Made Under Pressure: Literary Translation in the Soviet Union, 1960-1991 by Natalia Kamovnikova

Author:Natalia Kamovnikova
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Published: 2019-01-15T00:46:40.962000+00:00

EVGENII WITKOWSKY: I am convinced that interlinear trots are harmful, but not absolutely harmful. Interlinear trots make sense when they go about translating from the language that very few people know. This is why I once used a Danish interlinear trot when I translated from the Inuit language. The original was read out aloud to me, so that I could grasp the rhythm.

It is not surprising that interlinear trots were actively used in poetic translations from the languages of the USSR and socialist countries. Yet translations from interlinear trots from widely spoken European languages were usually a fake done for the sake of easy money. I used to prepare interlinear trots for the so-called distinguished Soviet poets. They all had someone to prepare interlinear trots so that they could rhyme the translation. And as an anthologist, I needed to fight this situation because sometimes the so-called great Soviet poets were literally imposed on me as translators, even though everyone knew they could not speak foreign languages. I learned to resist them silently. When I was commanded to take on a translator I did not want, I agreed and readily provided the person imposed on me with interlinear trots. Yet, as an editor and anthologist, I could distribute texts for translations the way I wanted. This was my loophole: I would arrange it so that half of the poems given to this translator would be very easy to work with, and the other half would be extremely difficult. Translators imposed on me failed to cope with the difficult part, because it required knowing the language, be it with or without an interlinear trot. Once they failed, they refused to take up the job themselves, and having them out of my way I was able to employ people who were qualified for the job.

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