Three translations of one poem by Ai Qing as representations of the three epochs in Russian poetry

The subject of the study are Russian poetic translations of the Soviet era as a phenomenon of Russian literature, their dependence on the dominant ideological and aesthetic attitudes, as well as – in some cases – on the artistic trends. The object of the analysis is the poem "I Love this Land" (1938) by Ai Qing, that belongs to Chinese cultural canon, as well as three Russian translations of it made by representatives of different generations: poet A. I. Gitovich (the text was published in 1952), sinologist L. E. Cherkassky (1978) and psycholinguist Yu. A. Sorokin (1981). The translations are compared with the original text and with each other; the nature and extent of the transformation of the original text are evaluated; the translations themselves are considered in the cultural context of their time. A comparative analysis has showed how modernist features of poetics are smoothed out in the 1952 translation (by Gitovich) (verlibre is rendered by rhythmized verse, some cause-and-effect relationships are clarified, etc.), Chinese poem is "domesticated" by introducing cliches; some elements of the original content are eliminated as not corresponding to the "correct" picture of the world. Cherkassky's translation, which is closest to the original, reveals the results of the translator's consistent and creative attention to modernist Chinese poetry, that became possible during the "Thaw". Sorokin's translation, polemically opposed to the traditions of translating Chinese poetry, turns out to be the most radical, which makes it possible to see in it a reflection of the aesthetic trends of the "second avant-garde". In the works devoted to Ai Qing's poetry rendering in Russia, some transformations to which his poems were subjected have been already noted; in our article, an attempt is made not only to to describe such transformations consistently, but also to offer their explanation.

Ai Qing, vers libre, problems of poetic translation, modernism, Russian poetry, A. I. Gitovich, Yu. V. Sorokin, L. E. Cherkassky, Chinese poetry, literary contacts