SUMMARY:

In the construction of a Soviet literary canon, various forms of indirect translation played a significant role. The process of making mutually accessible the desired literary output of the peoples of the Soviet Union was often hampered by lack of language competence among translators. The use of intermediary texts, especially podstrochniki (interlinear trots) was ubiquitous. Deemed unsatisfactory “in principle,” it was tolerated as a “temporary means,” but surfaced regularly on the agenda of the concerned bodies of the Writers’ Union. Drawing on archival material, this article provides a microhistory of the podstrochnik through an analysis of discourses on the topic from the 1930s up to the 1960s.