Anne of Green Gables was first translated into Sweden in 1909, only one year after the publication of the source text, and it has been in print since then. Regarding Swedish translations, Warnqvist points out legal rights issues, and the marketing practices of the publisher targeting a younger age group compared to adult readers in Canada, making changes to adjust the text for that purpose (2013: 228–242). Norwegian scholarship includes the study of Montgomery’s text from the point of view of omissions and textual manipulations (Erdmann and Pettersson 2019). Studies on Polish versions highlight issues of retranslation done in 2022 by Bańkowska, after the first translation of Bernsteinowa in 1911 (Wieczorkiewicz and Dukátová 2024).

According to an academic initiative done in eight countries of the Central European Association for Canadian Studies (Sparling and Kürtösi 2019), Montgomery is not only popular, but is the most translated Canadian author in Central Europe, that is the highest number of titles have been translated from her oeuvre. While nearing Hungary geographically, let us look at the translation trajectories of the neighbouring countries that have a similar geo-political context.

Anne of Green Gables was translated into Slovak during the Communist era, in 1959 under the title Anna zo Zeleného domu by the publishing house Mladé letá located in Bratislava which was part of Czechoslovakia at the time. Otrísalková and Gazdík (2012) have traced the translation of English Canadian Literature into Slovak language from the beginnings up to 2012. Regarding the entrance of the Montgomery translations into the literary field, they link the books with a larger political move. “Towards the end of the 1950s, when political pressure lessened as a result of a socio-political ‘thaw’ that set in after Krushchev’s denunciation of Stalin’s personality cult, publishers sought to re-establish continuity with the years immediately following the Second World War” (Otrísalková and Gazdík 2012: 120). Before 1990, three titles were translated into Slovak: Anne of Green Gables in 1959, Anne of Avonlea in 1969, Anne of the Island in 1969. The authors make note of the fact that although the books went through 11 reprints and were immensely popular, Montgomery’s critical assessment is still missing probably due to the fact that the series were labelled as children’s literature which at the time was not considered “serious literature.”

In the same volume of publications, Otrísalková examines the translation of Anne of Green Gables into Slovak. She emphasises that the heroine, Anne Shirley, was compatible with the Socialist ideals. As a teacher, Anne took up responsibility in society and in the local community, she was active outside the home, and also fulfilled a care-giving role as a mother. Otrísalková points out regarding the textual completeness that the text was heavily censored. All references to religion, the words such as ‘God’ or ‘Christianity’ as well as complete sentences were omitted from the Slovak version hindering understanding at certain places. Interestingly, the Slovak publisher has been using this text which was censored in 1959 and has not initiated retranslation despite Montgomery’s popularity (Otrísalková and Gazdík 2012: 174). The film series appeared in 1993 on Slovak Television (Otrísalková and Gazdík 2012: 170). The bibliographic catalogue thus shows that in the former Czechoslovakia, young adults grew up in the Communist era with the stories of three Montgomery books from the 1950s, while this was not the case in Hungary. Let us turn to Montgomery’s reception in Hungary which varies significantly from cases of Western Europe but even that of Czechoslovakia. The date of the Hungarian publication is comparable to the timing of the Bulgarian translation, which appeared in 1993, or the Croatian translation in 1997.