”Ylevää taidetta, tiedettä ja työväenkulttuuria” – Kornei Tšukovskin käännöskriittiset esseet vuosilta 1919–1936

Authors

• Merja Suomi Itä-Suomen yliopisto

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61200/mikael.129650

Keywords:

Kornei Chukovsky, Vysokoe iskusstvo, history of Russian translation

Abstract

Kornei Chukovsky’s (1882–1969) article about the principles of literary translation appeared first in 1919. It was part of the educational material for translation courses at the publishing house Vsemirnaya literatura (“World Literature”), and it advocated a new, scientific view on translation. Chukovsky continued working on the article, correcting and complementing it for new editions. In 1936, it was published as a book known today by the title Vysokoe iskusstvo (“A High Art”). My paper discusses the first four editions, which appeared in 1919, 1920, 1930, and 1936. During that time, the atmosphere in the Soviet Union gradually changed. With Stalin’s raising in power, the relatively free atmosphere of the Revolution era was smothered by the tightening and all-embracing control of the Party. The idea of international socialism was replaced with the idea of “socialism in one country”. My analysis will show how the tenor of Chukovsky’s text changes along with the climate. Hence the first four editions can be divided in two groups: those of the revolutionary epoch and those of the Stalin epoch.