Translating 'Hedgehog's Home' written by Branko Copic 

Susan Curtis-Kojakovic, Director of Istros Books

Background to the writing of Hedgehog's Home

Hedgehog's Home by the Bosnian writer, Branko Copic was written in the early 1950s and it quickly became a classic favourite across the whole of Yugoslavia. Even today, when so much from their shared past has been rejected by the bitterness left after the conflict, the mention of Copic's story brings a smile to almost everyone's face, overcoming the barriers of ethnicity and recent trauma.

The story was written against the backdrop of the politics of its homeland at the time of its construction; the post-war effort to build a nation out of disparate peoples and Tito's policy of creating an independent, buffer country, free from Russian Communist bullying while not succumbing to the capitalistic temptations of the west.

The sociological elements of the story are a product of its time: a ballad about loving and protecting your home, born out of a country long under the rule of foreign powers; a warning against the greed of those who sacrifice their homeland for profits, at the expense of independence and national pride (read = Western Capitalists); a call for unity under the common themes of a shared homeland.

It is also possible to see the linguistic consequences of regional nationalism through the history of the story too, its removal from the Croatian National School Curriculum during the conflict of the 1990s and its gradual rehabilitation due to linguistic changes in the language to make it more 'Croatian' and less 'Serbian'.

Adapting the text for an English audience

I do think the story is special because it is a tale for children, which is also a long poem, and the fact that it is a translated poem must make it pretty unique. As you can imagine, the task of translating it was quite daunting, as I knew the poem in the original and decided that I wanted to keep the rhyme and rhythm at all costs. The story had been translated into Italian in about 2004, but while the translator kept the story in verses, s/he didn't keep the rhyme and I felt that the effect had been lost.

This is a story which could be recited by almost every Yugoslav adult and child since it first appeared on the market in the 1950s, and amazingly continued to keep its popularity throughout the break-up of the country, and even survived to become part of the culture of the newly formed republics which emerged in the early 1990s. I knew that its poetic form was what made it so appealing to the ear, something which was only advanced by the fact that it had been set to music sometime in the 1960s. 

I must admit that I copied out the whole original text of the poem onto my computer and then left if there for a good few years. Every time I opened the file and started to try to compose a rhyming translation, I found myself over-whelmed by the task! And then a good friend of mine - the children's writer and critic Naomi Lewis - passed away at the age of 97, and I suddenly decided that I wanted to complete it and dedicate it to her memory. As a poet and an animal lover herself, I knew it would be most appropriate.

The most difficult part was the first verse, and this is the part that has had the most revisions. It was a question of letting the rhythm take root in my head, and once it had taken, the other verses came quite easily. Once I had made that first effort, the whole thing took me a matter of days, during which time I even started to think in couplets! As this is a story which contains well-formed characters and a strong story-line, the dynamic of the tale really carried me along. I was also not afraid of swapping things around within the verse in order for the rhyme to function, as long as the overall meaning of the whole was intact. 

Another thing that I enjoyed was using unusual and sometimes old-fashioned words, like 'waft' and 'shun', because this reflected the fact that the text was written in the 1950s.  As a teacher, I am also very much in favour of building up children's vocabularies, and a great way of doing this is through story-telling and reading poetry out-loud.

One of the biggest tests of the translation was performing the poem in public, which I have done in both Croatia and here in London. The story and range of characters means that it can be performed as a 'reader's theatre', with a narrator and up to five additional voices. This is a story which should be read aloud, and its resonance in the English version is most satisfying. 

Hedgehog's Home Children's Opera

Hedgehog's Home has been adapted to music by the highly talented composer, song-writer and musician, Emily Leather, in cooperation with the soprano singer and Creative Director, Elinor Moran.  The premiere took place at the Conway Hall in November 2012. 

It is hoped that the project will be taken up by schools, children's groups and amateur operatic societies and reproduced.  It will add to the cannon of children's opera a story about the importance of caring for one's home and environment and for standing up for one's beliefs and defending what one holds dear. Told through the universal language of music and poetry, this seemingly simple story from a far-away country actually holds an enduring and important message that we would all do well to remember. 

Susan Curtis-Kojakovic (2012) http://www.istrosbooks.com