numerous references to this type of translation.

Last but not least is the pro-independence press, a fecund source of information for the study of translation. There are several newspapers from which a very rich translation history can be unearthed: El Semanario de Caracas (November 1810 to July 1811), El Patriota de Venezuela (January 1811 to January 1812), El Mercurio Venezolano (January 1811 to May 1811), El Publicista de Venezuela (July 1811 to November 1811), and El Correo del Orinoco (June 1818 to March 1822).

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