§5. Translation at the turn of the century

The 1880-90’s is considered to be “hard times” for translation.¹¹⁷ In this period, the culture of translation was in decline. Translators downplayed the specific features of source texts, lost their stylistic peculiarities and were often too wordy. For instance, according to translation practices of the time, even the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy did not strive for accurate translation. When translating a short novel by Maupassant, Le Port, he gave the story another title (Франсуаза) and noted that it was not his translation but rather a story after Maupassant. Many people considered translation to be an easy job, requiring only good knowledge of a foreign language. Therefore, translations were often mediocre and uncreative. Theoretical work suffered a decline. Critics gave very superficial reviews.

The best translator of the time was P. Veinberg, who translated Shakespeare and Heine. Later translation theorists and critics reproached him for his lack of artistic form, for simplifying works.¹¹⁸

In that period it was claimed that great authors cannot make good translations, as they cannot give up their own creative work and be subordinate to a translated author.

Nevetheless, the end of the century marked the development of the school of philological translation,¹¹⁹carried outA. Veselovsky,F. Zelinsky, F. Batyushkov.They introduced into Russian translated literature editions in which a translated text was accompanied by substantial philological commentaries.

The end of the century also witnessed a rebirth of untranslatability theory, which was propounded by the Ukrainian linguist AlexandrePotebnya.¹²⁰

The period from the 1890s to 1917 was one of intellectual ferment, in which mysticism, aestheticism, Neo-Kantianism, eroticism, Marxism, apocalypticism, Nietzscheanism, and other movements combined with each other in improbable ways.¹²¹The Symbolists saw art as a way to approach a higher reality. The first wave of Symbolists includedKonstantinBalmont(1867-1942), who translated a number of English poets and wrote verse that he left unrevised on principle (he believed in first inspiration), andValeryBryusov(1873-1924), a poet and translator of French Symbolist verse and of Virgil'sAeneid, who for years was the leader of the movement.

§6. Translation in the 20th century

This century is remarkable for both its translation practice and its considerable theoretical development. It gave rise to the theory of translation as a special subject, devised by V. Komissarov, A. Fedorov, A. Shveitser. R. Minyar-Beloruchev, L. Barkhudarov and others. Their ideas were widely acknowledged, both in Russia and abroad.

As for fiction translation, there grew up two schools: the first analyzes translation in the aspect of literature studies (K. Chukovsky, I. Kashkin, V. Rossels, et al.); the other is the linguistic approach (A. Fedorov, L. Barkhudarov, V. Komissarov, V. Krupnov, Y. Retsker and others.)

The scope and amount of literary translations has been increasing. In the 1930s, Maxim Gorky started the World Literature series. Since 1955, the monthly Inostrannaya Literatura has been publishing the latest prose and poems in translation. Many talented translators became known and respected during this period; among them M. Lozinsky, S. Marshak, E. Kalashnikova, N. Shchepkina-Kupernik and many others.

Special attention was paid to translating literature from and into languages of former Soviet republics and minor languages of indigenous people of Siberia and the North. To work with these languages, a method of interlinear translation (подстрочный перевод) has often been used.

This century gave rise to scientific and technical translation. In the world, over 100,000 journals are published in different languages, which include 4 million articles; about 200,000 inventions are patented annually; over 250,000 scientific works are written.¹²² Due to the enormous amount of information necessary for translation, MAT (machine-aided translation) systems have progressed; the All-Union Center for Scientific and Technical Translation (Moscow) was one of the largest institutions involved in developing machine translation. Structural linguistics and communication theory have been introduced into the study of translation.

This century also witnessed the rise of a new type of interpretation, simultaneous interpretation, theoretically based on the works of G. Chernov, A. Shiryayev¹²³.