Translation as an “agent” of intercultural reception. A case study of Marina Tsvetaeva's poem “Emigrant” and its translation into English by Christopher Whyte

The article is devoted to translation from the point of view of intercultural reception in the context of which traditional labels given to translations in translation studies like “true”, “adequate”, “equivalent” and most of all “good” or “bad” become out of place. In the process of translation, transformations caused by the specificity of the language material of the source and the target cultures, by the individuality of the translator and his creative police as well as the difference between national worldviews and literary traditions always occur. In the article, it is suggested to view translation from this perspective on material of Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem “Emigrant” and its translation into English by Christopher Whyte. Close parallel reading of these two texts shows the transformations which happened to the original poem vividly enough. Though Whyte’s translation cannot be classified as a loose one, the central idea of the original is changed completely: the translation is not about poet as an alien who came from other worlds but about an emigrant in the proper sense of the word. Such transformation looks quite natural in the context of contemporary Britain where the discussions about peculiar to the British xenophobia have been recently intensified more and more. “Domestication” of Tsvetaeva’s poem is also dictated by the creative policy of the translator, who intentionally universalizes the feelings of the speaker. An important role in the transformations is played by the language material: the key words of the original, even though translated by the close English equivalents, have been transformed as the result of the difference of the semantic fields they belong to and connotations they have.