Translation of poetry as a means of teaching interlinguistic and intercultural penetration

Translation of poetry can be called a unique instrument in teaching language learners interlinguistic and intercultural penetration ensured by a thorough translation analysis of the original on different levels - the level of form, the level of content, and the level of imagery. It’s both the process of decoding of compressed linguistic and extralinguistic information and a comparative study.

Thus, translating poems, especially not modern ones, and performing translation analysis we can create the basis for background knowledge for both foreign and modern native readers.

To illustrate such educational activity we choose the Russian poem ‘January 1, 1941’ (‘1 января 1941 года’) by Yaroslav Smelyakov for the analysis [Смеляков].

Так повелось, что в серебре метели, в глухой тиши декабрьских вечеров, оставив лес, идут степенно ели к далеким окнам шумных городов.

И, веселясь, торгуют горожане для украшенья жительниц лесных базарных нитей тонкое сиянье и грубый блеск игрушек расписных.

Откроем дверь: пусть в комнаты сегодня в своих расшитых валенках войдет, осыпан хвоей елки новогодней, звеня шарами, сорок первый год.

Мы все готовы к долгожданной встрече: в торжественной минутной тишине покоем дышат пламенные печи, в ладонях елок пламенеют свечи, и пляшет пламень в искристом вине.

В преддверье сорок первого, вначале мы оценить прошедшее должны. Мои товарищи сороковой встречали не за столом, не в освещенном зале — в жестоком дыме северной войны.

Стихали орудийные раскаты, и слушал затемненный Ленинград, как чокались гранаты о гранату, штыки о штык, приклады о приклад.

Мы не забудем и не забывали, что батальоны наши наступали, неудержимо двигаясь вперед, как наступает легкий час рассвета, как после вьюги наступает лето, как наступает сорок первый год.

Прославлен день тот самым громким словом, когда, разбив тюремные оковы, к нам сыновья Прибалтики пришли. Мы рядом шли на празднестве осеннем, и я увидел в этом единенье прообраз единения земли.

Еще за то добром помянем старый, что он засыпал длинные амбары шумящим хлебом осени своей и отковал своей рукою спорой для красной авиации — моторы, орудия — для красных батарей.

Мы ждем гостей — пожалуйте учиться!

Но если ночью воющая птица с подарком прилетит пороховым — сотрем врага. И это так же верно, как то, что мы вступили в сорок первый и предыдущий был сороковым.

The students are offered the following plan, which is mostly in the form of a questionary and guides the students throughout different levels of the poem:

etc.)? Think of the best ways of rendering them into English to preserve the effect implied.

It should be noted that the plan is more or less universal as far as the pre-translation analysis of a poem goes. Some elements can be added or changed depending on the particular poem.

To start with the topics touched upon by Smelyakov, already the title tells us that the poem is devoted to the beginning of the year with the whole range of associations, such as the emotions of starting everything anew, of thinking about the past, its role and connection to the future, pleasant and magic associations with the New Year as a holiday together with the terrible painful associations with 1941 as the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

In terms of cultural and historic background we should understand that the power of associations for the Russian and English-speaking recipients will be different. On the one hand because of the New Year, as the western and American traditions put symbolism into celebrating Christmas, while the Russian one - into celebrating New Year. And the date directly points us to the New Year. And, on the other hand, it’s because of the war and war time and differences of its meaning to different peoples. Besides, for the British the Great War is the First World War9, and for the Russians its - the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War10 in particular. In any case, it’s not the matter of policy, but the matter of associations that are deeply ingrained in culture and history of a certain country.

Anyway this dubious nature of associations from the title is preserved and further developed in the poem itself both in the plane of content and in the plane of form. And before plunging deep into the aspect of topics, we can allow ourselves speaking about point 4 of the plan and formal characteristics of the poem, because they play a very important role here. We see that the poem actually has several rhythmical changes. The first three verses represent quatrains with alternate rhyme and iambic pentameter with omissions of metrical accents in the forms of pyrrhics or paeons IV.

The 4th verse represents the culmination of the New Year topic. Together with the 5th one it becomes a pentastich. It preserves the prevailing meter, but within the traditional alternate rhyme we also see the plain rhyme of the third and fourth lines. These additions fasten the rhythm and make us read in one breath. The 6th verse becomes a kind of transitional verse, where the poet changes both the topics and the rhythm. Smelyakov expressly passes from the New Year topic to the theme of war. Here he returns to the form of a quatrain with the alternate rhyme. But from the 7th verse and up to the end

Smelyakov uses a six-line pattern, where the first two lines have plane rhyme, the last four - enclosing rhyme. What’s more, staying within iambic framework the poet plays with the number of stresses laying emphasis on this or that significant meaningful part. Thus, in the 7th verse the first line has only two stresses, the second and the third - three stresses, and the fourth, fifth and sixth - 4 stresses - rhythmical frequency increases. And up to the end the poet varies between 3 and 4 stresses and in three lines makes it 5 stresses in the most pathetic moments: ‘Прославлен день тот самым громким словом’ and ‘сотрем врага’. И это так же верно как то, что мы вступили в сорок первый’.

All these formal (rhythmical, rhyming and prosodic) peculiarities must be preserved in translation, because this poem is an ideal illustration of the interdependence of form and content both in terms of the idea and effect implied.

Returning back to topics, we see that the time described is 1940 (maybe including some earlier events of 1939) and the very beginning of 1941. As it has been already mentioned, it’s war and interwar time. We have to single out the most important events of this part of the epoch, and the poem itself is a good clue to it.

At the end of the 5th verse we find the lines:

Мои товарищи сороковой встречали не за столом, не в освещенном зале — в жестоком дыме северной войны (underlined by me. - N.F.\

The word combination ‘the Northern War’ is historically referred to ‘the Great Northern War’ of 1700-1721 between Sweden and the coalition of the Northern and European states including the Russian Empire. In the context of the poem we do understand that this name is referred by the poet to the third Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940, which is also known as ‘the Winter War’ and ‘Not Famous War’ (the name comes from the poems of its participant the Soviet poet A. Tvardovsky:

‘forgotten, unimportant, stayed in that not famous war one day’).

Thus, in translation we can preserve the adjective ‘northern’. And not to mislead the recipient we can use the generally accepted term ‘the Winter war’:

My comrades saw the New, the 40th coming not at the festive board with home-folk dining -in dreadful smoke of northern ‘Winter war’.

An important role here is given to Leningrad and its security. We see it in the 6th verse as well:

Стихали орудийные раскаты, и слушал затемненный Ленинград, как чокались гранаты о гранату, штыки о штык, приклады о приклад.

Being the city of vital importance for the country, in particular in terms of the Soviet Defense Industry, in the meantime it was an attackable ‘Window on Europe’ - being forced it would open the shortest way to the heart of Russia. So the Soviet government demanded the distance from Leningrad to the Finish border be no less that 70 km. In return Finland would get the territories in Karelia. Negotiations didn’t bring the necessary result, the war started at the end of November 1939, and after several months of hard battles in March 1940 the Finish government asked for peace talks and the Moscow Peace Treaty was signed by Finland and the USSR [Титов].

In the works devoted to Smelyakov’s biography we find that in November 1939 a young poet was called up for military service by Ukhtomsky regional draft board, he survived in the ‘not famous’ Finish War and returned to Moscow in 1940 to be employed to the Union of Writers [Минаков 2013]. Consequently we see that the poet describes the events and emotions as a participant of the War.

In translation we have to preserve the name of Leningrad and to pay attention to the main images and metaphors created. Smelyakov continues the idea of metaphoric comparison of the warfare and the New Year rituals. We see ‘festivity’ of war instead of the festivity of the holiday. And the sounds of fighting, bombing, and ruptures of gunnery are represented as clinking and clanging of glasses. We must preserve this effect in translation:

And when artillery roars were subsiding, new music played in darkened Leningrad:

the ball grenades to ball grenade clanged sliding, and bayonets to bayonet, and butts to butt.

In the 8th verse the poet speaks about the Sons of the Baltic states:

Прославлен день тот самым громким словом, когда, разбив тюремные оковы, к нам сыновья Прибалтики пришли.

This refers to the integration of the independent Baltic states to the USSR in 1939-1940. The newly elected parliaments of the countries declared the creation of the Estonian SSR, the Latvian SSR and the Lithuanian SSR and passed the Declaration of entering the Soviet Union. On August 3-6, 1940 on the resolution of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR these republics became parts of the Soviet Union and their armies were included into the Red Army [Страницы истории 2008].

Despite the fact that it was not accepted by the USA, Vatican and some other countries and that nowadays it is frequently called annexation or occupation and treated dubiously and quite often negatively, because of the violation of democratic norms and parliamentary elections that took place in the three states at one and the same time and in the setting of the Soviet military presence, we do understand that the historical event described is highly positively treated by the poet. And here the author’s biography and the study of the socio-cultural context are again helpful.

The thing is that despite the hardships of life and his negative experience as a prisoner of war stockade Smelyakov always was a great patriot of his country. And in these lines we hear his patriotic voice that stands for the voices of millions of other patriots like him and represents the attitude and ideology of the whole country of those times. Even the famous Soviet political slogan ‘Proletarians of all countries, Unite!’ is also reflected in the poem in the lines:

Мы рядом шли на празднестве осеннем, и я увидел в этом единенье прообраз единения земли.

The traditions of the Soviet past tell us that this going together at the festival of the fall symbolizes the demonstration on Red Square in honor of another anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

And the ideological position of the people, who weren’t let into the details of the foreign policy and concentrated on the internal one created by the government, can be proved by the excerpt from the gazette ‘Sovetskaya Sibir’ (‘Soviet Siberia’) as of November 11, 1940 [Советская Сибирь 1940]. It is full of pompous descriptions of the solemn celebrations of the XXIII anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution by the peoples of the Soviet Union. The demonstration and the military parade on Red Square are called ‘the Parade of the indestructible power of the Soviet people’. And it tells us that together with the eminent people of the USSR - from Stakhanovites (efficient performers) and shock workers to the Heroes of the Soviet Union, people of science and art and military men, Moscow for the first time greeted the delegations of working people from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina called the ambassade of the emancipated, free peoples who have recently joined the family of the great USSR.

Therefore in translation we should represent the given pathos and explicate the idea of the demonstration and the solidarity of the newly joined states:

Let’s praise that day with speeches full of passion: Delivered from the fetters of oppression Sons of the Baltics joined our household.

We marched together at November demonstration, and I could see in that unification the image of the new united world.

All in all, the poem is full of culture-specific units and historical realia. So the students are to find information about the event and the historical background, to see if it is known worldwide or at least in the target culture. It’s also important to identify how the author represents and treats this event as his attitude can differ from the commonly accepted one, like in the poem under analysis, where the given attitude differs from the modern treatment of the situation but reflects both the poet’s and his contemporaries’ views of the events described. Therefore some implied meanings and images must be explicated in translation for the sake of understanding.

Moreover such information search is another way to study history from different perspectives. As poems are for sure ‘witnesses of the epoch’ (and Smelyakov’s poetry proves it excellently), in the process of analysis the students can create cultural and historic commentaries both for foreign and native readers to cope with the lack of background knowledge and historical unawareness.

In addition working with the language of a poem they learn to deal with compression: a poem is like an iceberg, whose top represents the verbal part of this compression - words organized in lines; and the larger part beneath the surface contains the whole bulk of information to be perceived.