{"id":1985,"date":"2022-12-23T14:46:20","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T13:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/?p=1985"},"modified":"2022-12-23T14:46:20","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T13:46:20","slug":"slavfile-translating-okudzhava","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/slavfile-translating-okudzhava\/","title":{"rendered":"SlavFile Reprint \u2013 Translating Okudzhava: Turning \u00ab\u041f\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d\u043a\u0430 \u0441\u0442\u0430\u0440\u043e\u0433\u043e \u0448\u0430\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043d\u0449\u0438\u043a\u0430\u00bb into \u201cThe Organ-Grinder Ditty\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SlavFile<\/p>\n

The article below is reprinted from the most recent SlavFile. The full issue is available here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Translating Okudzhava: Turning \u00ab\u041f\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d\u043a\u0430 \u0441\u0442\u0430\u0440\u043e\u0433\u043e \u0448\u0430\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043d\u0449\u0438\u043a\u0430\u00bb into \u201cThe Organ-Grinder Ditty\u201d<\/h2>\n

By <\/em>Vladimir Kovner<\/em><\/p>\n

I suspect that I am a generation or two removed from the majority of SlavFile<\/em>\u2019s current readers. Nevertheless, I hope that they all know the name Bulat Okudzhava and are familiar with at least some of his works. In the late \u02be50s, Okudzhava began to perform his poems\/songs\u2014basically, poetry set to music accompanied by guitar\u2014for his friends. Thus began the highly influential era of the Russian \u201cbards,\u201d of which Okudzhava is considered to be progenitor. I got my very first tape recordings of one of his performances in late 1959 and met him in person in 1962 at a home concert in Leningrad. Later I had the pleasure of recording his performances in Leningrad, Moscow, Detroit, and Oberlin, Ohio.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to start by saying a few words about the uniqueness of his poetry. In 2011, A.V. Sycheva (a professor at the University of Magadan and a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of the outstanding scholar Professor Roman Tchaikovsky) remarked in her dissertation \u201cAbout Translations of Okudzhava\u2019s Poetry into English\u201d that the majority of the bard\u2019s translators recreate only the basic sense of his poetry, their translations being interlinear or free, not even rhymed. In her opinion, only slightly more than 16 percent can be considered adequate. Later, explaining why even some decent renderings cannot be considered adequate, she explains: \u201cIn most cases, the completed translations of Okudzhava\u2019s lyrics do not comply with all the criteria of that genre. Even if the original poetic texts of his songs are reflected quite successfully in the English language versions, some extremely important components of his poetry, such as its folkloristic character and musicality, are quite often completely absent in translation.\u201d Later, we\u2019ll come back to the discussion of that problem.<\/p>\n

Before his first performance in the Leningrad House of Art in 1960, Okudzhava said to Alexander Volodin, a well-known playwright and poet who was tasked with introducing Bulat to the audience: \u201cDon\u2019t call my works songs. I am a poet. They are poems.\u201d But later Volodin added to that story: \u201cLong ago poets were called singers. They composed verses and melodies, and performed them with their own zither accompaniment\u2026 In our time, in our country, the first one to accomplish this was Okudzhava. Every word of his poetry is a word of a song that is supposed to soar over this vast country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The uniqueness of Bulat\u2019s poetry is in his incredible musicality. We translators have to understand that more often than not his poetry is not simply verses. Even his poems that for some reason were not set to music beg to be sung. According to Vladimir Frumkin, a musicologist, one of the founders of the \u201cbard\u201d movement, and one of the best if not the<\/em> best performer of Okudzhava\u2019s songs, his verse-songs are unique because they have been created\/composed as a cohesive whole that comprises not only lyrics and music but also the author\u2019s own performance, his unique, somewhat restrained voice, a subtly ironic manner, a deeply individual cadence, and his guitar accompaniment. Together, these elements give us a unique genre known as \u201cguitar poetry.\u201d In his song \u00ab\u0413\u043b\u0430\u0432\u043d\u0430\u044f \u043f\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d\u043a\u0430\u00bb\/\u201cThe Paramount Song<\/a>\u201d (the version below is translated by Lydia Razran Stone and myself and was published in the journal Readings<\/em>, no. 31, summer 2015). Bulat demonstrates how to create a song (music and lyrics) as a single whole:<\/p>\n

\u201cOkudzhava\u2019s songs are more a phenomenon of oral than of written poetry, like folksongs\u201d (Vladimir Frumkin). Let\u2019s add that Okudzhava heard music emanating from everywhere (e.g., from Moscow streets, from architecture), then he constantly and naturally incorporated the most diverse musical instruments and genres into his poetry: guitars, horns, drums, flutes, clarinets, waltzes, marches, and so on. Furthermore, as he described it: \u201cI write when I feel like it, under the influence of various moods and impulses that are sometimes not even clear to me\u2026\u201d And finally, he possessed a remarkable musical ear. This is why I believe it is essential for translators of Okudzhava’s songs to spend time listening to how he performs them to be sure that not only their translation adheres to the original meter and rhyme pattern (that is relatively simple), but that it is singable to the original melody, with the rhythm pattern of the translated song matching the pattern in the original.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u041d\u0430\u0432\u0435\u0440\u043d\u043e\u0435, \u0441\u0430\u043c\u0443\u044e \u043b\u0443\u0447\u0448\u0443\u044e
\n\u041d\u0430 \u044d\u0442\u043e\u0439 \u0437\u0435\u043c\u043d\u043e\u0439 \u0441\u0442\u043e\u0440\u043e\u043d\u0435
\n\u0425\u043e\u0436\u0443 \u044f \u0438 \u043f\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d\u043a\u0443 \u0441\u043b\u0443\u0448\u0430\u044e –
\n\u041e\u043d\u0430 \u0448\u0435\u0432\u0435\u043b\u044c\u043d\u0443\u043b\u0430\u0441\u044c \u0432\u043e \u043c\u043d\u0435.
\n\u041e\u043d\u0430 \u0435\u0449\u0435 \u043e\u0447\u0435\u043d\u044c \u043d\u0435\u0441\u043f\u0435\u0442\u0430\u044f.
\n\u041e\u043d\u0430 \u0437\u0435\u043b\u0435\u043d\u0430 \u043a\u0430\u043a \u0442\u0440\u0430\u0432\u0430.
\n\u041d\u043e \u0447\u0443\u0434\u0438\u0442\u0441\u044f \u043c\u0443\u0437\u044b\u043a\u0430 \u0441\u0432\u0435\u0442\u043b\u0430\u044f,
\n\u0418 \u0441\u0442\u0440\u043e\u0433\u043e \u043b\u043e\u0436\u0430\u0442\u0441\u044f \u0441\u043b\u043e\u0432\u0430\u2026<\/td>\n		The best thing that life on Earth brings to me,
\nThat causes most joy in my heart,
\nI walk, and from nowhere it sings to me,
\nA song that is longing to start.
\nNot yet a true song, but developing;
\nUnripe, like green fruit on the vine.
\nThe melody\u2019s splendid, enveloping,
\nAnd words fall precisely in line\u2026<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Returning to A.V. Sycheva\u2019s analysis, obviously the majority of translators were either tone-deaf or failed to consider the melodical component important and based their renderings on his written poetry.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s come back, at last, to the subject of our discussion: a very unusual poem-song, \u00ab\u041f\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d\u043a\u0430 \u0441\u0442\u0430\u0440\u043e\u0433\u043e \u0448\u0430\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043d\u0449\u0438\u043a\u0430<\/a>\u00bb. Before I describe the very interesting and complex process of translating that song into English, I\u2019d like to say that the following translation represents my efforts to match the brilliance of Okudzhava\u2019s original lyrics and my very useful and important periodic discussions with Nora Favorov, who critiqued some of my early versions and suggested a few interesting alternatives that I gratefully accepted.<\/p>\n

\u041f\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d\u043a\u0430 \u0441\u0442\u0430\u0440\u043e\u0433\u043e \u0448\u0430\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043d\u0449\u0438\u043a\u0430. \u0411\u0443\u043b\u0430\u0442 \u041e\u043a\u0443\u0434\u0436\u0430\u0432\u0430.<\/strong>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u0415. \u0415\u0432\u0442\u0443\u0448\u0435\u043d\u043a\u043e<\/em><\/p>\n

\u0428\u0430\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043d\u043a\u0430-\u0448\u0430\u0440\u043b\u0430\u0442\u0430\u043d\u043a\u0430, \u043a\u0430\u043a \u0441\u043b\u0430\u0434\u043a\u043e \u0442\u044b \u043f\u043e\u0435\u0448\u044c!
\n\u0428\u0430\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043d\u043a\u0430-\u0448\u0430\u0440\u043b\u0430\u0442\u0430\u043d\u043a\u0430, \u043a\u0443\u0434\u0430 \u043c\u0435\u043d\u044f \u0437\u043e\u0432\u0435\u0448\u044c?<\/p>\n

\u0428\u0430\u0433\u0430\u044e \u0435\u043b\u0435-\u0435\u043b\u0435 \u2013 \u0432\u0435\u0440\u0448\u043e\u043a \u0437\u0430 \u043f\u044f\u0442\u044c \u043c\u0438\u043d\u0443\u0442.
\n\u041d\u0443 \u043a\u0430\u043a \u0434\u043e\u0439\u0442\u0438 \u0434\u043e \u0446\u0435\u043b\u0438, \u043a\u043e\u0433\u0434\u0430 \u0431\u043e\u0442\u0438\u043d\u043a\u0438 \u0436\u043c\u0443\u0442?..<\/p>\n

\u0420\u0430\u0431\u043e\u0442\u0430 \u0435\u0441\u0442\u044c \u0440\u0430\u0431\u043e\u0442\u0430, \u0440\u0430\u0431\u043e\u0442\u0430 \u0435\u0441\u0442\u044c \u0432\u0441\u0435\u0433\u0434\u0430,
\n\u0425\u0432\u0430\u0442\u0438\u043bo \u0431 \u0442\u043e\u043b\u044c\u043a\u043e \u043f\u043e\u0442\u0430 \u043d\u0430 \u0432\u0441\u0435 \u043c\u043e\u0438 \u0433\u043e\u0434\u0430.<\/p>\n

\u0420\u0430\u0441\u043f\u043b\u0430\u0442\u0430 \u0437\u0430 \u043e\u0448\u0438\u0431\u043a\u0438 \u2013 \u0432\u0435\u0434\u044c \u044d\u0442\u043e \u0442\u043e\u0436\u0435 \u0442\u0440\u0443\u0434.
\n\u0425\u0432\u0430\u0442\u0438\u043b\u043e \u0431\u044b \u0443\u043b\u044b\u0431\u043a\u0438, \u043a\u043e\u0433\u0434\u0430 \u043f\u043e\u0434 \u0440\u0435\u0431\u0440\u0430 \u0431\u044c\u044e\u0442.
\n\u0420\u0430\u0431\u043e\u0442\u0430 \u2013 \u0435\u0441\u0442\u044c \u0440\u0430\u0431\u043e\u0442\u0430\u2026
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Composed circa 1960\u201362<\/em><\/p>\n

The melody follows a waltz rhythm (one-two-three, one-two-three), a na\u00efve charming waltz for a street-organ. (The standard rhythms for street-organ music were older forms of dances such as the waltz, two-step, polka, etc.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Organ-Grinder Ditty\u201d by Bulat Okudzhava<\/strong>
\ndedicated<\/em> to<\/em> Yevgeny Yevtushenko<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, charlatan, street organ! Your singing is so sweet.
\nYou devious street organ! Where do you summon me?<\/p>\n

I trudge on, legs feel heavy, five minutes \u2013 just one inch.
\nHow can I reach my haven in boots that cramp and pinch?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s work? Just work I get. Jobs \u2013 plenty, good and bad.
\nGod, help me toil in blood-n-sweat through years that lay ahead.<\/p>\n

A payback for my blunders \u2013 that\u2019s also labor, but\u2026
\nCan I still smile, I wonder, when punched straight in the gut?
\nWhat\u2019s work? Just work I get\u2026<\/p>\n

There are eight lines in this short song; each one is six poetic feet long\u2014hexameter, consisting naturally (remember, it\u2019s a waltz) of two iambic trimeters. Every two consecutive lines (1-2, 3-4 and so on) are rhymed at the end and in the middle of lines. All the rhymes are perfect (exact). It\u2019s a straightforward pattern for a translator.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin with the title of that song: \u041f\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d\u043a\u0430<\/em> \u0441\u0442\u0430\u0440\u043e\u0433\u043e<\/em> \u0448\u0430\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043d\u0449\u0438\u043a\u0430<\/em>. <\/em>Why did Okudzhava call it \u201c\u043f\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d\u043a\u0430\u201d rather than \u201c\u043f\u0435\u0441\u043d\u044f?\u201d Actually, he used both titles many times. Possibly through this choice Okudzhava was trying to underline the idea that \u00ab\u043f\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d\u043a\u0430\u00bb (\u201cditty\u201d in English or chansonette <\/em>in the French manner) brings an element of intimacy between a performer and listeners. Also, it is possible that while he often repeated that his songs were foremost poems and he was basically performing guitar poetry, he underestimated his exceptional musical gift and incredible merits and the value of his songs\u2019 melodical aspect, meaning for him his songs really were just ditties. It is interesting that in Vladimir Nabokov\u2019s novel Ada<\/em> the author refers to Okudzhava\u2019s \u201cSentimental March\u201d as a \u201c\u2026soldier dit[ty] of singular genius\u2026\u201d Based on all that, we will render the English title of this work as: \u201cThe Organ-Grinder Ditty.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

We have to repeat that this poem is very unusual: the whole poem, including its title, is written as a witty satire in the best traditions of Aesop. (Okudzhava wrote two more poem-songs of this type.)<\/p>\n

Before singing this song for Western audiences, Vladimir Frumkin used to tell them that the old organ-grinder in this song by Bulat Okudzhava is not really an organ-grinder. Soviet listeners understood this perfectly well: the author was hinting at what the creative intelligentsia\u2014poets, writers, composers, and artists\u2014had to endure working under the pressures of total censorship. As Fyodor Raskolnikov wrote in an open letter to Stalin in 1938: \u201cYou have forced art into a straitjacket in which it suffocates, withers and dies.\u201d By using an organ-grinder as camouflage, Okudzhava was trying to disguise the true meaning of the song from the censors, the literary gendarmes, Soviet cultural authorities, and, of course, the communist media. There is a curious story about this song connected with Professor Charles Gribble of Ohio State University, who in 1966 founded Slavica Publishers. In 1976, Frumkin suggested that he publish an encyclopedia of Russian bards and sang him several songs. After hearing \u201cThe Organ-Grinder Ditty,\u201d <\/em>Professor Gribble, who at the time was making frequent trips to the Soviet Union, replied: \u201cNo way. I cannot publish anti-Soviet poems. The Russians will never let me in again.\u201d Obviously, Professor Gribble saw through the Aesopian language, and of course Okudzhava\u2019s audience in the Soviet Union (both his fans and the authorities) were even less likely to miss the song\u2019s true meaning.<\/p>\n

The song was composed circa 1960\u201362, performed at home concerts and, like the rest of his songs, widely distributed by way of \u201cmagnitizdat\u201d tape recordings. It was not officially published until 1983.<\/p>\n

What pushed Bulat Okudzhava over the edge and made him compose a song in which a lilting melody and the quaint image of a street-grinder are paired with a series of much darker images: the singer is too hobbled by painful shoes to walk more than an inch in five minutes, has to pay for his blunders, and is punched in the gut: \u0448\u0430\u0433\u0430\u044e \u0435\u043b\u0435-\u0435\u043b\u0435, \u0431\u043e\u0442\u0438\u043d\u043a\u0438 \u0436\u043c\u0443\u0442; \u0440\u0430\u0441\u043f\u043b\u0430\u0442\u0430 \u0437\u0430 \u043e\u0448\u0438\u0431\u043a\u0438, \u043f\u043e\u0434 \u0440\u0435\u0431\u0440\u0430 \u0431\u044c\u044e\u0442.<\/p>\n

We have to recall what the situation was at the time this song was written.<\/p>\n

It was composed around the same time as the 22nd Communist Party Congress. The brightest prospects for the country within the next twenty years were heralded from the podium, along with confident assurances that it would attain communism, that all socioeconomic differences between the city and the countryside and between toilers of the body and the mind would disappear, and so on and so forth. In short, universal rejoicing was in order.<\/p>\n

What about Bulat at that time? According to Professor Anatoly Kulagin, Okudzhava\u2019s name always sounded suspicious to the Soviet regime. They sensed covert, if not overt, opposition, an unwillingness to \u201cplay along\u201d by performing ritual displays of loyalty and producing art with the required slant in exchange for the ability to publish, to be granted a government apartment, summer dacha, or sanatorium stay, etc. In spite of the fact that at that time Okudzhava was the head of the poetry division at the most prominent national literary weekly in the former Soviet Union, Literaturnaya Gazeta<\/em>, authorization for release of his first recording was blocked, Kiev TV cut all of Okudzhava\u2019s poetry from a TV program based on the contents of Literaturnaya Gazeta<\/em>, and, in a May 1961 speech, the secretary of the Komsomol\u2019s Central Committee characterized Okudzhava\u2019s songs as fit only for a boudoir, a remark intended as a huge insult for a Soviet poet.<\/p>\n

Here is Okudzhava\u2019s reaction in his own words: \u201cI started to sing my poems, not imagining what a scandal was to break out in a short time. Guitarists accused me of lack of talent\u2026composers of lack of professionalism\u2026 singers of having no voice at all, and all of them together of impudence and banality\u2026The officials accused me of pessimism, anti-patriotism, pacifism, and the press backed them up\u201d (from the book \u041e\u041a\u0423\u0414\u0416\u0410\u0412\u0410 65 \u043f\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d<\/em>, by Vladimir Frumkin, English translation by Eve Shapiro). Already a member of the Union of Writers, after working at Literaturnaya Gazeta <\/em>for less than four years, in early 1962 Okudzhava left the newspaper. Obviously Bulat was sick and tired of all the government\u2019s \u201csweet promises\u201d\u2014actually endless lies, and the belittling criticism of so-called cultural workers and \u201cbrother-writers\u201d organized \u201cfrom the bureaucratic top.\u201d Fed up, he composed and began performing \u201cThe Organ-Grinder Ditty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Translating \u201cThe Organ-Grinder Ditty\u201d: A Couplet-by-Couplet Annotation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My goal in translating this poem-song was to accurately reflect the underlying Aesopian meaning while maintaining the formal metrical structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
    \n
  • \u0428\u0430\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043d\u043a\u0430-\u0448\u0430\u0440\u043b\u0430\u0442\u0430\u043d\u043a\u0430, \u043a\u0430\u043a \u0441\u043b\u0430\u0434\u043a\u043e \u0442\u044b \u043f\u043e\u0435\u0448\u044c!
    \n\u0428\u0430\u0440\u043c\u0430\u043d\u043a\u0430-\u0448\u0430\u0440\u043b\u0430\u0442\u0430\u043d\u043a\u0430, \u043a\u0443\u0434\u0430 \u043c\u0435\u043d\u044f \u0437\u043e\u0432\u0435\u0448\u044c?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n
\n