Lately, I’ve been on a big Russian literature kick. I read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace for the first time a couple of months ago, and I’m working my way through some Dostoyevsky right now. There seems to be something magnetic about Russian literature; it stands apart from other genres in a way that’s difficult to describe. I find the genre intensely relatable yet foreign enough to provide a novel perspective on human nature. The stories are gripping, with just enough romance to give them a patina of tragedy. They are full of timeless moral dilemmas and social quandaries that remain pertinent across time and space, despite the innumerable cultural divides that exist between 19th-century Russia and 21st-century America. I credit the timelessness of the Russian greats to the fact that their writing is rooted in and constructed around the humanness of their stories. At the end of the day, the plots rely only nominally on time and place and substantively on people and relationships—the setting is merely a catalyst for the social entanglements that are so distinct in Russian literature.
There is, of course, a problem with Russian literature: it was written in Russian, not English. When I began diving into the genre, I thought very little of this problem. The translators usually leave a note at the beginning of the book describing their methodology and justifying their decisions. I was content with this arrangement and proceeded to read without much concern. However, my perspective quickly changed when I began reading the work of Alexander Pushkin.
When most people think about Russian literature, the likes of Tolstoy, Chekov, and Dostoyevsky are usually called to mind. However, if you ask a Russian person about Russian literature, one of the first names to arise will likely be Alexander Pushkin. Pushkin is one of the original Russian greats, most famous for his novel in verse, Eugene Onegin (Yoo-Jeen Oh-NYEH-gn). By many accounts, Pushkin’s work was the genesis of the Russian novel as we know it. Pushkin either directly or indirectly inspired virtually every subsequent work of Russian literature throughout the 19th century. The JBU library has an excellent book on this topic for readers who may be interested in the lineage of Russian literature: The Rise of the Russian Novel by Richard Freeborn.
Pushkin stands apart because he was a poet. He wrote in a consistent meter and rhyming pattern, which, when extended to the length of a novel, paints a vibrant picture that reads more like a flashing memory than a tangible series of events. My words cannot do his justice, so below is an excerpt from Eugene Onegin. If you want to avoid spoilers, read past; otherwise, I will give some context in the next sentence. The following excerpt is three poetic stanzas from the climax of the novel when the protagonist, Eugene Onegin,is about to duel his former friend, Vladimir Lensky. It is the moment of highest emotional tension when one of these close friends meets a violent and untimely end. Pushkin masterfully builds tension through his verse and ropes the reader into the moment as it hangs heavy in the air:
Pistols are out, they gleam, the hammer
thumps as the balls are pressed inside
faceted muzzles by the rammer;
with a first click, the catch is tried.
Now powder’s greyish stream is slipping
into the pan. Securely gripping,
the jagged flint’s pulled back anew.
Guillot, behind a stump in view,
stands in dismay and indecision.
And now the two opponents doff
their cloaks; Zaretsky’s measured off
thirty-two steps with great precision,
and on their marks has made them stand;
each grips his pistol in his hand.
‘Now march.’ And calmly, not yet seeking
to aim, at steady, even pace
the foes, cold-blooded and unspeaking,
each took four steps across the space,
four fateful strides. Then, without slowing
the level tenor of his going,
Evgeny quietly began
to lift his pistol up. A span
of five more steps they went, slow-gaited,
and Lensky, left eye closing, aimed—
but just then Eugene’s pistol flamed…
The clock of doom had struck as fated;
and the poet, without a sound,
let fall his pistol to the ground.
Vladimir drops, hand softly sliding
to heart. And in his misted gaze
is death, not pain. So gently gliding
down slopes of mountains, when a blaze
of sunlight makes it flash and crumble,
a block of snow will slip and tumble.
Onegin, drenched with sudden chill,
darts to the boy, and looks, and still
calls out his name… All unavailing:
the youthful votary of rhyme
has found an end before his time.
The storm is over, dawn is paling,
the bloom has withered on the bough;
the altar flame’s extinguished now.
It was verses like these that prompted me to question the role of the translator in foreign literature. Unlike in traditional novels, the power of this scene is made all the more potent by the rhyme and meter Pushkin employs. By restricting the number of syllables on each line and committing to a particular pattern of rhymes, each word must be carefully selected to suit the purpose of the story, the effect of which is an extremely vivid scene that is made all the more dynamic by the absence of excessive details. The question then is: how on earth could a person possibly translate all the subtleties of these verses into English without losing the whole essence of the poem?
When I had finished reading Eugene Onegin, I was distraught. I couldn’t help but wonder what I was losing by reading the book in English. I don’t speak Russian, and I have neither the time nor the skills to learn it, so what am I to do? I had chronic FOMO for the original text of the book, which I could not read. It was among these existential questions that I began to develop an appreciation for the role of the translator, and I started to understand their work as an art form in and of itself.
There is an unspoken relationship between the reader and the translator that I was wholly unaware of until then. Translation requires immense skill and dedication, especially in poetry, and the reader must resign themselves to this fact and learn to trust the translator. This sacred bond of trust is just as much a part of the book as the book itself. When you read the above verses, you are not alone with Alexander Pushkin. There is another man whose name appears in small letters on the back of the book: Charles Johnston. Charles Johnston is not the only man who has translated Eugene Onegin, but he did translate this particular edition, so he is just as much a part of the story as the original author. As you read, you must trust that Charles has made good decisions in his translation and has done everything in his power to communicate the intent of Pushkin. However, the translation will never be one-to-one, so you must accept and embrace the fact that Charles’ invisible fingerprints are all over the text, and they have impacted your experience of the story whether you are aware of it or not. This is why the translator’s notes, so often overlooked, are just as critical as the novel. The translator’s notes, often only a few paragraphs long, are where the translator attempts to win over the reserved trust of their reader and convince them that they are a sufficiently skilled artist worthy of trust.
I say that translation is an art because it is anything but mechanical, and it is often a destructive process. Charles Johnston illuminates this fact in his translator’s notes at the beginning of the book: “Few foreign masterpieces can have suffered more than Eugene Onegin from the English translator’s failure to convey anything more than—at best—the literal meaning. It is as if a sound-proof wall separated Pushkin’s poetic novel from the English-reading world. There is a whole magic which goes by default: the touching lyrical beauty, the cynical wit of the poem; the psychological insight, the devious narrative skill, the thrilling, compulsive grip of the novel; the tremendous gusto and swing and panache of the whole performance…”
This translator’s note is one of the best I’ve read, and I find the admission of shortcomings compelling and trustworthy enough for me to put my faith in the translation. I am eternally grateful for the work done by translators, particularly those who translate poetry. Without them, none of us would even be aware of Alexander Pushkin, much less have read his wonderful works of poetic literature. I have come to embrace translation as an amorphous art form that is ingrained in the experience of reading foreign works. Since I cannot learn Russian to the extent that I can verify the accuracy of the translation myself, I must trust the translator and follow them as a guide. I must come to appreciate the translator almost as a second author, whose loving embrace of foreign literature has enabled multitudes to enjoy classic works alongside them.