One
Story, Two Translations: A.S.Pushkin’s BARYSHNYA-KRESTYANKA
-A.
Charumati Ramdas
A.S.Pushkin’s works
have been translated into many languages of the world. I have selected a Hindi
and an English translation of BARYSHNYA-KRESTYANKA and compared them to show
how much deviation from the original has taken place in both these translations,
how do they differ stylistically, how the translators have translated the
culture specific expressions and what sort of liberty is enjoyed by them.
But before I come
to the actual comparison, it would be nice to have a look at the story and a
few related facts.
BARYSHNYA-KRESTYANKA
– LADY INTO LASSE in its English version and
PREM MILAN in its Hindi avatar – happens to be the last in “The Tales
of Ivan Petrovich Belkin”. It is a simple love story with some elements of
adventure.
Pushkin starts in the ‘Romeo-Juliet’ way to
describe that the fathers of Liza and Alexei – Muromsky and Berestov
respectively, though neighbours, hated each other. When young Alexei came to
the village, Liza, who had heard a lot about him, could not restrain herself
from meeting him; but aware of the enmity between the fathers, she meets him in
the guise of a village-belle Akulina. They both fall for each other, and
surprisingly, the enmity between Muromsky and Berestov turns into friendship. They
even decide to marry off their wards. Unaware of the true identity of Akulina,
Alexei decides to tell Liza the truth that he was in love with someone else. He
comes alone to Muromsky household and sees that his Akulina is Liza indeed.
Thus, the story ends on a happy note.
Pushkin has
conveyed this romantic episode in his beautiful, lucid, vivid, picturesque
style. As was the fashion those days, here and there some phrases in French,
English and Latin are inserted; the works and characters of literary works of
famous Russian writers cited; some events, depicting the judicial and educational
practices of those days also find reflection in the story. Let us see how the
two translations have dealt with these.
The English
translation ( by IVY and TATIANA LITVINOV) was published in 1954 by FOREIGN
LANGUAGES PUBLISHING HOUSE, Moscow, which was again published by Progress
Publishers, with very few modifications here and there, in 1974, but here, the name of the translator is missing.
The same Progress Publishers brought out the Hindi Translation in 1982.
Translator is Dr. Madan Lal ‘Madhu’. While the English translations clearly
mention that they are translated from Russian, the Hindi translation does not
mention that it is directly translated from Russian. The English version bears
the title LADY INTO LASSE, while Dr ‘Madhu’ calls it PREM MILAN. It is obvious that both these versions of the
title are far from the original: BARYSHNYA-KRESTYANKA. Probably “Lady
into Rustic” for English and “Malkin – Dehaatin” for Hindi would have conveyed
the idea of the story in a better way.
English, Hindi and
Russian, being languages of the same family, both the translations seem quite
honest, nearer to the original and the translators do not seem to have taken
much of liberty during the process of translation. But there are certain
differences in both these versions; sometimes they even deviate from the
original. Let’s have a look at few of them.
There are two types
of dresses mentioned in the original: Srtyuk and Sarafan. The word Sertyuk is not found in any dictionary, it is a long
shirt or coat like thing; but Sarafan is found in dictionaries and its meaning is
given as a long dress which peasant women wear over the blouse with full
sleeves. It could even be likened to modern maxie or Choga. But both the
translators have used frock-coat for Sertyuk and Sarafan for
Sarafan without explaining them in the foot notes which are in abundance
in the Hindi version and a few in the English one. Similarly Samovar is
also retained as Samovar in both these translations, while Samovar
needed an explanation.
The noun Opekunsky
Sovet, which means ‘Council of
Trustees’ is rendered in English as ‘Court of Chancery’ – the translator has
made it a proper noun and converted it into a British Judiciary organ; the
Hindi version describes it as ‘Sanrakshan Parishad’ which is nearer to the
original.
Versta – a
measure of distance in old Russia which was equal to 1.06 kms – is retained as
‘versts’ and ‘versta’ respectively by both the translators. Here, a foot note,
explaining ‘versta’ would have been better.
Tatiana Litvinov
has translated Russian word зойло as a proper noun Zoilus: he dubbed the
rural Zoilus a bear and a provincial; while Dr Madhu preferred to replace
it by आलोचक. The original
meaning of ‘зойло’
is one who wishes evil to someone; Pushkin calls him своего зойло. So, here both the versions have failed to give
correct word. Perhaps evil-wisher and अशुभ चिंतक would
have been a better choice of words.
While describing
Liza Pushkin has used adjective Балованное, which means:
1) Pampered
and 2) Spoilt.
Both the
translators have used both these meanings at once, and thus depicted that their
heroine as spoilt and petted and लाड़ प्यार से बिगड़ी हुई.
This has given a negative trait to her character, while
Liza was a well-educated, well mannered, obedient, adventurous girl. Pampered
and लाडली would have done justice to the beautiful
and naughty Liza.
Dr. Madhu has even
changed ‘oh’ into ‘Ari’. Pushkin gives the dialogue as, «Да нет, нехорошо....Ах, Настя! Знаешь ли што? Наряжусь я крестьянкой!»
Да нет, нехорошо is given in English
as Oh, that would never do! And in Hindi it is given as अरी नहीं, ऐसा करना
अच्छा नहीं होगा. Both of them had to use long, unnecessary
sentences. In addition to that अरी shows as if Nastya
is Liza’s friend, while, on the contrary, she was her servant. Oh, no, it’s
not good! and नहीं, ये ठीक नहीं है would
probably be nearer to the original. Madhu is always using अरी and प्यारी
for Nastya which changes the relationship between the two characters.
Dr Madhu
also seems to have developed his own style, while the English version is in the
bookish (high) style, even the word order of Russian is disturbed in the least.
Dr. Madhu uses double nouns and phrases even where not necessary: Свет и жизнь is translated into
English as ‘Life & Society’ and in Hindi as दीन-दुनिया;
Навык
света
as ‘Ways of Society’ and ऊँचे समाज के
रंग-ढंग; Стройный стан as graceful figure and सुघड़-सुडौल काठी;
Белилась
as ‘enameled her cheeks and चेहरे को चिकनाती-चमकाती etc.
The effect created by Dr. Madhu takes the reader away from Pushkin’s style.
Dr. Madhu is also
very liberal in giving foot notes. He has explained quite a few socio-cultural
events, which the reader, according to him, would not have properly understood.
The first foot note is about the 18th century poet Bogdanovich, this
is explained even by Tatiana Litvinov.
Describing Alexei,
Pushkin has written that he wanted to join armed forces while his father wanted
him to join the civil services. Neither of them would give in and in the
meantime, Alexei lived the life of a gentleman at large, cultivating a
moustache so as to be ready for any exigency. Pushkin himself does not give any
explanation regarding this exigency, nor does Tatiana Litvinov; but Dr Madhu
writes in the foot note: उस ज़माने में सरकारी कर्मचारियों के लिये
दाढ़ी-मूँछ रखने की कड़ी मनाही थी, किंतु सैनिकों के लिये मूँछें रखना अनिवार्य था. This
foot note helps readers to understand the reason for Alexei’s having moustache.
Then there is a
foot note regarding the German romantic writer John Paul Richter, and another
about the authorship of ‘Pamela’; yet another about the Lancaster Method of
education and two more about famous Russian writers of early XIX century:
Karamzin and Fonvizin. It is note-worthy that all these foot notes are missing
in the English version. Dr. Madanlal Madhu deserves appreciation for the same.
The English version
does not give even those foot notes which are present in the original.
A.S.Pushkin has used certain expressions in French, Latin and English in the
text of the story, which are explained in the original in Russian. Dr. Madhu
has explained one Latin and four French expressions into Hindi in the foot notes,
he even went to the extent of translating ‘My Dear’ in his foot notes saying
this is an expression of English which means मेरी प्यारी. I
think this is the height of his understanding of an Indian
reader’s educational level. The English version has avoided all these foot
notes except the one in Latin.
The paper won’t be
complete if I don’t mention Dr. Madhu’s use of dialect in the Hindi translation.
When Liza, in the
guise of Akulina, meets Alexei, she speaks in the local dialect. But Pushkin
does not give Akulina’s speech in that dialect, nor did Litvinov try to do so,
but Dr. Madhu probably thought that this would enrich the text and so, he
inserted a dialect (of course, of his own) into Akulina’s mouth, but it has horribly
spoilt the beauty of the original. Here are some examples of how this dialect
reads like:
देखत तो कैसो
डरावनो, फेर मो पर झपटत exclaims Akulina, scared
of Alexei’s dog. Please note the forms of the two verbs: She uses the form देखत
for second person, which is addressed to Alexei (“look,
how dreadful it is”) and she uses the same form of verb as झपटत
with reference to the dog which is obviously in the third
person.
Again, when Alexei
seeks permission to accompany her she says: सड़क सभी की होत, जो
चाहे चलत, about herself she says, वासिली लुहार की
बेटी, खुमिया बटोरन जात. At various other places
too, it is observed that the verb in Dr. Madhu’s dialect always has the suffix –त,
no matter whether it is in the present tense or past; whether the sentence is
in imperative or nominative mood; the subject is in singular or in plural;
masculine or feminine! Except for the verb, all other words in her sentences
are from modern language. For example: कुंज में साहब के साथ अकेली बोलत-बतियात;
कसम खावत, पावन सलीब की कसम खावत, ऐसो वचन भी देवत कि जो मिलन हम नियत करत, वा के
अतिरिक्त मिलन ना करन चाहत. Obviously, कुंज, कसम, मिलन,
वचन, अतिरिक्त do not belong to the same register. The situation
is made very ridiculous by this dialect. It would have been better to avoid it.
On reading both
these translations, I got the impression that I am reading Tatiana Litvinov and
Madanlal Madhu’s creation! Pushkin’s original style, flow of language,
simplicity, vividness of description has disappeared.
I feel that a translator
should also try to preserve the style of the author, in addition to being honest
to the original, otherwise the author’s style would lose its identity and get
converted into translator’s style and the aim of acquainting readers with the
alien culture, style and other specialties of a foreign author would not be
achieved.
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