“Secondo le regole della baba Smiljana”: La funzione mediatrice dei paratesti nelle traduzioni serbe durante il processo di standardizzazione linguistica

This work analyses the paratexts of Serbian translations between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, when there were two currents at the basis of Serbian writing activity: the first, born from the combination of the language that had developed from the process of vernacularisation of the Russian-Slavic language, and the second, based on the linguistic variety known as “Dositej’s language”. The time span in question is limited to the decades from 1783 to 1814 when the Serbs wrote and translated in the absence of prescriptive norms. In the paratexts of the translations or adaptations done in this period it is possible to observe and analyze the strategies adopted by translators with regard to the language and to note their awareness of and sensitivity to the sociolinguistic reality in which they were immersed, as well as their efforts to mediate with the reading public.