An unexpected translation of a classic Russian children's book

[strannik01]

This morning, Whet Moser, the Assoiate Digital Editor/writer at the Chicago magazine tweeeted about a children's book he found in a used book store in Virginia. While he was struck by the (admittedly very distinct) art style, what caught my attention was the author's name.

Omg the illustrations pic.twitter.com/srbIzAZTrn
- Whet Moser (@whet)

Comments

[benicek]

It is surprising what was exported in the communist era. Czechoslovak cartoons were quite popular in Britain, and of course Tetris. Also some odd transfers in the opposite direction, such as the hammy British comic actor Norman Wisdom becoming a cult celebrity in Albania.

[strannik01]

Quite. Much like how some classic Soviet films made their way to United States with a lot of Russian cultural references removed in dub. And some of them went on to become MST3K fodder, which I'm still kind of salty about.

[tilia_tomentosa]

It was a culture shock even to me to see Samuil Marshak's name on a book in English. :)

I still have vague memories of reading "Вот какой рассеянный" in a Bulgarian translation as a child. We must have had the originals here too, but Russian wasn't an official language in Bulgaria after all, so we had translations too.

[tilia_tomentosa]

Oops, the structure of the last sentence is what happens when you suddenly start trying to think in three languages at once! :)

[strannik01]

Ничего :) When I tal to my siblings, I tend to jump back and forth between languages all the time, and grammar gets weird... So I'm not the one to judge :)