Towards the Description of “Philological Translation” in the 1930-s: Adrian A. Frankovsky as Translator of the 18 th Century English Novel

The first part of the article describes the phenomenon of “philological translation” in the Soviet culture of the 1930s and, in particular, translations of the 18 th century English novels by Adrian A. Frankovsky. Within the Soviet culture with its dominating Marxist discourse, “idealistic” philosop...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Maria E. Malikova
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature 2017-09-01
Series:Studia Litterarum
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Online Access:http://studlit.ru/images/2017-2-3/Malikova.pdf
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Summary:The first part of the article describes the phenomenon of “philological translation” in the Soviet culture of the 1930s and, in particular, translations of the 18 th century English novels by Adrian A. Frankovsky. Within the Soviet culture with its dominating Marxist discourse, “idealistic” philosophical-aesthetic foundations of philological translation were absent from critical reviews or translators’ paratexts. However, these concepts were well familiar to translators from the university philosophical and philological habitus, to which Frankovsky also belonged, and were presented in a number of theoretical and historical works on translation authored by such university professors as Fyodor D. Batyushkov, Mikhail P. Alexeev, and Alexandеr M. Finkel’. Their brief overview allows to trace the ori gins of Frankovsky’s concept of translation. The second part of the article is based on the draft materials preserved in Frankovsky’s archive (Manuscript Department of Pushkin House, Fund 132). Their analysis allows to demonstrate Frankovsky’s individual orientation within the field of philological translation. Frankovsky was focused on literal reproduction of the foreign syntax in the Russian language and thus endeavored to construct a more intellectual, rational, “European” Russian language. There are also striking parallels between Frankovsky’s interest in humor as the dominant of the early English novel and his conveyance of indirect speech (as it was analyzed within German linguistic school of Carl Vossler) with similar interests of Mikhail M. Bakhtin at the same time. This allows us to place Frankovsky’s translations within the cultural context that remained unnoticed by his contemporaries.
ISSN:2500-4247
2541-8564