The story “Sanfari's death” by J'ozef Julian Sekowski: translation, retelling or stylization?

Within the vast literary legacy of Józef Julian Sękowski (1800-1858), who was also the founder of academic Arabic and Turkic studies in Imperial Russia, there are “Oriental Stories,” published between 1823 and 1830, which were his earliest experience in Russian literature as a translator and a writer. These stories clearly demonstrate the evolution of his writing style: from precise literary translations of original Arabic texts into Russian through retelling to free rendering and even stylizations. The aim of this article is to reveal how exactly and to what extent the author used the Arabic sources, while creating one work from the above-mentioned “oriental” cycle - “Šanfarī’s Death” - in order to find out whether this story is a translation, retelling or stylization. The comparative analysis of this story with the authentic Arabic material revealed the specific methods that Senkovsky used to create this romantic story, namely, a literary translation of poetic excerpts from a poem by a pre-Islamic poet, a retelling of Arabic legend, a historical reconstruction of events, an imitation and a stylization that successfully renders the genre and national peculiarities of the Arabic classical literature through Russian language. Thus, “Šanfarī’s Death” should be classified as a professional stylization that contains elements of literary translation and imitation of narrative style of the ancient Arab poets. Nevertheless, the original Arabic sources are clearly visible even in the stylization. It is this combination of methods that permitted Sękowski to introduce pre-Islamic Arabic literature to the Russian readers in a rather casual manner, despite the difficulty it presents for an unprepared audience.