This Handbook of Translation Studies reflects my experience as a translation scholar, and a translation teacher, and a translator from Russian. The knowledge of the Russian language allowed me to read (and translate into Italian) crucial authors like Popovič, Lyudskanov, Torop, Revzin and Rozentsveyg. Since not many Western translation scholars know them, we get as a consequence a translation theory which is split between West and East according to a sort of 'cultural Berlin wall'.