Marshak and Burns: “rivals in verse”

30.09.2024

Marshak and Burns: “rivals in verse”

30 September is International Translator's Day. On the eve of the holiday, linguists gathered in the conference hall of the Tula Regional Scientific Library for the first in this academic year event of the Linguistic and Country Studies Lecture Hall ‘Burns and Marshak: Great Poet and Great Translator’.

Thousands of kilometers and 130 years separate Burns and Marshak, but it is thanks to Marshak`s genius of translation many people in Russia got to know Scotland and discovered this beautiful country of Scotland and its great poet.

There is a saying about Burns in the UK: “When Scotland forgets Burns, the world will forget Scotland.” Marshak himself said: “One Burns would be enough to make us friends with Scotland forever”.

The guests of the lecture were the first-year students of the department of Linguistics and Translation, schoolchildren and English language teachers from partner education centers in Tula and Shchyokino.

Olesya Nikolayevna Filina, a deputy of Tula City Duma and director of the Gymnasium №11 named after Alexander and Oleg Troyanovskih welcomed the participants and guests of the Linguistic and Country Studies Lecture Hall.

The director of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences presented certificates of honour to Mariya Vyacheslavovna Anikushina, Lyudmila Vasilyevna Girenko, Lyubov Arkadyevna Ilyushkina, Tatyana Rudolfovna Koloskova (Gymnasium №11 named after Alexander and Oleg Troyanovskih), Olga Sergeyevna Burmistrova (MBGEI CE №190, Tatyana Andreyevna Voldayeva (MBGEI Lyceum №2 named after Boris Anatolyevich Slobodskov), Olga Anatolyevna Glaz (Tula Suvorov Military Training School), Vera Nikolayevna Leonova (MBGEI ”Lyceum”, Shyokino city), Yekaterina Nilolayevna Litvinova (MBGEI CE №33), Yelena Aleksandrovna Ludanova (MBGEU CE №3) for active participation in the projects of Linguistic and Country Studies Lecture Hall.

The holiday programme was quite diverse! Anastasiya Budoragina, Vasilisa Sidorova, Mark Pikalov, Yegor Hristoforov read Burns' poems in English and in Marshak's translation.

Kirill Gudkov amazed everyone with his recitation of the poem “O, Wert Thou In The Cauld Blast, On Younder Lea, On Yonder Lea” in the Scottish dialect of English, known to all of us in Marshak's translation as ‘In the fields under snow and rain’.

Ruslan Anteyev, Gleb Kushnir, Mariya Kvasnikova, Yekaterina Petukhova, Nikolay Semenko and Yuliya Tankina made a presentation in English about the life of the Scottish poet, and Ananstasiya Borushkova, Viktoriya Volkova, Yekaterina Drozhzhina and Karina Slyotina introduced the audience to the stages of Samuel Marshak's life and work.

Yana Krygina, Madina Smirnova, Mari Akopyan, Alexey Gladkov, Kseniya Romanova, Aysu Halilli and Yekaterina Goncharova initiated the audience to the subtleties of Burns' poetic translation.

One cannot but agree that translating poetry is the Everest of the translation art. Vasiiliy Andreevich Zhukovsky once said: “A translator in prose is a slave, a translator in verse is a rival.” It turns out that Burns and Marshak are ‘rivals in verse’!

Thanks to dramatic staging of the Scottish bard's ballads, such as “Johnnie Blunt” (or “Get Up And Bar The Door”), and Marshak's poetic translation of “Old Woman, Close the Door!” performed by Angelina Gasparyan, Tatyana Ilyushina, Irina Kitayeva, Sofiya Naumova, Viktor Rozhkov, Yegor Solovyov, Sofiya Geraskina, Kirill Gudkov, Timofey Kondratenko, the audience had an interesting opportunity to compare the original and the translation.

The musical items were a real highlight of the evening. The audience was particularly delighted by the duet of Yekaterina Petukhova and Grigoriy Filin. They performed in English the old folk ballad “The Keys of Canterbury”, arranged and recorded by Burns. In Marshak's free translation, this folk ballad is known as “Three Gifts”.

Marshak's translations are so melodious that they have inspired many composers and musicians to create masterpieces and thus Robert Burns became the author of the songs for some domestic films.

Many in the hall were surprised at how many familiar lines actually belong to the pen of the Scottish poet: “There is no peace in my soul” from the film “Office Romance”, “My love has fallen out of love with me” from the film “Say a Word For the Poor Hussar”.

Remember the song ‘Love and Poverty’ from the much-loved film ‘Hello, I'm Your Aunt!’? Ulvikhan Gafarov`s speech reminded the audience these are also Burns' words translated by Marshak!

Not only linguists take part in the projects of the Linguistic and Country Studies Lecture Hall. Irina Kiselyova, a student of the Medical Institute, performed the song ‘Love Like a Red Rose’ from the film ‘School Waltz’.

By the way, Irina Kiselyova and Karina Slyotina, who recited the poem in the original ‘A Red, Red Rose’, this year received a special jury prize at the IV-th Interregional Song Text Translation Contest ‘Love Stories - Love in Translation’, which was held under the auspices of the Russian Translators' Union. According to the terms of the contest Karina had to not only translate Madonna's song ‘Masterpiece’ from English into Russian, but also to present this translation product, in which she was helped by the performer Irina Kiselyova.

The evening ended beautifully with the song ‘Auld Lang Syne’ (translated by Marshak as ‘Old Friendship’), which did not leave any of the participants and guests indifferent.

The Department of Linguistics and Translation expresses its gratitude to the Tula Regional Library for hospitality, organisation of the excursion for first-year students and a special book exhibition dedicated to the works of the great translator Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak.

And we congratulate all present and future translators - teachers, students and graduates of the Department of Linguistics and Translation on their professional holiday!

Sergey Pukhanov

Photographs by Ilya Hodakovskiy