Theory of translation (english and russian)

Thus, this model of translation emphasizes identification of the situation as the principal phase of the translation process.

This theory of translation is helpful in translating neologisms and realia: to give a proper equivalent to the phrase Red Guards, which is an English calque from Chinese, we should know what notion is implied by the phrase. On finding out that this phrase means `members of a Chinese Communist youth movement in the late 1960's, committed to the militant support of Mao Zedong, we come to the Russian equivalent of this historic term - хунвэйбины.

As a matter of fact, this model of translation is used for attaining the equivalent on the situation level. It is the situation that determines the translation equivalent among the variables: instant coffee is equivalent to растворимый кофе but not *мгновенный кофе.

The situation helps to determine whether a translation is acceptable or not. For example, we have to translate the sentence Somebody was baited by the rights. Without knowing the situation, we might translate the sentence as Кто-то подвергался травле со стороны правых as the dictionary's translation equivalent for to bait is травить, подвергать травле. But in case we know that by the smb President Roosevelt is meant, our translation will be inappropriate and we had better use the equivalent Президент Рузвельт подвергался резким нападкам со стороны правых.

A weak point of this model is that it does not explain the translation mechanismitself. One situation can be designated by various linguistic means. Why choose this or that variable over various others? The model gives no answer to this question.

Another flaw in this theory is that it does not describe the systemic character of the linguistic units. Why do the elements of the idiom to lead somebody by the nose not correspond to the Russian обвести за нос? Why does this idiom correspond to the Russian держать верх над кем-то? This model does not describe the relations between the language units in a phrase or sentence and thus gives no explanation of the relations between the source and target language units. This model gives reference only to the extralinguistic situation designated by the sentence.

§ 3. TRANSFORMATIONAL MODEL OF TRANSLATION

When translating, a person transforms the source text into a new form. Transformation is converting one form into another one.

There are two transformation concepts in the theory of translation.

In one of them, transformation is understood as an interlinguistic process, i.e., converting the source text into the structures of the target text, which is translation proper. Special rules can be described for transforming source language structures as basic units into target language structures corresponding to the basic units. For example, to translate the “adverbial verb” one must introduce an adverb, denoting the way the action is performed, into the target language structure: She stared at me. - Она пристально смотрела на меня.

In the second concept, transformation is not understood as broadly as replacing the source language structures by the target language structures. Transformation here is part of a translation process, which has three phases⁵⁵⁶ Н а й д а Ю. Наука перевода. - Вопросы языкознания. - 1970.- № 4; Р о з е н ц в е й г В. Ю. Перевод и трансформация. // Трансформационный метод в структурной лингвистике. - М., 1964;

Ш в е й ц е р Ф. Д. Перевод и лингвистика. - М.: Воениздат, 1973.⁶:

Analysis: the source language structures are transformed into basic units of the source language. For example, the sentence I saw him enter the room. is transformed into I saw him. He entered the room.

Translation proper: the basic units of the source language are translated into the basic units of the target language: Я видела его. Он вошел в комнату.

Synthesis: the basic units of the target language are transformed into the terminal structures of the target language: Я видел, что он вошел в комнату.

As is seen, this concept develops the ideas of generative grammar introduced by N. Chomsky.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of this model? It is employed in contrastive analysis of two language forms that are considered to be translation equivalents, as it verbalizes what has been transformed in them and how. This model provides us with transformation techniques. It explains how we translate equivalent-lacking structures into another language. This model is important for teaching translation bacause it recommends that one transform a complex structure into a simple one.

However, a disadvantage of this model consists in inability to explain the choice of the transformation made, especially at the third synthesis phase. It does not explain the facts of translation equivalence on the situational level. It also ignores sociocultural and extralinguistic aspects of translation.

§ 4. SEMANTIC MODEL OF TRANSLATION

This model places special emphasis on semantic structures of the source and target texts. According to it, translation is conveying the meaning of the source text by the target text. The two texts can be called equivalent in meaning if their semantic components are close or identical. In order to translate, one must single out the meaningful elements of the original and then choose the target language units that most closely express the same content elements. (This model is sometimes called Content-Text Model.⁵⁵⁷ Ж о л к о в с к и й А., М е л ь ч у к М. К построению действующей модeли языка «смысл - текст». // Машинный перевод и прикладная лингвистика. - Вып. 11. - М., 1969.⁷) For this procedure, a componential (or seme) analysis is widely employed.

Like in the transformation model, the process of translation is subdivided into some phases:

Analysis: the semantics of the source language units are represented by deep semantic categories.

Translation: the relevant semantic categories of the source language are made equal to the deep semantic categories of the target language.

Synthesis: the semantic categories of target languge are verbalized.

This model gives a good explanation of the translation equivalence and of the reasons for translation failures when irrelevant (or not all relevant) semes have been taken into consideration. It explains the mechanism of selecting one variable among synonyms: that synonym is chosen which has the greatest number of relevant semes similar to the source language word.

But the insufficiency of this model is that the process of singling out semes is a very difficult one. It does not explain the cases of situational equivalence - why instant coffee is equal to растворимый кофе, with their semes not coinciding? It also ignores connotations of the word and the function of the text.

§ 5. PSYCHOLINGUISTIC MODEL OF TRANSLATION

Translation is a kind of speech event. And it develops according to the psychological rules of speech event.⁵⁵⁸ Л е о н т ь е в А. Психолингвистические единицы и порождение речевого высказывания. - М., 1969.⁸

The scheme of the speech event consists of the following phases:

The speech event is motivated.

An inner code program for the would-be message is developed.

The inner code is verbalized into an utterance.

Translation is developed according to these phases: a translator comprehends the message (motif), transforms the idea of the message into his/her own inner speech program, then outlays this inner code into the target text.

The point of this theory is that it considers translation among speaking, listening, reading and writing as a speech event. But there is evidence to suggest that translators and interpreters listen and read, speak and write in a different way from other language users, basically because they operate under a different set of constraints.⁵⁵⁹ R o u t l e d g e E n c y c l o p e d i a … - P.186.⁹ While a monolingual receiver is sender-oriented, paying attention to the speaker's/writer's message in order to respond to it, the translator is essentially receiver-oriented, paying attention to the sender's message in order to re-transmit it to the receiver of the target-text, supressing, at the same time, personal reactions to the message.

There are two essential stages specific to the process of translating and interpreting: analysis and synthesis⁶⁶⁰ Р е в з и н И. И., Р о з е н ц в е й г В. Ю. Основы общего и машинного перевода. - М.: Высшая школа, 1964. - С.82.

NOTES TO PART 2

^{0 - and a third stage, revision, available only to the translator working with the written text. During the analysis stage, the translator reads/listens to the source text, drawing on background knowledge, to comprehend features contained in the text. During synthesis, the target text is produced. Then the draft written translation is revised /edited.}

However, the explanational force of this model is very restricted, inner speech being the globally disputable problem in both psychology and linguistics.

PART II. HISTORY OF TRANSLATION

Chapter 1. WESTERN TRADITIONS OF TRANSLATION

§ 1. TRANSLATION DURING ANTIQUITY

The first translation is traced to ancient Egypt (about 3000 B.C.) But European tradition is supposed to have started in ancient Rome.61 I.Tronsky claims that ancient Greek literature had nothing to do with translating fiction.62 Of course, this statement concerns only literary translation, since ancient Greeks had well-developed trade and cultural relations with other countries and, therefore, needed translators and interpreters.

The beginning of Roman literature is related to Livius Andronicus' translating Odyssey from Greek into Latin. Livius was a Greek prisoner who had been captured by Romans and who did much for their culture. The father of Latin literature, Quintus Ennius, most famous for his Annales, also translated from Greek for the Latin theater.

The ancient world came to formulate the first conceptions of translation, developed as a result of the accumulation of translation experience. The primary challenge for the ancient translators and philosophers was the relationship between the source text and the target text. Two opposing schools appeared:

1) the rhetoric school of translation (Cicero, important for his translations of Greek philosophy into Latin, and Horace, who introduced the theme of translator as rival to the author) admitted a comparatively free translation of the source text and required strictly observing the rules of the target language;

2) the grammar school (beginning with the Bible translation from the second century) required word-for-word translation of Greek works into Latin.

Thus the Romans established the distinction between sense for sense and word for word translation.

As long as the Roman Empire existed, translation remained imperially important, with Emperor Augustus (63 BC - AD 14) setting up a translation office to assist in administering the Empire.

§ 2. TRANSLATION IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The Middle Ages was the period when the Christian religion became firmly established. Naturally, the main object of translation was the Bible. At first, it was translated from Hebrew and Greek to Latin mostly. Latin had status as the target language, since it was the international language in science and church.

In the Middle Ages, the Holy Writ was believed to be a sacred book “where even the word order holds a mystery”,63 not to be touched or changed. Therefore, transforming the form and content was considered to be a serious heresy, which resulted in the predominance of the literal translation of the Bible.

The greatest event in the early Middle Ages was the Bible as translated by St. Jerome (342-419/20). His Bible, known as the Vulgate, or standard Latin Bible, had great influence on succeeding generations of translators. During the Renaissance, he was regarded as the archetype of the humanist scholar, devoted to the beauty of correct form and language. Despite the fact that he had been neither a miracle worker nor a martyr to his faith, he was regarded as one of the Christian saints until the 17th century, and recently the International Federation of Translators (FIT) has proclaimed Jerome's feast day (September 30) International Translators Day.64

Two years later, in the 4th century A.D., the Bible was translated into Gothic, a Teutonic language by Bishop Wulfila (Ulfilas).

Of great significance in the history of translation was a translation school established in the 9th century by the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great. He inspired translators, who were mostly monks, to translate five Latin works into Old English. That was the first attempt at translating, as Alfred put it, “books that all men should know into the language that we can all understand,”65 or the vernacular, mother tongue. The choice of source texts testifies to the wisdom of the king who would educate his people: books in history, geography, philosophy, theology, and ethics. The translation was mostly literal. One of the translators of those days was Aelfric (9-10th c.), who made the first Latin to English glossary, an appendix to Latin Grammar; he claimed that translated words should preserve special features of the source language.

While the scientific text translation in those times was overly faithful to the source text, translations of fiction were, on the other hand, reworkings, conscious borrowings, and free adaptations of the ancient texts to the tastes and requirements of the translator's community. To create a new work, a translator could combine several texts, extract and shift episodes, extend description of some abstracts, omit outdated phenomena and attitudes and so on. Therefore, these works might be called expositions rather than translations.

§ 3. RENAISSANCE TRANSLATION

In culture this period marks a greater role of translated secular literature. Special emphasis was placed on translating the classics (ancient Greek and Roman literature), which was the model for Renaissance ideas and culture. Thus the object of translation changed, though the Gospel translation from Greek into Latin was also carried out (Erasmus Desiderius, 15-16th c.). In the late Renaissance, close to the Enlightenment period, attempts were made to translate the Scriptures into national languages.

Still being the international means of communication among educated people, Latin was a primary target language until the 17-18th centuries. A new phenomenon at this time was that vernaculars, or mother tongues, served as source languages: F. Petrarch's sonnets and Gargantua and Pantagruel by F. Rabelais were translated into Latin. F. Petrarch translated into Latin one of the novels by G. Boccaccio. German entertainment literature was translated into Latin. In the 17th century, the English philosopher Francis Bacon translated his philosophical works from English into Latin in order to immortalize them.

Latin, a much-used language of great prestige, was incomprehensible for ordinary people, few people could read it, and, being beyond the commoners, translations were accessible only to the intellectual elite. From the 16th century, humanists began to promote translation into the vernacular for an expanding readership who did not have direct access to classical sources, the tendency widely maintained throughout the Enlightenment period.

The 10th century gave the world the first manuscript Latin- English glossary by Abbot Aelfric.66 The first bilingual glossary to find its way into print was a French-English vocabulary for the use of travelers, printed in England by William Caxton in 1480. The words and expressions appeared in parallel columns on twenty-six leaves. But far more substantial in character was an English-Latin vocabulary called the Promptorius puerorum ("Storehouse [of words] for Children") completed by Pynson in 1499. It is better known under its later title of Promptorium parvulorum sive clericorum ("Storehouse for Children or Clerics") commonly attributed to Geoffrey the Grammarian (Galfridus Grammaticus), a Dominican friar of Norfolk, who is thought to have composed it about 1440.67

In the Renaissance period, translators made an effort to summarize their rules and recommendations for a good translation. Such was the work by an Italian humanist, translator of Plato and Aristotle, Leonardo Bruni, De interpretatione recta (“The Right Way to Translate”). One of the first writers to formulate a theory of translation was the French humanist Etienne Dolet (1509-46), who was tried and executed for heresy after “mistranslating” one of Plato's dialogues. In 1540 Dolet published five translation principles, “How to Translate Well from One Language into Another”:

(1) The translator must fully understand the sense and meaning of the original author, although he is at liberty to clarify obscurities.

(2) The translator should have a perfect knowledge of both source language and target language.

(3) The translator should avoid word-for-word renderings.

(4) The translator should use forms of speech in common use.

(5) The translator should choose and order words appropriately to produce the correct tone.

It is evident that Dolet's principles stress the importance of understanding the source text as a primary requisite.68 Dolet is also known to have introduced the terms `traduction' (translation) and `traducteur' (translator), though the verb `traduire' (to translate) was coined a little earlier by Robert Esperre (1503-59) on the basis of the Italian `traducere'.

While Renaissance secular literature was translated primarily from the vernacular into Latin, the Bible translation was of another direction. The cardinal principle of that time, the ideology of the Reformation, was that each person should be granted access to the text of the Bible in his or her own tongue, that is, in the vernacular. The result was the development of education and literacy. The first translation of the Bible into English was carried out in the 14th century by John Wycliffe (1330-84), the noted Oxford theologian, and his collaborators, but this work was attacked as heretical and condemned for many years to come.

One of the pivotal figures of Western civilization, as well as of Christianity, was Martin Luther, the leader of the 16th-century Reformation movement and of Protestantism. He devoted more than a quarter of a century to creating his version of the New Testament. The main principle of Luther's translation was to grasp thoroughly the message and to render it in a “living” German language. He even advised the future translators to use a vernacular proverb or expression if it fitted in with the New Testament - in other words, to add to the wealth of imagery in the source language text by drawing on the vernacular tradition, too.69

No less important for developing the national language was the English translation of the Bible known as the King James Bible: The Authorized Version. It was published in 1611 under the auspices of James I of England. Of the 54 scholars approved by James and supervised by William Tyndale (1494-1536), 47 labored in six groups at three locations for seven years, utilizing previous English translations and texts in the original languages. Tyndale intended to offer as clear a version as possible to laymen, and by the time he was burned at the stake in 1536 he had translated the New Testament from the Greek, and parts of the Old Testament from the Hebrew. The translation had a marked influence on English style and was generally accepted as the standard English Bible for more than three centuries.70

The Renaissance period witnessed the beginning of translators' skepticism. Dante Aleghieri is believed to be the first to doubt the absolute possibility of the accurate translation of texts. His reasoning was that it is impossible to convey all the harmony of poetry through another language. His ideas were supported by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, who believed that no matter how artful a translator could be, he would never be as skillful as the original author.

Though the concept of “untranslatability” is not shared by the majority of today's translators, it was a progressive theory for the time. It implied a rejection of the naive idea of interlanguage identity and of identical ways to express the same thoughts in different languages.

§ 4. ENLIGHTENMENT TRANSLATION (17-18th c.)

The Enlightenment period brought new aesthetic principles to literature, the principles of classicism, which required the subordination of a work of art to particular canons - emphasis on form, simplicity, proportion, and restrained emotions - in order to meet the requirements of an “ideal” work of art. The basic goal of classical translation was to bring the target text as close as possible to the needs and ideals of culture in that period. To attain this ideal, it was justifiable to alter, correct, reduce, ornament, and make insertions into the text, often resulting in a rather loose translation.71

Thus, one of the fathers of English classicism, John Dryden (1631-1700), severely criticized the followers of literal translation, comparing the latter with rope-walkers in chains. He claimed that it is the content that should be considered sacred and inviolable, but not the form, since words and lines cannot be constrained by the source text meter.

Dryden formulated three basic types of translations:

(1) metaphase, or translating an author word by word, and line by line, from one language into another;

(2) paraphrase, or translation with latitude, the Ciceronian `sense-for-sense' view of translation;

(3) imitation, where the translator can abandon the text of the original as he sees fit.

Of these types, Dryden chose the second as the more balanced path: “I have endeavoured to make Virgil speak such English as he would himself have spoken, if he had been born in England, and in this present age.”72

Another English classicist, Alexander Pope (1688-1744), who translated Homer into English, was blamed for embellishing the classical Greek epic literature to fit the tastes of aristocratic salons of the time. A. Pope rhymed the source text lines that were lacking rhyme, changed the rhythm, transformed a Greek long hexameter into a short English meter. The changes were so enormous that some critics said, `Pope's poem is superb but what does it have to do with Homer?'

Thus, the basic feature of classical translation was in favor of the sense or meaning, close to free translation. Translated works were adaptations - as the British scholar of translation Myriam Salama Carr put it, they “were the distorted looking-glass through which many viewed the classics in the age of Enlightenment.”73 Nevertheless, in those days adaptation was seen as a means of adjusting the foreign work to suit contemporary tastes.

Intensive development of translation could be observed in the 17-18th century in Germany, which gave the world one of the best translation schools. One of the premier translators of the time was Johann Heinrich Voss. In particular, his translations of the Odyssey (1781) and the Iliad (1793) achieved permanent importance. The Russian man of letters N. Karamzin, comparing Voss's translations with others, said that neither the British nor the French enriched their literature with such perfect translations from Greek as the Germans who could read real Homer. In 1775-1782 the first translation of Shakespeare's complete works was undertaken by Johann Joahim Eshenburg, owing to whom started a process of Shakespeare's “acquiring the status of a national German poet”.74 In the 17-18th century continental Europe, France played a leading role in politics, the sciences and the arts. French cultural predominance was reflected in the large number of translations from French. German translators frequently used intermediate French translations as source texts, even if a copy in the original language was available.75

During the 17-18th centuries, translation increased the cultural autonomy of the American colonies from England. It is interesting that the first English-language book printed in North America was a translation, The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre (1640), commonly known as The Bay Psalm Book. It was translated from Hebrew by a group of Puritan ministers in a very literal fashion.76

The 18th century gave the British nation A Dictionary of the English Language, a prescriptive work by Samuel Johnson. The first dictionary compiled in America was A School Dictionary by Samuel Johnson, Jr. (not a pen name), printed in Connecticut in 1798.77

§ 5. TRANSLATION IN THE 19TH CENTURY

The 19th century was the period of Romanticism, an attitude or intellectual orientation that was typical of many works of art and that can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism. With this rejection of rationalism came a stress on the individual poet's world vision. With the affirmation of individualism came the notion of the freedom of the creative force.78 Romanticism was characterized by an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; as well as a predilection for the exotic, the remote and the mysterious.79 The basic feature of romantic translation was preserving the national coloring and style of the source text.

That was not an easy job, but, as August Wilhelm Schlegel, a German critic, translator and historian of literature, put it, the aim of translation was very noble: “to combine the merits of all different nations, to think with them and feel with them, and so to create a cosmopolitan center for mankind.”80 Schlegel is believed to be one of the most eminent Shakespeare translators into German.

The great German poets of the time were interested in questions of translation. Thus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) left us his ideas of the relation between national culture and translation:

“There are three kinds of translation. The first acquaints us with foreign countries on our own terms.” It surprises us “with foreign excellence in the midst of our national homeliness, our everyday existence.” “A second epoch follows in which the translator really only tries to appropriate foreign content and reproduce it in his own sense, even though he tries to transport himself into foreign situations.” (“Just as the French adapt foreign words to their own pronunciation, so do they treat feelings, thoughts, and even objects. For every foreign fruit they demand a counterfeit in their own soil.”) “We have lived through the third epoch, which could be called the highest and final one in which the aim is to make the original identical with the translation, so that one should be valued not instead of the other, but in the other's stead.”81

The first tendency, mentioned by Goethe, is known today as the foreignizing strategy of translation. It often means a close adherence to the foreign text, a literalism that results in the importation of foreign culture and language, and, because of deviating from native literary canons, this translation seems obscure and unreadable to the contemporaries.

The second tendency is now called the domesticating strategy. It can be exemplified by Latin translators, who not only deleted culturally specific markers but also replaced the name of the Greek poet with their own, passing the translation off as a text originally written in Latin.82 Translators of later periods modernized texts in domesticating them.

The similar idea of the naturalizing and alienated methods of translation was also advocated by Friedrich Schleiermacher who had a great effect on further translators.

In the 19th century two conflicting tendencies can be distinguished. The first considers the translator as a creative genius in his own right, enriching the literature and language into which he is translating. The second describes translation in terms of the more mechanical function of making known a text or author.83

Toward the end of the 19th century translations began to be pragmatically valued. It was required that the translation have the same effect on the receptor as the source text had in its time and on its nation. Ulrich von Willamowitz-Moellendorff, a German philologist and translator, expressed the idea most vividly:

“It is important to spurn the letter and follow the spirit, to translate not words or sentences, but to take in thoughts and feelings and to express them. The dress must become new; what is in it must be kept. All good translation is travesty. To put it in more cutting terms: the soul remains but it changes bodies - true translation is metempsychosis.”84

The British translation tradition, however, based on the idea of adhering to the style of the original, attempted to keep all specific features of the source text (the foreignizing trend). The more peculiar the source text was, the more necessary it was to preserve this peculiarity. This resulted in the tendency towards literal, overfaithful translation. Thus, Robert Browning, a famous English poet, required the translation to be absolutely literal, with the exact translation of words and their order.85

The same attitude was expressed by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-81), who tried to make Dante's poem “as literal as a prose translation”, for “the business of a translator is to report what the author says, not to explain what he means; that is the work of a commentator. What the author says and how he says it, that is the problem of the translator.”86

Percy Bisshe Shelley developed the idea of the untranslatability of poetry, and the vanity of translation:

“it were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principles of its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed or it will bear no flower - and this is the burthen and the curse of Babel.” 87

§ 6. TRANSLATION IN THE 20TH CENTURY

The 20th century is called the age of translation, since it has touched all spheres of life - social, economic and cultural.

In the 19th century translation was mostly concerned with fiction, a unilateral means of communication among educated people. In the 20th century, foreign classics continue to be translated in popular series, like English Penguin Classics (1946 - ) and others.

The 19th century's trade, on the other hand, was carried on in the language of dominating nations, and diplomatic practice was carried on at first in Latin, then in French. The 20th century has seen the translation into all, even minor, languages. In the early 1990s, the United Nations membership was at more than 175 countries, which required simultaneous translation into their respective languages.

Multinational companies have appeared all around the world, increasing the need for translation. Special translation agencies have appeared to translate contracts, instruction manuals, and technical information. This created a translation industry.

The scientific and technological revolution has emphasized the role of translation for promoting discoveries and new technologies.

In the twentieth century, English has come to occupy the place of Latin as an international language worldwide. English is used in trade, business, science, and the mass media. Therefore, the number of translations into English far outweigh those into any other language.

Due to translation, some authors are better known abroad than in their own countries. For example, T. Dreiser is much better known in Russia than at home, in the U.S. On the other hand, a foreign audience is often more familiar with the translated works of Russian dissidents than are some Russian people.

The twentieth century has witnessed an upsurge of interest in translation studies. International and national professional associations have been founded; translation periodicals (British Translation and Literature, The Translator; American Translation Review; French Traduire, Palimpseste; German Lebende Sprachen, Mitteilungsblatt fur Dolmetscher und Ubersetzer, Der Ubersetzer, Translation Theorie) have been published.

Chapter 2. HISTORY OF RUSSIAN TRANSLATION

§ 1. OLD RUSSIAN CULTURE AND TRANSLATION

Translation in Russia is traced back to the period of adoption of Christianity in Kievan Rus (988 A.D.), known as the period of the early written documents. Of course, translation was known much earlier: the Greek and the Slavs had to trade and could not do so without interpreting.

Cyril and Methodius, the outstanding scholars, theologians and linguists who were called “the apostles of the Slavs” for their cultural and religious development of the Slavic people, translated the Holy Scriptures into the language later known as Old Church Slavonic (or Old Bulgarian) and invented a Slavic alphabet based on Greek characters. Early Christian translations were philosophical and ethical doctrines of the new religion. These included Lives of Saints, Homilies, Chronicles and the like.

What was typical of Old Russian translations? These were translations, mostly from Greek, according to meaning, which avoided word for word precision. As a matter of fact, they were adapted borrowed works with no name of the translator mentioned. Secular literature was translated rather freely: translators could change a source text to their liking, or simulate someone else's stories by taking either a plot, an idea, or some poetic image from them to create their own works. As previously discussed, the same trend was characteristic of secular translations in Medieval Western Europe.

The late 13th and early 14th centuries - the Tatar period - was far from being favorable to Kievan culture, and to translation in particular. Despite the Mongol invasion and the Tatar yoke, there was no major influence on Russian culture. There is also no evidence that any single Turkic or Islamic text of religious, philosophical, literary or scholarly content was translated directly into Slavonic or any East Slavic vernacular during this period.88 Greek translations were not in circulation in Rus (Old Russia) in that time.

The second half of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th centuries is characterized as the Second South Slavic Influence on Moscow Rus culture89 (the first southern Slavic wave is related to Cyril and Methodius). A great number of new translations into Old Church Slavonic, carried out in Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek, and Jerusalem monasteries, were brought to Rus. The new Southern Slavic influence on culture resulted in the literal translation of clerical literature. The requirement to translate word for word gained force until the 17th century.90

Translations were no longer anonymous. One of the most eminent figures of the 16th century was Maxim the Greek who came from Greece to Russia to edit clerical books. (Since Maxim the Greek could not write Old Church Slavonic, the written form of the Russian language of the time, he translated from Greek into Latin and his assistants translated the Latin text into Old Slavonic.) Maxim the Greek is believed to have established “the grammar school of translation”91 in Russia, since he paid particular attention to translating grammar structures.

The second half of the 15th century saw a marked turn toward translated secular literature, especially tales of chivalry. These translations grew extensively, especially in the 17th century, as a result of increased cultural contacts with Europe. Works were translated not from Greek only, but also from Latin (as a scientific international language), Polish, and German. The interpreters who served for the Posolsky prikaz (foreign office) were called tolmach. Most of them were half-educated; some of them did not even know literary Russian (Old Church Slavonic), there being a wide gulf between oral and literary Russian. Some of them could hardly speak “living” Russian. Thus their interpretation was of such poor quality that since then the term `tolmach' has carried a strong negative connotation.

Clerics, on the other hand, were much better qualified as translators. Beside translating theological literature, they were ordered to translate various educational and encyclopedic literature.

The 17th century is considered the period of “the synthetic theory of translation”. Translation concepts of the time seemed to synthesize extreme principles: translation by meaning and word-for-word, free and literal translation, a preponderance of grammar and aesthetic aspects.92

§2. TRANSLATION IN THE 18TH CENTURY

This period in Russian translation is called the experimental period,93 since during this time skills were refined. Throughout the 18th century Russian writers imitated, adapted, and experimented with a wide variety of European genres, and translators encountered new problems for the first time.

The 18th century was the period of Peter the Great's reign and of Petrine reforms. His radical and rapid Westernization of Russia altered all high culture and promoted translation. Himself an erudite, Peter was the first ruler to sponsor education and to actively promote translation of books from western European languages. It was in 1710 that the Old Church Slavonic alphabet was modernized into a secular script. According to the Russian historian Soloviov,94 Peter the Great not only chose what books were to be translated; he also edited translations and instructed translators on how to translate. His main idea was that a translator should learn a craft or science, whereas a scientist or craftsman should master a foreign language to be able to translate well. Peter I focused mainly on technical subjects: engineering, astronomy, geophysics, and jurisprudence, civil and military. He never included theological literature in the list of books to be translated.

With Russia adopting Western technology and culture, the major challenge for the translators of the time was rendering terms. Historians tell us the tragic story of a Volkov who, in despair at being unable to translate French technical terms, cut his veins, committing suicide.95

There existed at this time several trends for rendering terms: 1) borrowing a foreign term form (which led to term obscurity); 2) translating or substituting by Russian words - which often coined clumsy and cumbersome terms and expressions, such as Trediakov's equivalents: безместие for French absurdite, жар иступления for enthousiasme, сила капелек for essence; 3) combining a loan form and explication (this third way was used by A. Kantemir and M. Lomonosov.)

Beginning in the 1760s, the technical translation boom gave turn to a fiction translation surge. It was at this time that Russia came to know foreign literature. The demand for western European artistic and cultural works grew increasingly in the salons of St. Petersburg. By the 1780s the major classics of European literature had become easily available in translation to any educated person.

Rapid growth of fiction translation marked the reign of Catherine II the Great. That period was called “the golden age of translation”, since it brought the major European masterpieces to Russia. Much classical and western European literature was translated, read, and assimilated, thus producing a kind of telescopic effect, as works and movements that were centuries apart were absorbed at the same time.96

Catherine's reign saw real accomplishment in translation. In 1768, the empress decreed to grant annually five thousand rubles to translators of foreign books. To control the fund, she established the Society for the Translation of Foreign Books (Sobranije perevodиikov) headed by Counts V.Orlov and A. Shuvalov and Collegiate Councillor G. Kozitsky. The Translator's Council functioned until 1783. It employed over 110 translators; among them were Trediakovsky, Sumarokov and Radishchev. More than 173 volumes were translated and published, among them works by Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, Jonathan Swift, Pierre Corneille, Carlo Goldoni, Homer and others.97 Sometimes literary works were not translated from the source text but from other translations; for example, novels by H. Fielding were translated first from English into French, then from French into German, and only then from German into Russian.

The last decade of the 18th century saw the establishment of the Translation Department with the Academy of Sciences, the initiative of its foundation belonging to Princess (Knyaginya) Y. Dashkova. Such undertakings testify to the government's attention to translation policy.

The century's major contribution was the development of a literary language. Under the pressure of new subject matter and the influx of foreign expressions, Church Slavonic proved inadequate, and the resulting linguistic chaos required the standardization of literary Russian by combining Russian and Church Slavonic. Translation difficulties of the period were caused by the contradiction between message and style. Old Russian literature was famous for its theological, clerical, rhetorical, chronicle, and folk poetry genres. But literature for pleasure reading was unknown to the Russian reader. Hence, the conflict between word and content.

The theoretical views and practice of Russian translators of that day were influenced by the dominant aesthetics of classicism.

One of the most prominent figures of 18th century literature and translation was Vasily Trediakovsky, a Russian literary theoretician and poet whose writings contributed to the classical foundations of Russian literature. Trediakovsky was a prolific translator of classical authors, medieval philosophers, and French literature. His translations frequently aroused the ire of the censors, and he fell into disfavour with his Academy superiors and conservative court circles.

Trediakovsky's classicist attitude toward translation - to reflect an ideal rather than the source text - was confirmed by his assertion that a translator differs from an author only by name. As a classicist Trediakovsky adapted his translation to the rigorous norms of contemporary aesthetics. Thus he updated translated works, leaving out their historic coloring. His last major work was a translation of Fйnelon's Les aventures de Tйlйmaque (1766; Tilemakhida), which he rendered in Russian hexameters.

Another Russian poet and translator, Alexandr Sumarokov, viewed translation in a contradictory way. On the one hand, he attacked translators who, in his opinion, interfered with the development of national literature. On the other hand, as any Russian writer of the 18th century, he made an attempt at translating. Translating Racine, Sumarokov manifested a very delicate approach to the foreign text. Influenced by French drama, he transplanted the conventions of French theater to dramas dealing with Russian history. This earned him the flattering epithet "Racine of the North.”98

As the 18th century creator he often followed the classicist track and composed free translation, the example being his adaptation of Hamlet (1748). That work could hardly be regarded as translation (Sumarokov was even offended by Trediakovsky's words about his having translated Shakespeare's tragedy). As a classicist, Sumarokov did not tend to convey in Russian an individual style of a foreign literary work but he was apt to create a new work, close to the “ideal”.

The 18th century translators' ideal was to adapt a foreign text to the Russian reality and culture by substituting a foreign local coloring with the Russian one (for example, substituting foreign names with their Russian counterparts).

The second third of the century knew another literary trend which also had an influence on translation - sentimentalism. The dominant figure of Russian sentimentalism was Nikolay Karamzin, Russian historian, author of the very popular story Bednaya Liza (1792, Poor Liza). Karamzin's importance also lies in his contribution to the Russian literary language.

Karamzin was an advocate of foreign literature. He himself translated a lot and was a translation critic. It was he who familiarized the Russian reader with a number of European authors, especially sentimentalists. The main idea of sentimentalists in translation was the possibility of changing the source text according to the subjective comprehension and taste of the translator, rather than the community aesthetic ethos.

§ 3. RUSSIAN TRANSLATION IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

The 19th century began with the "Golden Age" of Russian poetry. For translation, it was a period of “creation”,99 famous for translated masterpieces.

The beginning of the century emphasized the difference between prose and poetry translation. Prince B. Golitsyn was the first to raise the question and to speak about the stylistic accuracy of prose and poetry translation (in the 18th century most poets, V. Trediakovsky for example, did very free translations of poetic forms, sometimes substituting them with prose).

One of the most prominant figures of 19th century Russian culture was Vasily Zhukovsky, celebrated for several translations or adaptations that are major poems in their own right, including versions of the English poet Thomas Gray's An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard (1802 and 1839), Homer's Odyssey (completed 1847), and Lord Byron's The Prisoner of Chillon (1822), fairy tales by Charles Perrault and the Grimm brothers.. His Svetlana (1813) was a reworking of the German poet Gottfried August Burger's Lenore. Pushkin referred to Zhukovsky as `the genius of translation'.

Zhukovsky's literary development is a transition from one aesthetic system to another, from classicism, through sentimentalism, to romanticism.100 V. Zhukovsky began as a classicist. The motif of his first creative period was expressed by his words: “The most pleasant translation is, of course, the best.” To achieve harmony (and ethos), the poet might sacrifice accuracy of translation. Zhukovsky saw a clear difference between translating poetry and prose: according to him, a prose translator is the author's slave, a poetry translator is the author's rival.101 A poetry translator only imitates the author and transforms the text into a creation of his own imagination. Hence, he considered it possible to use the following methods of translation: adapting the content to the Russian receptor, making him/her feel as if the characters were Russian and lived in Russia (Lyudmila); translating prose by verse (for better melody and harmony) (Undina); ignoring the meter and stanza of the source text (An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard by T. Gray was translated in hexameters); free rendering or retelling (Sud v podzemelye, “An underground trial”)102.

The next part of Zhukovsky's creative work is connected with sentimentalism. As a sentimentalist, he transformed the source text as far as he understood and felt it, according to his personal taste and experience. He emphasized his belief that poetry should be an expression of feeling. An author's ideas and themes were filtered through the translator's soul and reflected in a new way, making quite a new work of art. V. Belinsky, assessing Zhukovsky's translations, remarked that some parts of his translations seemed to have been copied directly from the poet's life; therefore, his translations were far from being perfect but they were excellent as his own literary works.103 In his translations, Zhukovsky revealed his mood, which was the defining characteristics of sentimentalism.

Later, as a Romantic poet, he paid more attention to reflecting the individual form and content of the source text in translation, emphasizing Romantic conceptions of landscape, and folk ballads. He retranslated some ballads and poems (Lenore by G. Burger, A Country Church Yard by T. Gray) because the former style did not suit him. It was also at that time that V. Zhukovsky translated Homer's Odyssey (1849).

Striving for translation accuracy was characteristic of another Russian poet and translator, N. Gneditch, the creator of the Russian Iliad. When translating, Gneditch aimed at “not identifying Homer's idea with a Russian one”, and especially at “not ornamenting the original”; that is, he stood for subordinating a translator to the author, for accomplishing the most accurate translation, close to the source text.

While Gneditch dealt with epic literature and drama, P. Vyazemsky extended these principles to lyrical poetry. But his translations proved to be too close to the source text. Trying to reproduce the individual peculiarities of the original, the translator followed not only the sense but also the syntax of the source text, thus making his translation literal.

Until now theorists in literature and translation have disputed A. Pushkin's role in translation theory and practice. Three opinions may be outlined.

1. Pushkin was both a great poet and a great translator. He used to be very critical about both adaptation (or free translation) and interlinear (or word for word) translation.104

...