A Brief Look at the Three "Rewritings" of Bram Stoker's Dracula

Three consecutive publishings of Dracula in Turkish, that are in 1997, 1998 and 2003, display observable differences concerning the textual and extra-textual features they’ve adopted in representing the original work of Bram Stoker. Without a focused textual comparison, the only thing they have in common seems to be the existence of a Dracula figure in all. Otherwise, with a quick look, it’s realized that the setting for the first book is Istanbul, the second one seems to have leapt out of the movie, and the third one is a Victorian novel making the critic of the era’s moral values. Heading from the diversities between these three different versions, it wouldn’t be hard to achieve some of the norms adopted within both ‘rewriting’ and publishing process.

The first two rewritings are published by the same publishing house, Kamer Yayınları. Publishing the Istanbul version of the novel first, then introducing the more ‘adequate’ one later seems to be a conscious strategy. The forewords within these two that direct one to such a conclusion. Within the foreword of the 1997 edition, it’s revealed that the book has already been published in 20’s under the title ‘Kazıklı Voyvoda’, but it wasn’t until 50’s that it was adapted to a movie and both the novel and the movie acquired fame. Actually the edition of the 20’s is worth a study by itself, in that it is a great example of rewriting a source text through adopting target culture norms. Besides replacing the original names with Turkish ones, the usage of Kur’an instead of Bible and the elimination of the crosses from the settings reveal either the cultural constraints the target text author is exposed to or the ideology internalized by him. (surely both is possible also)

Re-editing this book under the title ‘Drakula İstanbul’da’ in1997 is another matter of debate; in that, there’s an obvious marketing concern here that aims to benefit from the movie’s success. The fact that Kamer Yayınları published the more ‘adequate’ (here the word is used in Toury's terms) translation of Dracula one year after publishing this Istanbul version (through lots of references to the first attempt) may be taken as another marketing concern. Here, it’s obvious that the publishing house attempts to compose a ‘Serie of Dracula’ which regards all types of metadiscourse developed around the original text within both source and target cultures. The movie, the re-edition, the new edition (the first translation as they call this), the biography of Bram Stoker, the journey of the novel within history, and surely the forewords that introduce the texts all serve for this type of a compilation.

Here, there’s another question to be asked: Why would re-publish this 1920 version today? It’s for sure that there are hundreds of historical works waiting for such a second birth. Here the social dynamics intervene into the scene. In 90’s there might be some shift in readership that has directed Kamer Yayınları to Dracula; an interest towards the works of horror and fantasy might have arisen. For the researcher this may be a point of departure. S/he could search for other works of the same genre that has been re-introduced to the system in the same time period. If there’s none, this would also be used as a data that indicates the pioneering role this specific publishing house has adopted. In this case, the researcher could look at what other texts of this genre have been publised by this publishing house. Has it continued such a pioneering role? If so, has it been influential on the development of the system or have these reintroductions remained as peripheral activities?

Lastly, in the 2003 version published by Ithaki Yayınları, there seems to be an attempt of introducing the work as a 'novel' in the conventional sense. This could be taken as a mode of differentiation regarding the industry, in that a different type of readership might have been determined for this specific edition. It is introduced as a ‘critique of the Victorian ethics and scientific perspective’ as revealed in the short passage on the back cover. Apparently, this latest 'rewriting' attempts to raise associations other than ‘horror’.

All these remind the fact that the translations are the products of certain decisions; obviously there were hundreds of them before both the translator and the publisher (and other agents involved within the process). Whether these decisions are conscious or unconscious could be unearthed through a focused look, which is the scholar's task as Lefevere reveals. Displaying these would reveal what kind of constraints the 'recreator' was exposed to. It's through such a path one would achieve the norms applied within (and around) the translated texts.