Volume 21 Number 2 Article 30 Winter 10-15-1996 Problems of Translating into Russian Natalia Grigorieva Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Grigorieva, Natalia (1996) "Problems of Translating into Russian," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 21 : No. 2 , Article 30. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol21/iss2/30 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract The general traditions of Russian literature has been based on the requirement that any literary translation should be good literature in itself as well as preserving the author’s manner of writing. It seems that understanding of J.R.R. Tolkien and his books is growing very slowly in Russia. There have never been any professional literary works on Tolkien or the problems of translating his works. A number of approaches to translating are connected with this fact. A short history of this subject shows that both the author’s attitude and fairy-story reality should be reproduced correctly and with care. I am going to compare Russian published versions of The Lord of the Rings (by V. Murav’ev & A. Kistyakovskii, by V. Matorina, by N. Grigorieva & V. Grushetskiy, and by Z. Bobir). The following are discussed: • The author’s and translator’s attitudes to the story they tell (horror and humour, fairies and dragons) • Reliability of Middle- earth elements - how this is achieved by different approaches (hobbits’ names and manner of speech, Elvish languages and so on) • Folklore and the nature of the hero: ways to find analogies • The laws of Faerie must not be changed! A fully adequate version should find solutions for all these problems; but really the more is done the better the translation. Additional Keywords fairy-tales; reality; Russian literary and folklore tradition; Russian translations This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol21/iss2/30 Problems of Translating into Russian1 Natalia Grigorieva Abstract: The general traditions of Russian literature has been based on the requirement that any literary translation should be good literature in itself as well as preserving the author’s manner of writing. It seems that understanding of J.R.R. Tolkien and his books is growing very slowly in Russia. There have never been any professional literary works on Tolkien or the problems of translating his works. A number of approaches to translating are connected with this fact. A short history of this subject shows that both the author’s attitude and fairy-story reality should be reproduced correctly and with care. I am going to compare Russian published versions of The Lord of the Rings (by V. Murav’ev & A. Kistyakovskii, by V. Matorina, by N. Grigorieva & V. Grushetskiy, and by Z. Bobir). The following are discussed: • The author’s and translator’s attitudes to the story they tell (horror and humour, fairies and dragons) • Reliability of Middle-earth elements - how this is achieved by different approaches (hobbits’ names and manner of speech, Elvish languages and so on) • Folklore and the nature of the hero: ways to find analogies • The laws of Faerie must not be changed! A fully adequate version should find solutions for all these problems; but really the more is done the better the translation. Keywords: fairy-tales, reality, Russian literary and folklore tradition, Russian translations Tolkien became known here among a small group of and evil are directly opposed . This feeling has translators and philologists in the middle of the 70s. From the inspired Tolkien’s book. And the fact that his very beginning it has been clear that this outstanding author understanding of the demands of the time was made an appreciable contribution to English and world expressed through fairy-story, myth, heroic epos, didn’t literature. His works were dedicated “simply to England; to harm his purpose . His fantasy is definitely earth- my country” (Tolkien, 1990, p. 144), but the stories about grown. Based on folklore and mythology he tried to get Middle-earth were founded on folklore materials including a synthesis of a centuries-old collective imagination all the rich folklore of the European North-West, and the . Tolkien’s epic has an invisible basis, that is, its philosophical and moral problems of his works were of great magical-faery, historical-linguistic support . } human importance. It is a tradition of Russian literature that (Murav’ev, 1976, p. 110) a literary translation should re-create the original’s forms and V. Murav’ev regards Middle-earth as a “faery-ordinary” content using the artistic means of another language to world existing in four dimensions: in geography, history, achieve adequate comprehension of the literary work under morality and linguistics. other cultural circumstances. The Lord of the Rings was The genre of The Lord of the Rings was considered in closely connected with the mythological, heroical, historical papers and a thesis by another famous translator, S. Koshelev and literary tradition of Western Europe so it was natural to (1981). He defined the book as a philosophical fantasy suppose it would be hard to translate. romance with elements of a fairy-tale and heroic epos. So it’s not surprising that The Lord of the Rings was The way Russian readers comprehend Tolkien and his mentioned for the First time in 1976 in a review “Tolkien i books at present depends partly on the way Tolkien became kritiki” written by translator V. Murav’ev. It considered A known here. So I’d like to present a short history of Tolkien Compass (Lobdell, 1975) and works by Robley translations of Tolkien into Russian. I think it would be Evans and Randcl Helms. He saw sources of Tolkien’s better to do no more than to explain in brief how and why creative work in the fact that certain names have been translated by different translators. our age is an age to make decisions, an age when good Any translation has many more difficulties and problems 1 Editors' note: some revisions to this paper have been made by the editors. *’ All Russian quotations arc translated by Natalia Grigorieva. PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATING INTO RUSSIAN 201 than just those connected with the names. The merits or Nagibin declared that defects of a translation partly depend on the way the names this is a fairy-story for grown-up children who are on were translated I don’t think it can describe translation by the threshold of manhood. Those readers are endowed itself. Nevertheless they are significant, sometimes showing with a gift of understanding everything. This small the method used by translator. story is amazingly rich in sense and the children for The first of Tolkien’s books in Russian was The Hobbit whom it was written would read much more in it and (Tolkien/Rakhmanova, 1976) published in 1976. N. would get into depths that adults don’t dream of. Rakhmanova’s method was the traditional one for literary (Nagibin, 1987, p. 43) translations of fairy-tales. The names and places were simply A fairy-story is as real as a “Secondary World”. The transcribed for the most part, such as “Baggins” - Boaaunc, translators are as serious and respectful to it as the author “Rivendell” - Paueende/iA, Dale - JfouA. himself. A slightly abridged version of “Leaf by Niggle”, translated This difference in the methods of translation depends on by S. Koshelev, was published in the popular magazine the difference between the stories themselves. Moreover, it’s Khimiya i zhizn in 1980. The epilogue by Yu. Shreider called closely connected with the translator’s personality and his the story “a parable about creative work” (Shreider, 1980, p. individual understanding. I think that a translation’s quality 92) which is connected with the author’s ordinary life. That may be indirectly estimated by the number of other versions is the reason why names with meanings were translated here. which appear after its publication. It is significant that no one For example, Niggle was reproduced as Mcakuh. In Russian serious attempt was made “to improve” or “to correct” these it is associated with the word MeAKUu (it means “small, versions. It means for me that in spite of all their differences, modest, simple person”) or with the word MeA (chalk) every one of them answers the main Russian literary indicating that he is an artist. Moreover, Mcakuh is requirements for translated works. Any literary translation phonetically close to the author’s own name. So an should convey the content and sense of the original and it autobiographical element of the story is stressed. should be appreciated by readers as a good literary work. It is interesting that both translations and articles didn’t get Thus nearly all the “small prose” of Tolkien had been any attention from general readers or publishers or even satisfactorily translated and published before 1988.