Perevod - tvorčeskaja rabota! [05-01-1936] - [D124]

Concise description of the directive:

Chronicle of the 1st Congress of Translators’ Meeting (Vsesoyuznoe soveshchaniye perevedochikov) and speech by Iohann Altman on translations: Naturalistic translation, in this case, can be compared not to the performance of a virtuoso, but rather to soulless drumming.
In this way, the fight against the vulgar literal translation (doslovshchina), combined with the desire to convey the author’s thought as accurately as possible, is a fight for the translator’s general high culture, his high taste and artistic sensitivity, his penetration into the depths of the culture that gave birth to the author he is translating. Only such a translation can be called a creative translation. Only on this condition will the translated work vitally and truthfully reflect the original.
The second danger is formalistic translation. This danger is particularly great in poetry, when in favour of rhythm, melody and the sound form of verse, its meaning, its cognitive value, is distorted.
The creative translation of poetry requires the preservation of content, form, observance of measure, rhythm and the entire poetic system.
A true creative translation combines adequacy of content and form. Such is Gnedich’s translation of the Iliad, such is Zhukovsky’s translation of the Odyssey.
Formalistic translation in terms of content is almost always a gratuitous and Pharisaic translation, against which we must fight with great determination. The naturalist and the formalist unite in the distortion of the original. The one deifies every word and comma of the original, considering them an end in themselves, the other only deifies the form of the work.
The third evil is impressionism in translation. Translators of this order are essentially ‘portraitists’. They are translators who act according to their own whim. The impressionistic translator encompasses all the flaws of naturalistic and formalistic translation.