Between "freedom" and "fidelity": on Mikhail Gasparov's experiments in the field of translation and translation studies

Poetic and prosaic translations as well as the interpretation of the history, theory, and practice of translation played an important role in the work of Mikhail Leonovich Gasparov (1935-2005). This article shows the special place of the so-called «experimental translations». Contrary to the opinion of critics, the author treats them not as a «deconstructivist» whim, but as a well-planned research experiment that deliberately changes certain parameters of the original text in translation and analyzes the results. The article raises the question of the benefits and limits of statistical approaches to the analysis of texts, which Gasparov considered a condition and criterion of scientific philology. The author also emphasizes the need to search for other forms of objectivity that would allow us to take into account both «textual» and «extratextual» aspects in the cognitive process in humanities.