The Serapion brothers: translations and research in China

Over the past ten years in China, thanks to the scientific work of Professor Zhao Xiaobin (Harbin Normal University) and her students, several voluminous literary research projects have been completed, including the study, translation and popularization of the heritage of the Serapion Brothers (an association of Russian writers active in the 1920s) abroad. As part of this review, analyzing the experience and results of the work of Chinese translators and literary scholars, the authors strive to identify the most effective method of organizing the activities of specialists in the context of a significant number of works and short deadlines for the implementation of the project. The review is based on translations into Chinese of works by four Russian writers of the 1920s published over the past ten years, as well as research about them (from articles to monographs) conducted by Chinese philologists. The authors chronologically sequentially examined the works of the members of the Serapion Brothers association published in China and studies undertaken by various research groups with the aim of an in-depth analysis of the creativity of the Serapion Brothers. The authors identified the milestones of research related to the study of the heritage of writers who belonged to this association carried out at Harbin Normal University since 2015 and characterized translations of works by the Serapion Brothers published in China as part of the project under study. The authors noted the importance of cooperation between Chinese and Russian philologists in the work on creating a translated series and emphasized the support provided to the scientific publishing project by the Chinese state. The study established that any already completed translation was prepared not only by the translator himself, but also by the entire research group, whose members performed various tasks (development of literary problems, agreements with copyright holders of Russian writers’ works, contacts and cooperation with Russian scientists, coverage of work on China’s Internet). As a result, Chinese readers discovered completely new works of Russian literature, and this discovery was accompanied by the defense of dissertations in literary criticism (both in China and in Russia). A group of translators not only worked in detail on a specific work, but also reviewed several texts simultaneously within the time limited by the program. Thus, the authors come to the conclusion about the effectiveness of using an integrated approach when working on translations, combining the actual translation and research components