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Spring 2020: A Very Literary SlavFile

June 1, 2020

SlavFile Header

By sheer coincidence, this year’s spring issue of SlavFile turned out to be focused almost entirely on literary translation. The issue starts with Isaac Wheeler’s insightful “Hierarchy of Conflicting Demands,” in which he prioritizes seven stipulations a literary translation must meet, ranging from (No. 1) “Does it produce the same effect on the reader as the original?” to (No. 7) “Does it use the same metaphorical mechanism as the original?” He talks about various efforts to figure out what goes on “under the hood” during literary translation. The examples he draws from his own work demonstrate a keen attentiveness to what’s happening under his own. His article is followed by Part II of Steven McGrath’s excellent interview with literary translator Carol Apollonio, which centers on her experiences translating Chekhov. The issue also features a lengthy interview with Olga Bukhina, who has spent decades translating Anglophone children’s literature into Russian (and who oversees a Russian-into-English translation contest for bilingual children). Two reviews of sessions presented at ATA60 in Palm Springs are also literary: Julia LaVilla-Nossova’s review of Martha Kosir’s “On Understanding and Translating Humor: The Spirits of Heinrich Boll’s House” and my own review of Shelley Fairweather-Vega’s “Decolonizing Central Asia through Translation.” The issue concludes with Part IV of Lydia Razran Stone’s contemplation of Krylov, commenced in commemoration of last year’s 250th anniversary of his birth.

Even our administrators’ “Notes from the Administrative Underground,” which ponders the isolation that is, at times, a part of our profession and how our SLD community can help ease it (we’ve all become even more isolated since it was originally written in early March!), features Zinaida Gippius’s poem “Цепь,” evocatively translated by Maria Jacqueline Evans. We hope our readers will enjoy and learn from this superb (if we may say so ourselves) issue.

Nora Seligman Favorov

Associate Editor

end of SlavFile reprint

Filed Under: SlavFile Tagged With: literary, SlavFile

SLD Podcast: Episode 19 with Shelley Fairweather-Vega

December 9, 2019

The SLD Podcast is out with a new episode, new season, new name, and new host! This newest Slovo features Shelley Fairweather-Vega, who translates from Russian and Uzbek. Shelley talks about learning these languages, her transition from commercial to literary translation, and the books she has translated recently.

Listen to the newest episode on Soundcloud, or subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Google Play so you never miss an episode!

Filed Under: Podcast Episodes Tagged With: literary, podcast, uzbek

6 Anti-Love Poems on the Occasion of Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2018

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Do you find the Valentine’s Day celebration of romantic love a bit much? Do you cast about in search of refuge from the onslaught of bliss? Look no further! Lydia Razran Stone—the indefatigable editor of SlavFile and a specialist in translating Russian poetry—has put together a few of her translated of Russian poems focusing on the negatives of love to serve as your antidote to an excess of Valentine’s Day positivity. If you would like more poems in this vein, you can contact her at lydiastone@verizon.net for more of her translations.

A: THE MALE PERSPECTIVE

  1. FYODOR TYUTCHEV: LOVE AS COMBAT
Предопределение Федор Тютчев 1851

Любовь, любовь – гласит преданье –
Союз души с душой родной –
Их съединенье, сочетанье,
И роковое их слиянье.
И… поединок роковой…

И чем одно из них нежнее
В борьбе неравной двух сердец,
Тем неизбежней и вернее,
Любя, страдая, грустно млея,
Оно изноет наконец…

Predestination Fedor Tyutchev 1851

Through love, through loves, as legends state it
Two kindred souls seek fusion true
Forever more to be related;
Ideal communion –destined, fated.
But fate locks them in combat too.

And in this combat one soul’s fires
Always burns with love more pure.
It suffers more, to more aspires,
But in the end that soul expires,
That’s its fate, predestined, sure.

Original is in the public domain and may be found online at: http://www.ruthenia.ru/tiutcheviana/stihi/bp/172.html

  1. SASHA CHERNYY THE SAD CONSEQUENCES OF INFIDELITY: THE LONG SUFFERING HUSBAND
Колыбельная Саша Черный 1910

Мать уехала в Париж…
И не надо! Спи, мой чиж.
А-а-а! Молчи, мой сын,
Нет последствий без причин.
Черный, гладкий таракан
Важно лезет под диван,
От него жена в Париж
Не сбежит, о нет! шалишь!
С нами скучно. Мать права.
Новый гладок, как Бова,
Новый гладок и богат,
С ним не скучно… Так-то, брат!
А-а-а! Огонь горит,
Добрый снег окно пушит.
Спи, мой кролик, а-а-а!
Все на свете трын-трава…
Жили-были два крота,
Вынь-ка ножку изо рта!
Спи, мой зайчик, спи, мой чиж,—
Мать уехала в Париж.
Чей ты? Мой или его?
Спи, мой мальчик, ничего!
Не смотри в мои глаза…
Жили козлик и коза…
Кот козу увез в Париж…
Спи, мой котик, спи, мой чиж!
Через… год… вернется… мать…
Сына нового рожать…

Lullaby Sasha Cherny

Hush, my little sleepy-head.
Mama’s gone –to Paris fled.
Ah-Ah-Ah, please don’t you weep.
There were reasons, go to sleep.
Over there beneath the couch
Crawls a sleek and shiny roach.
Where’s his wife? In Paris, too?
No, she isn’t; that’s not true.
Life here’s dull, with you and me.
So says Mama, I agree.
Mama’s new one’s rich and sleek.
He won’t bore her in a week.
Ah-Ah-Ah! The candles glow;
Window panes pile up with snow.
Sleep my funny little man!
All the world’s not worth a damn…
Once there lived a deer and doe…
Do not chew upon your toe.
Sleep my bunny, rest your head!
Mama’s gone –to Paris fled.
Are you mine or are you his?
Doesn’t matter which it is!
Do not look at me like that…
Once there lived a kitty cat…
But a tom bore her away.
Sleep, my son, it’s almost day.
She’ll come back before too long
To birth us another son….

Original is in the public domain and may be found online at: https://45parallel.net/sasha_chernyy/kolybelnaya_mat_uekhala.html

  1. THE WOMAN’S PERSPECTIVE
  2. Zinaida Gippius- EVEN IF IT IS GROTESQUE, MIGHT IT STILL BE LOVE?
Зинаида Гиппиус ДЬЯВОЛЕНОК 1906

Мне повстречался дьяволенок,
Худой и щуплый – как комар.
Он телом был совсем ребенок,
Лицом же дик: остер и стар.

Шел дождь… Дрожит, темнеет тело,
Намокла всклоченная шерсть…
И я подумал: эко дело!
Ведь тоже мерзнет. Тоже персть.

Твердят: любовь, любовь! Не знаю.
Не слышно что-то. Не видал.
Вот жалость… Жалость понимаю.
И дьяволенка я поймал.

Пойдем, детеныш! Хочешь греться?
Не бойся, шерстку не ерошь.
Что тут на улице тереться?
Дам детке сахару… Пойдешь?

А он вдруг эдак сочно, зычно,
Мужским, ласкающим баском
(Признаться – даже неприлично
И жутко было это в нем) –

Пророкотал: “Что сахар? Глупо.
Я, сладкий, сахару не ем.
Давай телятинки да супа…
Уж я пойду к тебе – совсем”.

Он разозлил меня бахвальством…
А я хотел еще помочь!
Да ну тебя с твоим нахальством!
И не спеша пошел я прочь.

Но он заморщился и тонко
Захрюкал… Смотрит, как больной…
Опять мне жаль… И дьяволенка
Тащу, трудясь, к себе домой.

Смотрю при лампе: дохлый, гадкий,
Не то дитя, не то старик.
И все твердит: “Я сладкий, сладкий…”
Оставил я его. Привык.

И даже как-то с дьяволенком
Совсем сжился я наконец.
Он в полдень прыгает козленком,
Под вечер – темен, как мертвец.

То ходит гоголем-мужчиной,
То вьется бабой вкруг меня,
А если дождик – пахнет псиной
И шерстку лижет у огня.

Я прежде всем себя тревожил:
Хотел того, мечтал о том…
А с ним мой дом… не то, что ожил,
Но затянулся, как пушком
Безрадостно-благополучно,
И нежно-сонно, и темно…
Мне с дьяволенком сладко-скучно…
Дитя, старик,- не все ль равно?

Такой смешной он, мягкий, хлипкий,
Как разлагающийся гриб.
Такой он цепкий, сладкий, липкий,
Все липнул, липнул – и прилип.

И оба стали мы – едины.
Уж я не с ним – я в нем, я в нем!
Я сам в ненастье пахну псиной
И шерсть лижу перед огнем…

Zinaida Gippius THE LITTLE DEVIL 1906

One night I met, to my surprise,
A puny devil, blue with cold—
No bigger than a child in size,
His feral face was gaunt and old.

He shivered in the icy rain,
Which had soaked through his matted pelt.
“This son of hell feels cold and pain–
We share one fate,” I somehow felt.

They talk of love! What do I know?
Love’s something I don’t understand.
But pity? Yes, it moves me. So
I seized that devil by the hand.

“You’ll surely freeze here on the street.
Come home with me; we’ll get you warm!
I’ll feed you something hot and sweet.
Don’t be afraid, I mean no harm.”

He spoke—his voice a booming bass
As thick, and rich, and smooth as honey–
From his lank throat so out of place
It seemed indecent, even funny.

“Am I a babe, seduced by sweets?
I cannot stand them, never could.
Just feed me soup and fat red meats
And I’ll move in with you for good.”

At his brash words I took offense,
(My own had been much more than kind.)
Disgusted with such insolence
I turned to go, but changed my mind.

He gave a squeal so thin and shrill;
His face contorted pitifully.
He seemed so weak and looked so ill,
I had to drag him home with me.

In lamplight he looked nasty, seedy
A mix of aged imp and baby,
Who kept repeating, “I’m a sweetie.”
“He’ll grow on me,” I thought, “just maybe.”

So I got used to all his ways;
And he soon made himself at home;
Days, like a child, he romps and plays;
At dusk reverts to senile gnome.

At times his walk’s a manly stride;
At times a prancing girlish step.
Before the hearth he licks his hide
And stinks of dog when weather’s wet.

I used to worry, fret and strive;
I dreamed and longed for foolish stuff…
He gave my home, if not new life,
At least a coat of fuzzy fluff.
Devoid of woe, devoid of joy,
Our life’s a dark, dull, drowsy song.
A senile devil, babe, or boy—
What do I care—we get along.

He is so funny, soft and flimsy,
A rotting mushroom past its prime,
He is so sweetly sticky, clingy;
He stuck to me and now he’s mine.

Now he and I have grown together.
Not just united; we’re the same.
I stink of dog in rainy weather,
And lick my fur before the flame.

Original is in the public domain and may be found online at: http://pishi-stihi.ru/dyavolenok-gippius.html

  1. Marina Tsvetayeva: BETTER OFF WITHOUT IT, OR MAYBE NOT
Марина Цветаева  1915

Мне нравится, что вы больны не мной,
Мне нравится, что я больна не вами,
Что никогда тяжелый шар земной
Не уплывет под нашими ногами.

Мне нравится, что можно быть смешной –
Распущенной – и не играть словами,
И не краснеть удушливой волной,
Слегка соприкоснувшись рукавами.

Мне нравится еще, что вы при мне
Спокойно обнимаете другую,
Не прочите мне в адовом огне
Гореть за то, что я не вас целую.
Что имя нежное мое, мой нежный, не
Упоминаете ни днем, ни ночью – всуе…
Что никогда в церковной тишине
Не пропоют над нами: аллилуйя!

Спасибо вам и сердцем и рукой
За то, что вы меня – не зная сами! –
Так любите: за мой ночной покой,
За редкость встреч закатными часами,
За наши не-гулянья под луной,
За солнце, не у нас над головами,-
За то, что вы больны – увы! – не мной,
За то, что я больна – увы! – не вами!

Marina Tsvetayeva 1915

How nicе to know what ails me is not you,
How nice to know what ails you is not me.
And thus we’ll never feel, as lovers do,
Firm earth beneath us turn to flowing sea.
How nice to act the fool or talk too much,
Feel free to let you see me at my worst.
And if some day by chance our sleeves may touch.
No fiery flush my cool cheek will immerse.

How nice that you can calmly, though I’m near,
Enfold another woman in embrace;
That you do not berate me, do not jeer
When I display no urge to take her place;
That you my sweet, don’t seek to speak my name
Not heeding if it’s apt or apropos;
That loving vows we never will declaim;
Into the future hand and hand won’t go.

I’m grateful to you, more than I can tell,
For gifts of love, though given unaware:
For peaceful nights I sleep alone and well,
For keeping twilight trysts so very rare,
For moonlight walks that never came to be,
For sunlight not intended just for two.
Because, alas, you’re not what’s ailing me;
Because, alas, I’m not what’s ailing you.

Original is in the public domain and may be found online at: http://www.stihi-rus.ru/1/Cvetaeva/74.htm

  1. SOME CONSOLATION
  2. BULAT OKUDZHAVA: IF YOU’RE LUCKY AN UNHEALTHY LOVE TRANSFORMS INTO A BETTER KIND
Булат Окуджава 1959

Мне нужно на кого-нибудь молиться.
Подумайте, простому муравью
вдруг захотелось в ноженьки валиться,
поверить в очарованность свою!

И муравья тогда покой покинул,
все показалось будничным ему,
и муравей создал себе богиню
по образу и духу своему.

И в день седьмой, в какое-то мгновенье,
она возникла из ночных огней
без всякого небесного знаменья…
Пальтишко было легкое на ней.

Все позабыв — и радости и муки,
он двери распахнул в свое жилье
и целовал обветренные руки
и старенькие туфельки ее.,

И тени их качались на пороге.
Безмолвный разговор они вели,
красивые и мудрые, как боги,
и грустные, как жители земли.

Bulat Okudzhava-1959

I feel the need for someone I can pray to.
Imagine that a common lowly ant
Was overcome by yearning for a way to
Prostrate himself—as humble supplicant.

At peace no more, dispirited, frustrated
So all the world appeared to him mundane.
A goddess in his image he created
And worshipped her; his prayers were not in vain.

For when his days of prayer had numbered seven,
She did appear to him one winter’s night
Without a single augury from heaven…
The jacket that she wore was far too light.

Forgetting all the past – both pain and pleasure,
He opened wide the door out to the street
And kissed her hands, chapped raw from wind and weather,
And then the shabby slippers on her feet.

Two shadows moved like dancers in the entry.
And wordlessly communion seemed to flow.
And they were fair and wise like heaven’s gentry,
But sad like mortal folk on earth below.

Original is in the public domain and may be found online at: http://www.stihi-rus.ru/1/okud/32.htm

 

  1. Nikolay Gumilyov: EVEN IF LOVE DOES NOT BRIDGE THE GENDER GAP, ONE CAN TRY
Николай Гумилев Жираф 1907

Сегодня, я вижу, особенно грустен твой взгляд
И руки особенно тонки, колени обняв.
Послушай: далёко, далёко, на озере Чад
Изысканный бродит жираф.

Ему грациозная стройность и нега дана,
И шкуру его украшает волшебный узор,
С которым равняться осмелится только луна,
Дробясь и качаясь на влаге широких озер.

Вдали он подобен цветным парусам корабля,
И бег его плавен, как радостный птичий полет.
Я знаю, что много чудесного видит земля,
Когда на закате он прячется в мраморный грот.

Я знаю веселые сказки таинственных стран
Про чёрную деву, про страсть молодого вождя,
Но ты слишком долго вдыхала тяжелый туман,
Ты верить не хочешь во что-нибудь кроме дождя.

И как я тебе расскажу про тропический сад,
Про стройные пальмы, про запах немыслимых трав.
Ты плачешь? Послушай… далёко, на озере Чад
Изысканный бродит жираф.

Nikolay Gumilyov The Giraffe 1907

I see that this morning your eyes are especially sad;
Especially slender the arms that encircle your calves
Well, listen, far off to the south on the shores of Lake Chad,
There roams the exquisite giraffe.

To him have been given harmonious figure and grace,
His hide is embellished with pattern of magic design,
Which only the Moon would have daring enough to retrace
As playfully dancing she dapples the lake with her shine.

He seems at a distance a luminous sail on the waves
And fluid his gait, like a bird in its rapturous flight.
But only the Earth knows the site of the marble walled caves
To which he retreats when the sun starts to set every night.

I’d cheer you with tales of this land full of legend and song,
Of young tribal chiefs and dark maids, of their passion and pain…
But you have been breathing the fogs of the North for too long
And don’t want to believe there is anything else but the rain.

No lighthearted tales of the tropics can make your heart glad
You cannot imagine the palms or the scent of the alien grass…
You’re crying? Well, listen…on the distant shores of Lake Chad
There roams the exquisite giraffe.

Original is in the public domain and may be found online at: https://gumilev.ru/verses/375/

All translations by Lydia Razran Stone, published with permission.

Filed Under: Translation Tagged With: literary, poetry, Russian, translation, Valentine's Day

Coming Out of the Shadow: Review of Madeline G. Levine’s Susana Greiss Lecture [from SlavFile]

August 31, 2017

Reviewed by Christine Pawlowski

Reprinted from SlavFile

Each year at the American Translators Association Annual Conference, the Susana Greiss lecture brings an eminent guest lecturer to speak upon some aspect of translation/interpretation related to the Slavic languages. ATA’s Polonists owe a debt of gratitude to Nora Favorov, who initially reached out to Madeline Levine, the 2016 speaker. Dr. Levine’s address, “In the Shadow of Russian: Forty Years of Translating Polish Literature,” proved a seminal event: Dr. Levine became the first speaker in the nineteen-year history of the Greiss lecture to address a Polish subject.

Graduates of Slavic Studies programs in the United States have often encountered the tendency to categorize the various Slavic literatures as “major” or “minor,” with Russian at the top. In 1963, Dr. Levine, a Russian specialist at Harvard, chose to study Polish as her secondary literature requirement. It turned out to be a serendipitous decision; the need for scholarly attention to and good literary translation of Polish was extreme. In fact, an American colleague of Dr. Levine’s once greeted her with the question, “Is there really such a thing as Polish literature?” Learning “at breakneck speed” to read Polish, Dr. Levine began a lifelong career translating this “minor” literature.

Dr. Levine’s early work was made more difficult by the lack of critical resources available. (She singled out Kridl’s “stupefyingly dull,” blue-covered, pictureless survey.) This situation was radically transformed by the publication of Miłosz’s 1969 work, The History of Polish Literature, which helped to provide a cultural and historical context for Polish literature in a “readable, even exciting” way. As I pulled out my 40-year-old copy of this book, heavily annotated in the early ‘70s, I found myself in wholehearted agreement. Miłosz’s work, with its determination to “avoid… scholarly dryness” and “preserve… a trace of a smile” must have created something of a Lazarus experience when it first appeared—Polish literature was alive after all.

Among other groundbreaking efforts for Polish literature in English, Dr. Levine explored the “labors of love” undertaken by Celina Wieniewska and Barbara Vedder. These pioneering women translated the works of Bruno Schulz and Tadeusz Borowski, two unknown writers whose influence now reaches worldwide. Dr. Levine has produced new translations of these works, and her translation of Bruno Schulz’s prose fiction is soon to be published by Northwestern University Press.

A primary focus of Dr. Levine’s work has been Jewish-themed literature in the Polish language. In translating works about the Holocaust and in her work as a university professor, she has delved into the question: “How is it possible that such horror can be captured and transformed into works of artistic beauty?” She has also taken on another wartime subject: her re-translation of Białoszewski’s Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising was released by the New York Review of Books in their Classics series.

Dr. Levine has had her share of good fortune: at a very young age, she obtained her first position as Assistant Professor at the City University of New York “sight unseen” after a phone interview. She enjoyed the stability of her position in the University of North Carolina’s Slavic Languages and Literatures Department (now Germanic & Slavic Languages and Literatures). However, she has also experienced the vicissitudes of the publishing industry and, as a result, seems to have developed the patience of a saint! After 40 years of sharing an unknown literary culture with readers and students, Dr. Levine leaves her audience with the firm conviction that she has only just begun. When I asked her at our communal lunch: “So what still needs to be translated?” She responded: “Everything!”

I encourage you to read excerpts from Dr. Levine’s talk on the next page to learn more about the fascinating and, at times, frustrating professional journey of a “student-teacher-scholar-translator.”

Christine Pawlowski is a freelance Polish and Russian translator with an M.A. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Indiana University, “Tsvetograd.” She is retired from teaching elementary music and enjoys being called “Busia” by her 10 grandchildren. She is ATA certified (Polish-English). She may be reached at pawlow@verizon.net.

end of SlavFile reprint

This article first appeared in the Spring 2017 issue of SlavFile. We invite you to check out the full publication for the excerpts from Dr. Levine’s talk referenced in the review, as well as a follow-up by Nora Favorov, “The List,” about the list of pre-1945 works in various Slavic languages that still need to be translated.

Going to this year’s ATA conference in Washington, DC? Then we encourage you to attend this year’s Susana Greiss lecture! “The Long and Winding Road to Becoming a Presidential Interpreter,” presented by Nikolai Sorokin, will take place on Thursday, October 26, at 3:30 PM. Nikolai Sorokin will also present a session on interpreting on Friday, October 27, at 10:00 AM, titled “Wow! How Am I Going to Interpret That?”. We hope to see you there!

Filed Under: Annual Conferences, SlavFile, Translation Tagged With: literary, Polish, SlavFile, translation

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