Translated material
Mikhail Yasnov. "Translation
I am the dreams of Mikhail Davidovich (b. 1946) - poet, translator, children's writer. The author of five books of lyrics, one and a half dozen poetry books for children, as well as numerous translations from French poetry. The compiler, commentator and translator of the books of Sirano de Bergerak, Charles Baudler, Verlaine Fields, Arthur Rimbo, “Cursed Poets”, Edmon Rostan, Guillaume Apolliner, Valerie Fields, Jean Coctele, Jacques of the Prevar and many other authors, as well as publications of French folklore and French children's literature. Laureate of the honorary diploma named after G.Kh. Andersen of the International Council for Children's and Youth Book for the translation of "Tales of Brock Street" Pierre Gripari (2000).
Russian magazine: How much, in your opinion, can a translator allow himself freedom in translation?
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| Mikhail Yasnov. Photo by Elena Kalashnikova |
RG: that is, translate with prose ...
M.Ya.: Yes, in France, a look at the translation as a form of a philological intervention, sometimes rhythmized, and often brought to naked prosaization, is rooted. This achieves accuracy in the transmission of thought and in the description of the image. But at the same time, from our point of view, the main one disappears: poetry itself. In other words, what is good for the Frenchman is death for Russian. And vice versa. I know what powerful battles flared up in France in the eighties (they continue until now) when, thanks to the ascetic efforts of Efim Grigoryevich Etkind , forced to emigrate to Paris, anthologies of Russian poetry and significant volume of individual poets ( Pushkin , Lermontova , Tsvetaeva ) were published - and translated into French in agreement with the Russian school Poetic translation, that is, equitymic and equiniary, "in size" and "in rhyme". Traditional French literary scholars and critics could not reconcile with such an approach to translation, hundreds of pages have already been written about this, and the most striking followers of Etkind (for example, the outstanding translator Andre Markovich) are still subjected to murderous attacks by the brothers in the mind.
RG: how much the words of Mr. Fernandez, the chairman of the jury correspond to the reality, on the presentation of the translation bonus named after M. Vaksmakher, that when translating the book of G. Apolliner "Most Most Most" "Fruit Tree" in your translation turned into a "sweaty man"?
M.Ya.: I do not have a replacement of the "fruit tree" with a "sweaty man" - this is absurd. Mr. Fernandeza (who does not speak and does not read Russian) misled - what I immediately told him - members of the jury on the French side, French Slavists, the very, apparently, adherents of a traditional French approach to a poetic translation. As far as I know, when discussing books put forward to the prize to them. M. Vaxmamer, a fierce discussion flared up around the Most Mirabeau - precisely because two views on a poetic translation irreconcibly collided. I understand that from a French point of view, my translation is “wrong”, since he is a poetic in the Russian understanding of the word. And, of course, in the place where the original is a certain word, in a Russian translation, a different, sometimes opposite in meaning, may appear in a Russian translation. The paradox of the example given by Mr. Fernandez is that this is the case when in the same place in the line, where the original is written "Chaque Arbre Frutier" ("every fruit tree") in the translation is "every branch". (This is easy to verify: the publication of the Apolliner is bilingual, and the interested reader would not be difficult to follow the nuances.) This particular case of the general problem of poetic translation says a lot.
RG: It happened that you envied some of your colleague: "How well he translated! I would like that! .. "
M.Ya.: I never thought that it would be nice for me to translate so, but I very often thought about how remarkably this or that work was translated.
RZh: For example, what other people did you admire?
M.Ya.: If we talk about French poetry, I admired the translations of Benedict Livshits all my life, brought up on them. I translated several poems, including Apolliner, after the Livshits - not because Livshits did not translate them well, but because I saw in the original some of the possibilities not realized by the translator. His work, from my point of view, is the standard of translation art.
RG: Another someone’s translations made in the twentieth century. Domestic masters, caused your admiration?
M.Ya.: Again, if we talk only about the translators of French poetry, then, first of all, this is the work of my mentor in translation, Elga Lvinetskaya: she translated mainly lyrical poems and solved amazing tasks in the field of French lyrics. In fact, French poetry in Russian culture was lucky with translators and the translation school of the twentieth century. Starting from the founders - Bryusov, Annensky, Sologub, Gumilyov, Shchepkina -Kupernik, Ellis - with all the obsolescence of poetic translation, each of them has brilliant samples not just accurate, but congenial reading of the original, even in Bryusov, which many do not always blame for letterwriting. Then the deboard -valmore and Lekont de Lil Lozinsky, the brilliant Corbier Valentina Parnach, Hugo and Verlaine George Shenheli ... A special theme is Tsvetaeva and French poetry. There are transfers that I loved in my youth, and so they live with me, although perhaps today they are drowned out by other votes: Henri de Rainier Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky, a number of Antokolsky’s translations, Laforg Vladimir Shor, Verlaine Ariadne Efron ... It seems to me an accurate “in the ten” of the small corps of translations from French poetry Gennady Shmakov. And several brilliant transfers from the premer of Mikhail Kudinov. And the amazing Valerie and Mallarm Sergey Petrov. On my (I hope, for our common) happiness, we really have a lot of excellent translations from French, which allowed E. Vodkovsky to add the unique volume of "seven centuries of French poetry." And I, of course, should name several names of our contemporaries, whose work in the field of translation of French lyrics seems to me very significant - this is the same Evgeny Vitkovsky , this is Alexander Revich , Anatoly Geleskul, Maya Kvyatkovskaya, Boris Dubin , Irina Kuznetsova , Mark Greenberg, Natalya Strizhevskaya, Elena Baevskaya, Grigory Kruzhkov , Roman Dubrovkin, Elena Kassirova, these are already deceased Yuri Stefanov and Vadim Kozova ...
RG: And how did you come to the translation?
M.Ya.: For various reasons. Firstly, I liked this activity since childhood.
RG: Was your parents somehow connected with literature?
M.Ya.: No, my father was an engineer, mother was a nurse. From the age of seven, I began to write, and in the family this eccentricity was encouraged in every possible way. So I came to the literary club at the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers, there I met many writers and made friends with many peers, who later became writers. In general, the Palace of Pioneers is a special page in the history of modern St. Petersburg literature, most of our current writers are fostering his literary club. I had wonderful teachers - first of all, Gleb Sergeyevich Semenov, a unique poet and teacher, after school I got to his studio at the House of Writers, and at the same time began to attend local translation seminars and famous translation “environment”, meetings of the artistic translation section, which took place of serious discussions of new works.
RG: Who led these seminars?
M.Ya.: Elga Lvovna Linetskaya, Efim Grigorievich Etkind, Tatyana Grigoryevna Gnedich, Alexander Markovna Koss. Serious, perennial literary studios, which were extremely important in a meticulous design of experience. I am afraid that the current young translators of such a school are not enough. An example of this is the well -known Internet “Language shop” : at least poetic translations that get there largely indicate helplessness and, above all, the absence of a school.
RG: When did you just start translating, did anyone help you with the seminar leaders? Editors, for example?
M.Ya.: When I began to communicate with publishers, of course, editors also helped. Both in the "fiction" and in the "Soviet writer" there were smart editors who were engaged in not the generally accepted ideological, namely literary editing. In addition, there was a system - it is now being revived - when the compiler of the book, an experienced person and an erudite translator, was also engaged in the editing of the text. I am always glad to participate in such books.
RG: It was such that, translating some work, you thought: “How well I translated! Now I am a professional”?
M.Ya.: I have been writing poetry from seven years old, I tried to translate from twelve years, and, of course, over the past years it has been repeatedly (and it should be) that my own work has caused satisfaction. But, in my opinion, the concepts of "good" translation and "professional" do not always coincide. I began to professionally engage in poetic translation and in general literature at twenty -five years old (after I graduated from the University of Leningrad, and worked in parallel in the publishing house, having traveled from the loader to the editor), that is, I stopped - and never began to serve. Naturally, since then I have considered and consider myself a professional, since literature is the only profession for me. But in itself, this situation cannot be a guarantee of the quality of work. I do not like some of my translations now or seem very controversial.
RJ: For example, which ones?
M.Ya.: At one time, with great pleasure, I translated Rimbo . I hope these translations are no worse than those that my predecessors made. But, despite the fact that this work of mine has earned the kind words of readers and experts, I think to translate Rimbao differently - I just don’t know exactly how. The Russian Rimbao does not at all play the revolutionary role in the poetry that he played in the language of the original. In theory, chronologically reached Rimbaea, the Russian reader must feel the amazing novelty of his poetics in relation to all previous poetry. As it was in France of the seventies and eighties of the XIX century. This does not happen. Russian Rimbae is almost a traditionalist. What, in fact, did he do? At least only one primitive thing: he began to transfer the cesura from the sixth foot to the seventh, which was revolutionary for the French verse. If you do the same in Russian, the Russian verse will not suffer from this and will not acquire anything, no revolution will follow.
RG: Did you realize that the Rimbae should be translated somehow differently, already translating his poems or even in the process of work?
M.Ya.: When he was still translating. But I would like to work in line with tradition ...
RG: And what other poets, in your opinion, are translated from us wrong? Maybe you need a new tradition to translate them into Russian?
M.Ya.: In order for a new tradition of translation to appear, you need to understand why it is needed. A tradition arises when an indisputable need appears in it.
RG: Well, you are talking about the need for a new tradition in the translation of Rimbao ...
M.Ya.: Perhaps you need to set the task of a more global order: it is not enough to imagine what place Rimbao takes in the history of French poetry, and look for how to enter it into a Russian one. This is a problem from the field of literary criticism and the history of literature, which, of course, must be decided along the way. But the main thing is the problem of language and its relationship with modern poetry. The state of the poetic language and work with it and in it, in my opinion, determine the change of traditions. Any experiments are encouraged here, if only they lead to artistically convincing results. A talented poet Igor Bulatovsky lives in St. Petersburg, who recently translated and published three books of Verlaine's poems. This is an interesting job. But what did he do? He translated the French syllabic verse of Russian Sillabik - according to him, this is how Verlaine "Hears his ear." Not being a native speaker, I don’t know how the French ear hears Verlaine, my domestic ear does not calculate the number of syllables in the French verse, but perceives the Verlaine melody, already laid in the channel of the Russian Sallabo-Toniki. Therefore, from my point of view, to translate Verlaine with a sulfic verse is to create a certain averaged and rather tongue -up image of the Russian poet of the 18th century with the easters towards modern poetry. Curious, but - why, if all this does not correspond to the "poetic" reality? Moreover, as soon as Bulatovsky leaves Sillabika and begins to translate Verlaine in harmony with tradition, he turns out to be a boring and, again, averaged, "no" translation. With all the wealth of our translation schools, we still have not come to the “dead end of the language”, which, in particular, Brodsky wrote and which requires a radical change in landmarks.
RJ: You are from St. Petersburg. There is an opinion that the St. Petersburg School of Translation is different in Moscow. In your opinion, this is so, and if so, what are the differences?
M.Ya.: The concept of Moscow and St. Petersburg (or rather, Leningrad) schools of translation formed in Soviet times and, it seems to me, was caused not by creative, but concomitant reasons for creativity. There were more opportunities in Moscow, it was easier to print, so the percentage of literary marriage was higher. So there was a myth of Moscow permissiveness, lightweight, "rampant", which "appropriate to Muscovites", in the words of Alexander Kushner . In Leningrad, it was much more difficult to get a job, to get to the poet that I wanted to translate. Therefore, our share was sometimes a more complex, more sophisticated work, which Muscovites refused for one reason or another. So there was a myth of Leningrad accuracy, the scrupulousness of the "dryness of the verse", repeating the same Kushner.
RG: Now the situation has changed?
M.Ya.: For the most part, this is a far -fetched problem. How is the Vaxmamer school different from the Steinberg school, and the Steinberg school from the Linetskaya school, and the Linetskaya school from the Gnedich school? Only by the fact that different people sat behind the desks of these schools with their individual creative attitudes. But at the same time, we were all adherents of one school, one tradition - Russian poetic translation. Geography is not so much divided as it clarifies the position and commitment to one or another of foreign crops. Vadim Kozova lived a good part of his life in Paris, Roman Dubrovkin lives in Geneva, George Ben in London. Indeed, we need to talk more about the difference in manners, creative attitudes ...
RG: What is the difference in installations then?
M.Ya.: Probably, in the very art of losses. The goat, for example, could not observe some formal features of the original, left them. He mainly translated free poems, versions, things without a tough frame - so he had a great freedom of choice of funds that he compensated, say, the loss of a certain rhythm of the original. When translating a classic, rhymed, rhythmized poem, other problems arise, other traps are in wait for other traps. Vitkovsky, in my opinion, brilliantly translated Valerie, although he introduced him in such a halo of archaization, which is not in the original. But, in my opinion, this virtuoso archaicism emphasizes philosophical and temporary detachment, extremely important for the current understanding of Valerie ... It is wonderful when there are milestones by which you can judge the translation and understand that this is a good translation. But this is not at all a difference in schools.
RG: Do you think you need to look for an analogy to translated by the poet - for example, his style?
M.Ya.: So far, I think it is necessary.
RJ: And until when? What does "bye" mean?
M.Ya.: So far we have not reached that very linguistic impasse.
RG: Is it possible in your opinion?
M.Ya.: I don't know. Over the past ten years, unexpected shifts have occurred in Russian poetry, and it is not clear what will happen in the near future. Maybe we will soon reach a new language, and, consequently, the philosophical stage of the poetic understanding of the original.
RG: Do you think French poetry affects modern domestic?
M.Ya.: It affects mine.
RJ: And on the poetry of young?
M.Ya.: Difficult question. Young are different: many do not want to know anything and feel quite self -sufficient, but others all vividly absorb.
RJ: Who, for example, absorbs vividly?
M.Ya.: I do not know everyone as good as I would like. In St. Petersburg there is a poetic school, which has been led by the poet Vyacheslav Leikin for many years in a row. This, of course, is a school of European poetic culture, including French. The influence can be very different: from direct quotes, from allusions - to picking up some modern notes that sound, first of all, thanks to the translation.
RG: Is there now, in your opinion, interesting young translators of French poetry?
М.Я.: Есть. Я знаю это не понаслышке, поскольку веду студию перевода при Французском институте в Петербурге, она существует уже пять лет.
РЖ: Ваша студия собирается каждую неделю?
М.Я.: Собираемся мы немного реже, но регулярно. Обсуждаем переводы, которые приносят сами студийцы. Недавно вышла книга новелл Даниэля Буланже в переводах нашего семинара - это была сознательно выбранная всеми общая работа. К сожалению, сейчас мало кто из молодых переводит стихи, в основном - прозу.
РЖ: Потому что перевод прозы легче? Или из-за конъюнктуры?
М.Я.: Конечно, в определенной степени это диктат конъюнктуры. Однако я не думаю, что прозу переводить легче, скорее - труднее. Но для перевода стихов нужен изначальный поэтический талант, далеко не все им обладают.
РЖ: Почему же прозу сложнее переводить?
М.Я.: При переводе прозы, как мне кажется, главное - осознать и подхватить интонацию автора, а это трудно. Поэзия, особенно классическая, проще - у нее есть каркас. Но я говорю это все именно и прежде всего как переводчик поэзии. Возможно, переводчикам прозы кажется, что сложнее переводить стихи. По большому счету - все сложно.
РЖ: На своих семинарах вы в основном обсуждаете классические тексты?
М.Я.: Совершенно разные. Если говорить о стихах, то мы разбирали французские народные песни, Верлена, Аполлинера, Рембо, Реверди, Пеги... Что касается прозы, тут широкий спектр - от классических произведений до самых современных. Кто-то из семинаристов, скажем, купил в Париже последнюю новинку - и мы обсуждаем переводы из нее. Вольному воля, но если мы отбираем что-то для общей работы, как было с Буланже, то целенаправленно работаем именно с этими текстами.
РЖ: Всегда ли читатель может почувствовать время перевода? Если оно чувствуется - хорошо это, на ваш взгляд, или плохо?
М.Я.: Как известно, и плохое, и хорошее видятся на расстоянии. Я много занимался Верленом, издал несколько книг его стихов, в которых собрал почти все его переводы. В том числе, все переводы Брюсова , к творчеству которого сейчас относятся по-разному. По некоторым его работам ясно видно, что это конец ХIХ-го - начало ХХ-го века. Есть четкие опознавательные знаки, вплоть до характерного инверсированного текста и тех самых буквализмов, которые ему справедливо ставят в вину... Но среди его переводов встречаются и блистательные, очень современные по духу, - если бы я не знал, что это Брюсов, непременно спросил бы: "Кто сейчас так замечательно переводит?" Конечно, все дело в таланте переводчика. Но, видимо, существуют еще какие-то вещи, может быть, оттенки, которые хороши на все времена. Например, у Гелескула есть какие-то "вневременные" переводы; я не понимаю, когда он их создал. Знаю, что некоторые переводы из Верлена он сделал в 1960-е, а потом что-то исправил, доперевел и послал мне в середине 1990-х. 30 лет разницы - но она не чувствуется в текстах!..
РЖ: По-вашему, к поэзии применимо понятие "старение перевода"?
М.Я.: Я совершенно согласен с моим другом Григорием Кружковым, который на этот вопрос ответил в том духе, что переводы стареют в те периоды, когда деградирует и понятие о стихах, и стихотворная техника, и что это обычно происходит одновременно. Конечно, быстрее всего устаревают ремесленные переводы, конечно, их всегда больше, чем хороших. Однако существует утверждение, с которым трудно не согласиться: "Каждое поколение имеет право на свой перевод".
РЖ: То есть новый перевод нужен примерно через каждые 30 лет?
М.Я.: Возможно, даже каждые четверть века. И все-таки каждому овощу - свое время. Сейчас, судя по всему, возникла необходимость в уточненном прочтении Пруста - вот и появляются его современные переводы. А, предположим, для Данте время нового перевода еще не настало, хотя и есть попытки перевести его заново, но они остаются в тени перевода Лозинского .
РЖ: А как почувствовать, что настало время для нового прочтения?
М.Я.: Если перевод нас эстетически и художественно удовлетворяет, зачем делать новый? Недавно в БДТ режиссер Григорий Дитятковский поставил "Федру" в переводе Михаила Лобанова 1823 года. Само по себе это любопытно, но совершенно непонятно, зачем сделано: весь спектакль актеры занимаются не своим делом - они борются с языком: с архаизмами, инверсиями, труднопроизносимыми (для них!) сочетаниями букв... Насколько я понимаю, эта борьба вовсе не входила в задачу режиссера. А ведь "Федру" последним по времени перевел Михаил Донской - легко, динамично, современно: это было оправданно и эстетически, и стилистически для шестидесятых годов, когда этот перевод создавался. Не думаю, что с тех пор возникла потребность в новой - или откорректированной старой - "Федре".
РЖ: Много ли у нас, на ваш взгляд, неудачных переводов из французской поэзии? Бывает, что в сознании читателя автор стоит со знаком "минус", хотя на самом деле эта вина переводчика.
М.Я.: Конечно, такие примеры есть.
РЖ: Вы говорите о каком-то поэте, "загубленном" переводчиком или несколькими переводчиками, или все-таки об отдельных произведениях?
М.Я.: Об отдельных произведениях. Приведу такой пример: я многому научился у Михаила Павловича Кудинова, хотя не был с ним знаком...
РЖ: Его же в ответе на этот вопрос упомянул и Б.В.Дубин ...
М.Я.: Итак, что, скажем, сделал Кудинов с Аполлинером ? Он точно понял место Аполлинера во французской поэзии: тот завершил классическую традицию и открыл новые поэтические горизонты. Какой поэт занимает соответствующее место в русской литературе? Блок . И выбор такого ориентира был правильным. Однако следующий шаг переводчика был ошибочным: Кудинов стал переводить Аполлинера стихом Блока. В "Литературных памятниках" Аполлинер в значительной мере переведен дольником, что не соответствует ни строю французского стиха, ни представлениям о поэзии Аполлинера... Эти переводы - при многих достоинствах, все-таки Кудинов открыл для широкой аудитории русских читателей Аполлинера, - не соответствуют оригиналу, вряд ли их можно считать удачей.
РЖ: Были у вас идеальные совпадения с автором?
М.Я.: Надеюсь. Конечно, интереснее всего переводить близкого тебе поэта. Мне близка поэзия французского декаданса, "проклятые" поэты, не так давно я собрал большую антологию "проклятых". В том числе, моих любимых - Корбьера, Кро, Лафорга. Лафорг вообще интересен как поэт, совместивший в своем творчестве две линии - французскую и немецкую. Как это совмещение переводить на русский? Наконец, ирония: самобичевание Корбьера, издевка Кро, "скрипучая меланхолия" Лафорга... В этих стихах я чувствую родственные себе мотивы, поэтому меня к ним просто тянет.
РЖ: Каких авторов или жанры вы никогда бы не стали переводить, потому что понимаете, что это не ваше?
М.Я.: Я не стал бы переводить большие эпические поэмы. Это совершенно точно не мое.
РЖ: Потому что для этого нужно длинное дыхание?
М.Я.: Вы правы, весьма длинное. Хотя я и перевел "Эрмосу" Вилье де Лиль Адана, в которой почти 1500 строк, и почти такую же длинную "Юную Парку" Валери... И все-таки, у каждого свое дыхание - это нужно не только чувствовать, но и понимать.