The Facets of Intercultural Dialogue: Russian Symbolists in Translation Counterpoint with French Modernists

Ustinovskaya Alena Aleksandrovna PhD in Philology Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communication, Moscow State University of Humanities and Economics 109153, Russia, Moscow, Privolnaya str., 27-2, sq. 135 alyonau1@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Symbolism as a literary trend in Russian literature was formed in close cooperation with the Western tradition, and translations were one of the means of ensuring this interaction. Translations from English, French, and Italian were actively carried out by almost all prominent representatives of the school of symbolism – Innokenty Annensky, Valery Bryusov, Fyodor Sologub, Konstantin Balmont, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Alexander Blok. For the so-called "senior" symbolists who declared themselves at the end of the XIX century, the search for new forms of expression of poetic thought was extremely relevant. Russian Russian translations, which introduced the works of French poets into the semiosphere of Russian culture, were also used to carry out this search.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that symbolism itself was formed precisely in the process of translation: respectful and careful work with the text of foreign symbolists. The readers who were the target audience of the symbolist poets were mostly educated people, spoke English, French and other foreign languages, and could read the poems of foreign poets in the original. Translation in this case was not so much an educational activity (such tasks arose later, when a program for educating a new reader who does not speak foreign languages appeared in the new state), as the development of the figurative system, techniques and methods of Western symbolist poets and those who were close to them in spirit. That is why texts close to the author of the translation were often chosen for translation: it was not the general cultural, but the individual significance of the text, the dialogue with its author, that was important. As Yu.M. Lotman points out, "the elementary translation mechanism is a dialogue. Dialogue implies asymmetry, and asymmetry is expressed, firstly, in the difference in the semiotic structure (language) of the participants in the dialogue and, secondly, in the alternating orientation of messages. From the latter it follows that the participants of the dialogue alternately move from the position of "transmission" to the position of "reception" and that, consequently, the transmission is carried out in discrete portions with breaks between them" ^{[7, 268]}. The semiotics of symbolism was developed in dialogue and through dialogue, and the main tool of this dialogue was translation.

The first references to the work of Western authors in a creative dialogue with the original appeared in the work of Innokenty Annensky, a poet who was considered "his" by both symbolists and acmeists. Exploring the translation strategies of I. Annensky, A.V. Fedorov points out: "About his requirements for poetic speech, Annensky in the last of the articles he wrote ("On modern Lyricism") said: "I do not need the obligation of one and a common understanding at all. On the contrary, I consider it a merit of a lyrical play if it can be understood in two or more ways or, having misunderstood, only feel it and then finish it mentally yourself." And a little further on he figuratively formulated his idea of poetry: "Words are open, transparent; words not only flow, but also glow."

Annensky was obviously looking for this artistic ideal from the authors he translated... behind the majestic images of the nature of distant countries and behind the heroic figures of strong and integral people of ancient times, there was a special semantic plan of an unspoken moral generalization or an unspoken opposition of the tragically gloomy but heroic past, on the one hand, and modern everyday life, on the other" ^{[11, 192]}.

As a translator, Innokenty Annensky began with fairly free translations, often significantly modifying the meaning of the original text. The absence of literalism in his translations was also noted by E.G. Etkind ^{[12, 38]}. For example, the translation of Stephane Mallarm?'s poem "The Gift of Poetry" ("Don du po?me"):

Table 1. The original of Mallarme's poem and the translation by I.F. Annensky

In the text of Mallarmeh, the gift of poetry is likened to a child – a child from Idumea, which, according to the text of the Bible, is destined to be punished for the fact that its inhabitants did not give passage to the Jews coming from Egypt. The author of the original is addressed to a mother who has just given birth, whose body has not yet recovered from the birth pains. The speaker brings (“apporte”) to the mother a child from the cursed earth, and she must, by pressing her finger, extract the Sibyl whiteness (milk) from her breast for the baby's lips, greedy for the heavenly azure. It is mentioned about the father, who is struck by the pallor and loneliness of the child. Poetry, thus, appears as a rejected child who causes rejection from the father and will not be able to feed on the mother's milk.

In Annensky's translation, the form of the poem has been lost – the 14-line original, which is not organized like a sonnet, but written with a paired rhyme, is replaced by an 18-line poem with a changing rhyme – there are both cross, and encircling, and paired rhymes. The model of the dialogue presented in the poem is completely changing: in translation, the lyrical hero says "this is my daughter" - therefore, he is the father of the child, while further the father is spoken of in the third person. The mother to whom the child is given for feeding is directly called a Sibyl, although in the original it was only about "Sibyl whiteness". In addition, the poem in translation begins with the request "oh, don't curse her..." - the lyrical hero seems to respond to the words of hatred and curses that have already been uttered.

In Mallarme's poem, the speaker(s) is most likely a midwife bringing a baby to the mother and speaking out about the future fate of the child. This partly refers to the image-symbol of the midwife in an allegorical sense, which Socrates used to explain his philosophy. Explaining his manner of helping to give birth to ideas, Socrates argued: "Now my midwifery art is similar to obstetrics in everything, differing from it only in that I give birth to husbands, not wives, the birth of the soul, not the body" ^[8]. The mother is asked whether she will be able to nurse the child.

In reading Annensky, the meaning of the text is somewhat different: the gift of poetry is both a child of the cursed land of Idumea and the prophetess Sibyl. The speaker does not ask himself whether the mother will be able to nurse this child with her milk, but immediately resolutely says "No!", as if denying poetry the right to exist.

The translation of a free, paraphrastic type is also characteristic of another representative of the "older" symbolists – Fyodor Sologub. In some cases, Sologub's translations differ significantly from the original text and set fundamentally different communicative attitudes. An example of such a translation is Andre Gilles' sonnet "Horoscope", addressed to a young rebel who fulfills his destiny, despite the objections of relatives, mainly his mother:

Table 2. Comparison of the original by Andre Gilles and the translation by F. Sologub

In the original text, there is no dialogue with the mother, only her tears are mentioned – Sologub turns this mention into a kind of family scene when the son leaves and the mother prays "Come back!". In Gilles' text, the hero himself wants to break away from his family and devote himself to the struggle, the phrase "tu le veux" is mentioned – "you want it", referring to Moliere's "you wanted it, Georges Dandin". The hero may regret his decision in the future, but it was his decision, his desire. Sologub uses the concept of "vow", referring to the context of monasticism ("vow of silence", "vow of celibacy"), the rejection of desires and aspirations. The author of the original does not associate himself with the young man: he directly calls his enthusiasm "ephemeral". Where Sologub offers the addressee to "look straight into the eyes of misfortune," in the original it is assumed that the hero will watch his hair turn gray, etc.

In general, Sologub creates a work that differs significantly from the original text: it is not a prediction ("horoscope"), but an appeal, and the poetic size – a three–stop anapest - and the vocabulary used refer to the poetry of N.A. Nekrasov. The ending of the poem almost completely does not coincide with the original: in Gilles' text, fate will give the hero "the contempt of a triumphant fool / the august beard of an apostle / a pure heart and children's eyes / to smile at other people's children." Sologub does not even attempt to reflect the images used by the author of the original.

In the translations of Sologub and Annensky, there is thus an attitude to "re–reading" the text: perceiving the original, the translator at the same time creatively reworks it, "reshapes" it in accordance with his ideas about the artistic ideal, and in some cases - changes the author's intention, eliminates images.

Vyacheslav Ivanov was also reproached for using the same manner: for example, V. Veresaev says about translations from Alcaeus and Sappho: "A bizarre mixture of solemnly archaic, newly composed and vernacular words and expressions is a characteristic feature of Vyacheslav Ivanov's own poetry, but is not at all characteristic of either Alcaeus or Sappho. Their language is an ordinary, modern spoken language, with only very minor traces of the influence of epic poetry, on the one hand, folk song, on the other. Reading the translations of G. Ivanov, anyone will say: "it is immediately obvious that this is Vyacheslav Ivanov." It would be much better if one could say: "it is immediately obvious that these are Alcaeus and Sappho" ^{[6, 31]}.

Ivanov, as a translator, turned to ancient authors, the works of Dante and Petrarch, as well as to the texts of French symbolists – for example, S. Baudelaire. Let's consider as an example the translation of one of Baudelaire's most famous works – "Spleen", which he addressed as Vyach. Ivanov, and In. Annensky:

Table 6. The original text of Baudelaire and translations In. Annensky and Vyach. Ivanova:

Translated by Vyach. An attempt has been made to bring the text closer to the original: Ivanov is undoubtedly familiar with Annensky's translation, which is far from literal. At the same time, according to Ivanov's text, it is easy to trace those features of the translation manner that Veresaev spoke about in relation to ancient poems: archaisms ("he murmured", "he is dragging himself", "he is a fool") side by side with neologisms ("sturgeon"). The general outline of Baudelaire's text is modified and enriched by Ivanov's introduction of the word "crypt" in the first line (in the original, the firmament "presses like a lid", "covers"): this sets the whole text a mourning tone. The thought of death develops in a way that is also formulated with the involvement of archaism: "the pull is unbearable ... it's disgusting to pull" - in Baudelaire, "the mind groans in the grip of long troubles." The lyrical hero of Baudelaire feels bad, but he does not express thoughts of suicide, and Ivanov sets the mood for death and the desire to get rid of the "disgusting craving" from the very first line of the poem. The transformation of the "dungeon" into a "dungeon" continues this thought - all the images used refer to death, grave, burial.

The lyrical hero of the poem in Annensky's reading is more of a rebel than a suicide bomber: his day is "angry with a hangover" (there is no such image in the original), the rain is the "jailer" with whom he fights, beats into the vaults of the dungeon, the bells send curses to the clouds, "the rows have moved" – metaphors close to images of war or revolution, the longing hero does not think about death, but about fighting, overcoming longing.

The comparison of the translated texts with the original texts of the poems allows us to draw the following conclusions.

Semiotic and creative attitudes of Russian symbolism were formed in an active creative dialogue with the Western tradition: translation was a means of assimilation and mastering the principles of symbolism. The texts in which "the symbolist translates the symbolist" are a creative program and at the same time an intertextual and interconceptual dialogue between the two schools. Readers of the translations almost always had the opportunity to get acquainted with the originals and see how skillfully the author of the translation conveyed the figurative system and the form of the poem.

At the end of the XIX – beginning of the XX century, the authors of translations were often not constrained by the publishing policy and turned to translations of those poems that were close to themselves. Many translations arose on the initiative of the translators themselves, and in this case the selection of texts by a certain author is of fundamental importance: for the reader, those poems were chosen whose principles of creation are consonant with symbolism as a current. Turning to the authors of Romanticism, the symbolists read them in the key of "pre-symbolism", seeing them as the precursors of their literary program.

The translation principles and techniques of the symbolists have evolved and changed. It is possible to distinguish two basic methods resorted to by representatives of this literary school. The first method, conventionally called "translation-paraphrase", is close to free translation. Using it, the translator transmitted the entire poem, often swapping and replacing the images of the original. The unit of translation in this case is the entire text, understood as a single sign.

The formation of the principles of translation led to numerous discussions on this issue: I.F. Annensky, K.D. Balmont, V.Ya. Bryusov, F. Sologub wrote critical articles, and also engaged in improvised creative duels: they presented versions of the translation of the same text. A comparison of texts translated by two or three different authors shows the general vector of translation: striving for maximum adherence to the original, translators, nevertheless, in controversial cases, made a decision that brought the translated text closer to their own creativity.

In general, symbolist poets have made a major contribution to the history and theory of translations into Russian. The texts created by them are multifaceted and are read through double, and in some cases triple optics: a dialogue with the original, with those authors on whom the original author relied, and with another translator.