Once More on Translations

Last week, The Day carried Yuri Andrukhovych’s article, “In the Language of the Original,” about Ukrainian translations of world literature. I write this not to object, because I fully agree with the author, but to share some of my own views and observations concerning a subject which I personally consider very important.

Without doubt, discrimination against Ukrainian literary translations is one of the manifestations of the multifaceted linguistic policy of the empire, aimed at belittling ethnic languages allegedly unfit or too “poor” to convey the wealth of subtleties and nuances of the world literary heritage, including Russian, of course. In that way such languages were categorized as superior and inferior. The latter were ascribed only one function: primitive communication among primitive people somewhere in the village. Many of us still remember numerous anecdotes ridiculing Ukrainian translations from Aleksandr Pushkin. And reading Ukrainian versions of Hemingway or Faulkner was always considered pure barbarism in refined circles.

Yet here is an interesting paradox. No one has ever heard Russian- speaking readers (I do not mean experts in the field of literary translation) or Ukrainian refined circles ridicule English, German or, say, Georgian translations of Russian classics, or Russian translations from any of the West European languages. Could it be because everything has always been fine there, in full conformity with the original? Of course not! The reason is very simple, really. It is just that domestic critics do not have the slightest idea about the literary particularities of any given foreign original text — or, on the other hand, about the quality of a foreign translation from Russian. As for Ukraine, here everyone feels sufficiently learned. What they lack, though, is a cultured approach, awareness of the fact that there are no bad or good, inferior or superior languages, for they may seem so only to people who do not know them or have a superficial command thereof. And I mean not only the attitude to the Ukrainian language. The same applies to the “lisping and funny” Polish, where “all the words are mutilated” or Belarusian, considered by the Russian-Ukrainian “refined” circles one endless anecdote.

Literary translation is an extremely complex matter, and it is true that we do not often come across really good works (regardless of the language from which or into which a translation is done). Among the reasons is that an ideal translation takes a translator with stylistic talent matching that of the author of the original text (in which case this translator would be likely to write his own works). Of course, it happens that noted authors do make translations of their favorite foreign books, but they always produce something different, marked by their own talent. Most latter-day translations are “saved” by the fact that the reader in most cases does not know the language of the original (Russian-Ukrainian translations being the only exception) and thus cannot compare the translation with the original.

There is, however, a circumstance that serves to justify somewhat Russians’ sarcastic attitude to Ukrainian translations of Russian classics. In a literary translation, unlike a technical one, the language is always one of the realities of life being described like a season or epoch. A gentleman from, say, Yorkshire using Russian or Ukrainian words will not sound true to life or natural. It is as though he put on a Ukrainian costume. However, this can be perceived only in one case: if you know the language of the original. And this is the case with our Russian brothers or us Ukrainians, all allegations to the contrary notwithstanding.

Thus to really enjoy a literary translation it is best not to know the language of the outstanding original — or to consider everything written in Russian just perfect, including simplified translations bereft of talent. Then not only Kant, but also Buddha and Socrates will start speaking as “correctly” as the language in which Lenin spoke.