рецензия на "По-русски с любовью. Беседы с переводчиками" в SLAVIC AND EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL
Узнала я о ней от автора статьи - Александра Бурака. В июне он приезжал в Москву из Америки, где живет с начала 2000-х. И случайно в редакции издательства «Р.Валент» услышал, что я собираюсь туда заехать. Захотел со мной встретиться и передать копию своей статьи, напечатанной прошлой осенью в SLAVIC AND EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL.
Так мы познакомились. Пообедали, сходили на выставку «Увидеть Париж и… жить». Вот что нашла о нем в сети: Александр Львович Бурак - выпускник переводческого факультета МГПИИЯ им. Мориса Тореза по специальности переводчик-референт по английскому и итальянскому языкам. С 1977 по 2000 год работал преподавателем, старшим преподавателем, доцентом и заведующим кафедрой лексикографии и теории перевода на факультете иностранных языков МГУ им. М.В.Ломоносова. С 2000 года преподает русский язык, русскую культуру и перевод в Университете Флориды (США) на отделении германистики и славистики. Кандидат социологических наук. Автор ряда научных и учебных публикаций. Практикующий устный и письменный переводчик. Член союза переводчиков России. Автор книги «Translating Culture: Перевод и межкультурная коммуникация. Этап 1: Уровень слова». По дороге из «Р.Валента», где мы договорились встретиться, он рассказал, что основная часть багажа с книгами, отправленная им два года назад в Америку, потерялась на таможне, а «По-русски» долетела-таки до Флориды. (Редкая птица, ну и так далее…) Для SEEJ’а он пишет несколько лет, ему заказывают рецензии на те или иные книги, а тут он сам предложил написать статью про мою «По-русски с любовью». Редактор его спросил: «Кто вам эта Калашникова?». «Никто, я ее не знаю». В SEEJ’е редакторы решают, на какой текст им интересна рецензия, там не принято, чтобы инициатива исходила от авторов, так отсекается источник лоббирования знакомых. Тогда Бурак сказал: «Давайте я напишу текст. Если он вам понравится - вы его напечатаете, если нет - то нет». Редактор согласился. В первоначальной версии было больше цитат, но из-за объема - стандартная максимальная длина рецензии на книгу в SEEJ 1000 слов - текст пришлось сократить. Но статья редактору понравилась, и он разрешил Александру Львовичу превысить стандартный объем. Вот сам текст:
Kalashnikova, Yelena. Po-russki s liubov’iu: Besedy s perevodchikami.
Moskva: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2008. Name Index. Photos. 608 pp.
Hardback. ISBN 978-5-86793-612-9.
Po-russki s liubov’iu is a unique collection of 87 interviews that Elena Kalashnikova (a literary translation sociologist) conducted in 2000-2006 with Russian literary translators working out of a wide range of languages into Russian. It is interesting to note that the majority of the professional translators have never been formally trained as translators: for most of them, translation is a labor of love, with means for everyday existence being obtained from other sources
The constraints of a journal review make it impossible to do justice to all of the numerous fascinating and unconventional opinions that were expressed in the interviews. The following is just an incomplete sample of the issues discussed: Do male and female translators translate differently? What are the advantages of using interlinear (word-for-word) translations of poetry to produce “poetic” translations? Why do young people seem to prefer more literalist, word-for-word translations that at times strain standard Russian usage? Which particular texts are virtually untranslatable? How can reading your prose translation out loud be helpful in improving it? Is the translator’s task more complicated than that of the author of the original text? Can you assess the quality of a translation without comparing it with the original?
The recurrent complaints of the translators were that they were outrageously underpaid and had to work to truly unrealistic deadlines. In the words of Kirill Medvedev, “[…] translators have the psychology of the ‘little person.’ Each work they translate becomes [Akakii Akakievich’s] overcoat for them” (338). For the general public translators continue to be invisible, although less so than in the USA, being somewhat “like cesspool cleaners - you don’t know they exist until you have a sewage-disposal problem” (Silakova, 444).
The cultural status of translation in the Soviet times as a well-institutionalized, state-supported profession that was generally equated with refined artistic activity or high art has long since dissipated - together with the once generally well-institutionalized stringent criteria for assessing the quality of translation. According to Ian Probshtein, “[…] the institute of translation editors has virtually ceased to exist […] and many translators have mutated from the proverbial ‘post horses of enlightenment’ into draft bullocks or mules in the employ of the book-producing business” (398). The majority of translations are submitted and accepted for publication as so-called translator-edited texts. The rate of output and the quality of most translations, as well as the translator-publisher relationship, reminded Mikhail Rudnitsky of a Soviet-era joke about an exemplary collective farm dairymaid who had been regularly “over-fulfilling” milk production quotas. One day, still unsatisfied by the milking woman’s productivity, her boss asks her pointedly, “Will you be able to produce 12,000 liters of milk [a month]?” “Yes, boss,” the cow-milker replies, “But the milk will be 100 percent water” (428). Russian publishers, however, seem to be satisfied with arrangements of this kind.
The interviews have reinforced my sense of the current fragmented state of the profession in Russia where a relatively small group of true professionals - a kind of lonely translator-knights - are tilting at the commercial publishing mills that relentlessly keep on churning out hackwork-quality translations. In this context, an interesting and useful aspect of the book is that some translators assess (positively or negatively) the quality of some canonical translations as well as translations by some of their colleagues.
Do the interviews reveal any prevalent methodological trends in or general approaches to translation? Few of the interviewees give the reader well-rounded descriptions of their translation methodologies, usually confining themselves to discussing separate aspects of their work. However, taken together, their comments reveal a predominantly intuitive approach to translation and the eternal vacillation of the translation pendulum between so-called “free” (vol’ny) and “literalist” (bukvalistsky) translation. Despite the generally intuitive cast of mind, most of the translators implicitly adhere to what may be called the presumption of explicability. Some explicit comments on this score come from Elena Kostiukovich: “Talking about the translation profession, we should proceed from the assumption that you’re able to explain everything you do [in the translated text]. In some parts of the text, you may think it important to depart from the original - then depart and demonstrate your brilliance. In other parts of the text, be literally accurate. In still others, imitate the exact sound of the original” (279). When asked specifically if he was a proponent of “exact” or “free” translation, Aleksandr Livergant (a longtime professor of translation studies at a major Moscow university) had this to say on the subject: “A mathematician would call such a question fallacious. […] Everything depends on the translator’s perceptiveness and the language of the original, which in some cases lends itself to a close, literal translation and in others resists literalism. One often hears of literalist translators, but such translators simply don’t know how to translate. They are either incompetent or in too much of a hurry. […] I am confident that a good translator is sometimes a literalist and at other times, on the contrary, departs from the letter of the text. When to do the former or the latter is a question of the translator’s choice, taste, and aesthetics” (297-298).
Does translation theory exist? For the minority that answered this question definitively, it does not: “It is an artificial construct of some […] idlers” (Volokhonsky, 133). “It is something fictional” (Mikushevich, 349). About half of the interviewees were never asked this question. No reason for this omission is given anywhere in the book. Could the relevant parts have been edited out in the final version of the book at the request of the interviewees or for some other reasons? Be that as it may, the rest of the interviewees believe that translation theory does exist in the form of some general translation principles. In order to arrive at them, “it is necessary to determine and define the objective basis of intuition in translation, that on which it rests” (Smirnitskaia, 463).
Can translation be taught? The majority seems to think that you cannot teach translation as an art, - what you can teach is translation skills or strategies. Acquiring them on your own would be like reinventing the wheel, so teaching oneself to translate more or less professionally would take much longer than when you are taught formally (see Golishev, 169).
Given the virtual absence of systematic studies or research on translation and interpretation as a professional and cultural institution in Russia today, Kalashnikova’s work may be called a truly historical document that has recorded not only the polyphony of voices of a very significant group of practicing translators talking about their individual translation practices but also - to a significant extent - the state of translation as a cultural institution in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century. My only friendly criticism is that the author should have stuck to a more rigorous and uniform set of questions that she asked of her interviewees. From my perspective, this might have improved the scholarly validity of the results of the interviews. But I ascribe this somewhat problematic aspect of the methodological rigor of the survey - when different questions were asked of different translators - to the pragmatics of the interview as a type of discourse and a special method of research. In any case, the translators’ numerous insightful, practice-based comments scattered throughout the text of the book are certainly not only an excellent read both for the professional and the non-professional but also a treasure-trove of material for English-to-Russian and Russian-to-English advanced translation seminars.
Alexander Burak, University of Florida
Так мы познакомились. Пообедали, сходили на выставку «Увидеть Париж и… жить». Вот что нашла о нем в сети: Александр Львович Бурак - выпускник переводческого факультета МГПИИЯ им. Мориса Тореза по специальности переводчик-референт по английскому и итальянскому языкам. С 1977 по 2000 год работал преподавателем, старшим преподавателем, доцентом и заведующим кафедрой лексикографии и теории перевода на факультете иностранных языков МГУ им. М.В.Ломоносова. С 2000 года преподает русский язык, русскую культуру и перевод в Университете Флориды (США) на отделении германистики и славистики. Кандидат социологических наук. Автор ряда научных и учебных публикаций. Практикующий устный и письменный переводчик. Член союза переводчиков России. Автор книги «Translating Culture: Перевод и межкультурная коммуникация. Этап 1: Уровень слова». По дороге из «Р.Валента», где мы договорились встретиться, он рассказал, что основная часть багажа с книгами, отправленная им два года назад в Америку, потерялась на таможне, а «По-русски» долетела-таки до Флориды. (Редкая птица, ну и так далее…) Для SEEJ’а он пишет несколько лет, ему заказывают рецензии на те или иные книги, а тут он сам предложил написать статью про мою «По-русски с любовью». Редактор его спросил: «Кто вам эта Калашникова?». «Никто, я ее не знаю». В SEEJ’е редакторы решают, на какой текст им интересна рецензия, там не принято, чтобы инициатива исходила от авторов, так отсекается источник лоббирования знакомых. Тогда Бурак сказал: «Давайте я напишу текст. Если он вам понравится - вы его напечатаете, если нет - то нет». Редактор согласился. В первоначальной версии было больше цитат, но из-за объема - стандартная максимальная длина рецензии на книгу в SEEJ 1000 слов - текст пришлось сократить. Но статья редактору понравилась, и он разрешил Александру Львовичу превысить стандартный объем. Вот сам текст:
Kalashnikova, Yelena. Po-russki s liubov’iu: Besedy s perevodchikami.
Moskva: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2008. Name Index. Photos. 608 pp.
Hardback. ISBN 978-5-86793-612-9.
Po-russki s liubov’iu is a unique collection of 87 interviews that Elena Kalashnikova (a literary translation sociologist) conducted in 2000-2006 with Russian literary translators working out of a wide range of languages into Russian. It is interesting to note that the majority of the professional translators have never been formally trained as translators: for most of them, translation is a labor of love, with means for everyday existence being obtained from other sources
The constraints of a journal review make it impossible to do justice to all of the numerous fascinating and unconventional opinions that were expressed in the interviews. The following is just an incomplete sample of the issues discussed: Do male and female translators translate differently? What are the advantages of using interlinear (word-for-word) translations of poetry to produce “poetic” translations? Why do young people seem to prefer more literalist, word-for-word translations that at times strain standard Russian usage? Which particular texts are virtually untranslatable? How can reading your prose translation out loud be helpful in improving it? Is the translator’s task more complicated than that of the author of the original text? Can you assess the quality of a translation without comparing it with the original?
The recurrent complaints of the translators were that they were outrageously underpaid and had to work to truly unrealistic deadlines. In the words of Kirill Medvedev, “[…] translators have the psychology of the ‘little person.’ Each work they translate becomes [Akakii Akakievich’s] overcoat for them” (338). For the general public translators continue to be invisible, although less so than in the USA, being somewhat “like cesspool cleaners - you don’t know they exist until you have a sewage-disposal problem” (Silakova, 444).
The cultural status of translation in the Soviet times as a well-institutionalized, state-supported profession that was generally equated with refined artistic activity or high art has long since dissipated - together with the once generally well-institutionalized stringent criteria for assessing the quality of translation. According to Ian Probshtein, “[…] the institute of translation editors has virtually ceased to exist […] and many translators have mutated from the proverbial ‘post horses of enlightenment’ into draft bullocks or mules in the employ of the book-producing business” (398). The majority of translations are submitted and accepted for publication as so-called translator-edited texts. The rate of output and the quality of most translations, as well as the translator-publisher relationship, reminded Mikhail Rudnitsky of a Soviet-era joke about an exemplary collective farm dairymaid who had been regularly “over-fulfilling” milk production quotas. One day, still unsatisfied by the milking woman’s productivity, her boss asks her pointedly, “Will you be able to produce 12,000 liters of milk [a month]?” “Yes, boss,” the cow-milker replies, “But the milk will be 100 percent water” (428). Russian publishers, however, seem to be satisfied with arrangements of this kind.
The interviews have reinforced my sense of the current fragmented state of the profession in Russia where a relatively small group of true professionals - a kind of lonely translator-knights - are tilting at the commercial publishing mills that relentlessly keep on churning out hackwork-quality translations. In this context, an interesting and useful aspect of the book is that some translators assess (positively or negatively) the quality of some canonical translations as well as translations by some of their colleagues.
Do the interviews reveal any prevalent methodological trends in or general approaches to translation? Few of the interviewees give the reader well-rounded descriptions of their translation methodologies, usually confining themselves to discussing separate aspects of their work. However, taken together, their comments reveal a predominantly intuitive approach to translation and the eternal vacillation of the translation pendulum between so-called “free” (vol’ny) and “literalist” (bukvalistsky) translation. Despite the generally intuitive cast of mind, most of the translators implicitly adhere to what may be called the presumption of explicability. Some explicit comments on this score come from Elena Kostiukovich: “Talking about the translation profession, we should proceed from the assumption that you’re able to explain everything you do [in the translated text]. In some parts of the text, you may think it important to depart from the original - then depart and demonstrate your brilliance. In other parts of the text, be literally accurate. In still others, imitate the exact sound of the original” (279). When asked specifically if he was a proponent of “exact” or “free” translation, Aleksandr Livergant (a longtime professor of translation studies at a major Moscow university) had this to say on the subject: “A mathematician would call such a question fallacious. […] Everything depends on the translator’s perceptiveness and the language of the original, which in some cases lends itself to a close, literal translation and in others resists literalism. One often hears of literalist translators, but such translators simply don’t know how to translate. They are either incompetent or in too much of a hurry. […] I am confident that a good translator is sometimes a literalist and at other times, on the contrary, departs from the letter of the text. When to do the former or the latter is a question of the translator’s choice, taste, and aesthetics” (297-298).
Does translation theory exist? For the minority that answered this question definitively, it does not: “It is an artificial construct of some […] idlers” (Volokhonsky, 133). “It is something fictional” (Mikushevich, 349). About half of the interviewees were never asked this question. No reason for this omission is given anywhere in the book. Could the relevant parts have been edited out in the final version of the book at the request of the interviewees or for some other reasons? Be that as it may, the rest of the interviewees believe that translation theory does exist in the form of some general translation principles. In order to arrive at them, “it is necessary to determine and define the objective basis of intuition in translation, that on which it rests” (Smirnitskaia, 463).
Can translation be taught? The majority seems to think that you cannot teach translation as an art, - what you can teach is translation skills or strategies. Acquiring them on your own would be like reinventing the wheel, so teaching oneself to translate more or less professionally would take much longer than when you are taught formally (see Golishev, 169).
Given the virtual absence of systematic studies or research on translation and interpretation as a professional and cultural institution in Russia today, Kalashnikova’s work may be called a truly historical document that has recorded not only the polyphony of voices of a very significant group of practicing translators talking about their individual translation practices but also - to a significant extent - the state of translation as a cultural institution in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century. My only friendly criticism is that the author should have stuck to a more rigorous and uniform set of questions that she asked of her interviewees. From my perspective, this might have improved the scholarly validity of the results of the interviews. But I ascribe this somewhat problematic aspect of the methodological rigor of the survey - when different questions were asked of different translators - to the pragmatics of the interview as a type of discourse and a special method of research. In any case, the translators’ numerous insightful, practice-based comments scattered throughout the text of the book are certainly not only an excellent read both for the professional and the non-professional but also a treasure-trove of material for English-to-Russian and Russian-to-English advanced translation seminars.
Alexander Burak, University of Florida