EN
Socialist Slovakia did not pay much attention to medieval Occitan poetry, of which only one translation was accessible in the book format – the anthology Danteho trubadúri (The troubadours of Dante), published in 1972 by Jozef Felix and Viliam Turčány. This article seeks to reconstruct its ethical background, drawing mainly (but not exclusively) on contemporary approaches to the anthology as a concept. It responds to such questions as: Do the translators fall prey to cultural isolationism and plagiarize concrete foreign-language (especially French) sources? Does their selection of poems encourage ethnocentrism rather than a true exchange of literary values? Why is Dante’s name included in the title? To what extent are the accompanying para-texts marked by ideological manipulation? Perhaps not surprisingly, the editorial gesture is not discredited by the ordeal, proving that aesthetic elitism can be a powerful antidote to totalitarian practices.