Rosy Carrick, a “poet, playwright, performer and translator” who “has a PhD on the poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky, and has released two books of his work in translation,” has put online her version of Mayakovsky’s Что ни страница — то слон, то львица [On every page a lion or an elephant], and it’s an admirable presentation, with a large image of each original page with an illustration by Kirill Zdanevich (brother of Il’ia — see this LH post) followed by her translation. She hasn’t tried to rhyme her lines, which is probably a wise decision, but that makes it hard to understand why she renders председатель ‘chairman’ by “Party Leader” on the first page (chairmanship had nothing to do with Party membership) and omits Америки ‘America’ on the last (replacing it with the vague “hotter climes”). But never mind, it’s a nice thing to have online and I hope there are many more such webpages.
For those who read Russian, Lev Oborin’s wonderful Polka site (see this LH post) has put up an awe-inspiring roster of 77 Russian travel accounts, from the medieval (Афанасий Никитин. Хождение за три моря, 1469–1474) to the very modern (Эдуард Лимонов. Старик путешествует, 2020). I applaud their ongoing efforts to document and promulgate the history of Russian literature.
an awe-inspiring roster of 77 Russian travel accounts
Seriously awe-inspiring. I’ve heard of maybe half a dozen of them, vaguely heard of perhaps half a dozen more; I don’t recall a single one that I could definitely say I’ve read, though for a few (Vodopyanov and Senkevich, in particular) I highly suspect I did.
I’m a fan of travelogues myself, but offhand I can’t think of many old ones I’ve read (pre-1930, say), which is somewhat inconvenient given the chronology of the roster. Anton Krotov is just one among many (and there isn’t a good way to choose just one of his books, anyway). Nikolay Drozdov mostly did his travelogues on TV (though I do have a book). Karel Čapek, of course, wasn’t even Russian.
I can recommend Karamzin’s Письма русского путешественника and Goncharov’s Фрегат «Паллада»; they both make for lively reading.
She hasn’t tried to rhyme her lines, which is probably a wise decision
I see a lot of rhyming in the translation.
she renders председатель ‘chairman’ by “Party Leader”
Lion
Not a king
instead
He was made a president
omits Америки ‘America’ on the last (replacing it with the vague “hotter climes”)
America = US is too strong a contaminant.
Mayakovsky is a great poet, but not a good children’s writer. Breaks the first rule of the trade, don’t talk down to children.
Her page image links are dead for me, unfortunately. They use cross-site scripting, with an insecure https that my browser is unhappy with.
America = US is too strong a contaminant.
I wholeheartedly agree. “America” (singular) would not be an accurate translation when Mayakovsky is, in fact, talking about what we normally call in English “the Americas,” not one particular country. “Hotter climes” is fine, but if one were to make it a singular country, it would have to be one in which New World monkeys are to be found.
Good point. I withdraw my gripe.
Fonvizin’s account of France in 1777-1778:
“My stay in this country has greatly reduced its value in my opinion. I found the good to be much less than I imagined; and the bad in a degree that I could not even imagine”
And it also quotes one Russian navigator’s idea how travelogues should be written:
“We write what we observe and what we do not observe, we do not write”
An excellent principle.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
(A subversive principle if applied to posting comments on the Internet, of course. If put into effect, it would undermine the entire ecosystem …)
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man eine SMS schreiben.
Lion
Not a king
instead
He was made a president
Pretty much, yes, though of course this misses almost all of the style and subtext (which admittedly isn’t very translatable anyway).
I personally prefer Boris Zakhoder’s take, from the Fuzzy Alphabet that I previously mentioned on LH last week…
Считался Лев царём зверей,
Но это было встарь.
Не любят в наши дни царей,
И Лев — уже не царь.
Душил он зверски всех подряд,
Свирепо расправлялся,
А правил плохо, говорят.
С делами не справлялся.
Теперь сидит он присмирев,
И перед ним — ограда.
Он недоволен, этот Лев,
Но так ему и надо!
[Very rough approximation in English:
The Lion was considered the king of beasts,
But that was a long time ago.
They don’t like kings these days,
And the Lion is no longer a king.
He brutally strangled everyone,
Fiercely destroyed,
And he ruled badly, they say,
Didn’t do his work well.
Now he sits, subdued,
And in front of him is a fence.
He’s unhappy, this Lion,
But that’s what he deserves!]
Beautiful!
“С делами не справлялся.” Like, he couldn’t handle the workflow. Well put. Zakhoder had an agreeable sense of humor.
I personally prefer Boris Zakhoder’s take
I later realized (but forgot to mention here until now) that, as much as Zakhoder’s version is more acceptable, Mayakovsky’s version is a lot more practical: “What do you mean, the king? Do you seriously think us so barbaric as to still have a king? Oh, no, he’s merely the Supreme Chancellor.”
(Technically, Mayakovsky’s term here translates as “chairman” – which probably implied something not unlike Mao Zedong’s position as Chairman of the People’s Republic of China.)
No, I don’t think so. Every official group had a chairman in those days; the point was there were no Supreme Rulers, just humble, honest chairpersons.
Every official group had a chairman in those days
In particular, the official title of the Soviet head of state was “Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets”… at the time, Mikhail Kalinin, who didn’t actually have that much power (Stalin, who held the power, had a very different title that didn’t have “Chairman” in it).
It does come across as “we renamed the king position” at first glance (to me, at least), but of course Mao Zedong was long after Mayakovsky.
instead
He was made a president
…I just realized that пред-сед-ат-ель is quite literally pre-sid-e-nt, though of course this isn’t what the word means synchronically (probably not even in Mayakovsky’s time). I suspect it was calqued at some point.
It does come across as “we renamed the king position” at first glance (to me, at least)
Just to you, I think — or rather, to you and other moderns. If you think about it, you’ll realize that couldn’t possibly be how it was taken at the time; Mayakovsky wasn’t in the business of poking the Soviet rulers with a sharp stick.
Not even! Chairman of the Communist Party of China. Much like Kalinin, there was a figurehead president of the People’s Republic for a while.
Predsednik is actually used for “president” farther south.
Not even! Chairman of the Communist Party of China.
My original text mentioned Xi Jinping (who did hold the title of Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, though by his time the title was usually translated to “President” rather than “Chairman”), then I emended to Mao Zedong, and apparently forgot to confirm that the title was in fact exactly the same.
(Though Wikipedia says that Mao Zedong was, in fact, the first Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, in 1954-59, before the title was transferred to the figurehead, and later left vacant for a while when the figurehead holder fell out of favor. So maybe I did confirm that Mao held this specific title, and then misunderstood the timing.)
The most commonly held substantive title of the preeminent leaders of the communist China has been “chairman of the Central Military Commission.” Most of the time, the preeminent leader has also been the head of the Communist Party (although the title associated with that position has changed); however, Deng Xiaoping opted not to be the party head, preferring to wield control through the Central Advisory Commission and the People’s Liberation Army.
Predsednik is actually used for “president” farther south.
And to the north(-west) as well:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forseti
Footnote 2 was a surprise: “In Chinese the President of the PRC is termed zhǔxí while the Presidents of other countries are termed zǒngtǒng. Furthermore zhǔxí continues to have the meaning of ‘chairman’ in a generic context.”
I knew the terms, but not that nobody in China is actually called zǒngtǒng.