Open Access“Russian Muzhiks – Who Else if not Russians…”: Why Gogol is so Difficult to Translate
Author(s) -
Jekaterina Blizniuk-Biskup
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
przegląd wschodnioeuropejski
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 2450-0828
pISSN - 2081-1128
DOI - 10.31648/pw.5483
Subject(s) - alienation , style (visual arts) , narrative , focus (optics) , russian literature , face (sociological concept) , variety (cybernetics) , aesthetics , literature , psychology , sociology , history , linguistics , philosophy , art , political science , law , computer science , artificial intelligence , physics , optics
The author addresses the issue of how peculiarities of Gogol’s narrative style can be retained in the translations of “Petersburg Stories” and “Dead Souls”, with special focus on the attitude of the narrator towards what is reported. The main attention is paid to constructions with the qualificator russkij ‘Russian’ referring to phenomena deeply rooted in Russian culture and, on the face of it, serving to highlight the national “local color”. Still, on a closer inspection one finds that, contrary to expectations, relevant constructions reflect alienation of the narrator with respect to reported events, being a kind of exoticisms and thus additionally complicating translation. It is well-advised for Gogol’s translators to be mindful of this special variety of exoticization characteristic of his prose.