Translations
and Transcreations of M.Bulgakov’s
The
Master & Margarita
-
A. Charumati Ramdas
M.A. Bulgakov wrote
his masterpiece The Master & Margarita for twelve long years. He
began writing it in 1928 and completed in 1940.
Bulgakov worked on
this luminous book through one of the darkest decades of the last
century. His last revisions were dictated to his wife a few weeks before his death
in 1940 at the age of forty nine.
For him, there was
never any question of publishing the novel. The mere existence of the
manuscript, had it come to the knowledge of Stalin’s NKVD, would almost
certainly have led to the permanent disappearance of its author. Yet the book
was of great importance to him, and he clearly believed that a time would come
when it could be published.
Another
twenty six years had to pass before the events bore out that belief and
Bulgakov’s The Master & Margarita, by what seems a surprising
oversight in Soviet literary politics, finally appeared in print. The
effect was electrifying.
The
monthly magazine Moskva, otherwise a cautious and quiet publication, carried
the first part of The Master & Margarita in its November 1966 issue.
Around 150, 000 copies were sold out within hours. In the weeks that followed,
group readings were held, people meeting each other would quote and compare
favourite passages, there was talk of little else. Certain sentences from the
novel immediately became proverbial. The very language of the novel was a
contradiction of everything wooden, official, imposed. It was a joy to speak.
What
surprised people more was the total ignorance about the existence of
manuscript. Only a very small group was aware of it, otherwise, it was thought
that virtually all of Bulgakov had found its way into print. And here was not
some minor literary remains but a major novel, the author’s crowning work.
Then there
were the qualities of the novel itself…its formal originality, its devastating
satire of Soviet life, and of Soviet literary life in particular, its portrayal
of Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate, not to mention Satan. But above all, the
novel breathed an air of freedom, artistic and spiritual, which had become rare
indeed, not only in Soviet Russia. We sense it in the special tone of
Bulgakov’s writing, a combination of laughter (satire, caricature, buffoonery)
and the most unguarded vulnerability. Two aphorisms detachable from the noel
suggest something of the complex nature of this freedom and how it may have
struck the novel’s first readers. One of the much-quoted – ‘Manuscripts don’t burn’,
which seems to express an absolute trust in the triumph of poetry, imagination,
the free word over terror, oppression, and could thus become a watchword of the
intelligentsia. The second aphorism – ‘cowardice is the most terrible of vices’
– which is repeated with slight variations several times in the novel.
The novel
was published when after the period of ‘THAW’, which followed Stalin’s death;
another ‘FREEZE’ was coming. The publication of the novel happened as some
miracle.
And the
miracles have since been following everything connected with The Master and
Margarita. It is connected with something supernatural, something
mysterious, something magical.
The novel
has been translated into quite a few languages of the world…
Only a
handful of people have been able to translate this complex novel, not because
of the level of difficulty it posed to them, but because of something
supernatural attached to it. No decent film could be made so far on the novel,
though there are reports that Hollywood is making a film on the novel.
So far, I
have come to know of the translations done into English by Karpelson, Aplin,
Michael Glenny, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volkhonskaya, and Burgin &
O’Connor. Except for the Glenny’s translations, all other translations are
good, but I found one by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volkhonskaya very beautiful.
In this paper I shall base my observations on the original Russian text and on
Pevear & Volkhonskaya. There is a Hindi translation too of The Master
& Margarita which is done by me. Interestingly, both the Pevear &
Volkhonskaya and this Hindi translation came in the year 1997/98.
There are
a couple of films too based on the novel, but they seem like a very abridged
version of the ten-part tele-serial directed by Bartko.
In this
paper I intend to speak briefly about the Hindi translation and the above mentioned
English translation of The Master & Margarita and the tele-serial.
As far as
the contents are concerned, both the translators have been truly honest. As for
the style, the English version has not been able to generate different styles
for the three different story lines. But it can be considered as best of all
translations.
The Hindi
translator has tried to translate the content and the style of the original,
but this (1998) publication had many typographical errors, sometimes even the
sentences seemed incomplete and some omissions too were noticed here and there.
The text was thoroughly revised later and a new, revised edition has come out
in 2010(exactly 12 years after the first translation….interestingly, the same
amount of time was taken by Bulgakov to give a final version of his
masterpiece!).
The
English translator has provided chapter wise notes to many names, terms and has
decoded quite a few sentences, but sometimes these explanations take the
readers to a different track.
The Hindi
translation doesn’t give any such information.
Both the
translators do not seem to have any problem in translating the culture-specific
items. Both of them have succeeded in making the things quite comprehensible to
the readers.
An
interesting thing with the English translation is that it has given the
translations of two surnames: Ivan Bezdomnyi is written everywhere as Ivan
Homeless and the Centurian of Pontius Pilate, Mark Krisoboi, is mentioned as
Mark Ratslayer. But in other cases the surnames are retained as they appear in
the original.
The Hindi
version does not translate surnames, though when Ivan is first introduced to
the readers, the translator says Ivan used to write poetry with nickname
Bezdomnyi (Beghar).
Both the
translations have quite succeeded in conveying the satire and humour of the
original and could easily be considered as literary creations.
But when
we come to the trans creation of The Master & Margarita, several
things seem jarring.
Firstly,
the linear progression of events had to be reshuffled. The events in the novel
follow a certain pattern, but here, the characters, the events from later
chapters are introduced in the opening part of the serial. Sometimes, an even
wrong interpretation of events is observed. Many descriptions and the author’s
monologues have been converted into dialogues, which seemed necessary for the
script.
The director has succeeded in creating
beautifully the atmosphere of fear, horror, mystery and fantasy. The scenes
depicting Margarita’s conversion into a witch and her flight are superb.
But the
most unpleasant thing is the choice of a few characters and their depiction,
which doesn’t always synchronize with the author’s description. I shall mention
only four of them: Berlioz, Pontius Pilate, Yeshua and Woland.
Let us
have a look at the description of Berlioz: “At the
hour of the hot spring sunset two citizens appeared at the Patriarch's Ponds.
One of them, approximately forty years old, dressed in a grey summer suit, was
short, dark-haired, plump, bald, and carried his respectable fedora hat in his
hand. His neatly shaven face was adorned with black horn-rimmed glasses of a
supernatural size.” The description creates the impression of a well to do,
lively, happy, carefree person. One who enjoys the power. Now, let’s have a
look at Berlioz in the serial. This Berlioz looks more like a worried and
tensed man, no intelligence; no cunningness is reflected on his face.
Bulgakov depicts Woland like this: he was short, had gold teeth, and
limped. Had platinum crowns, He was wearing an expensive grey suit and imported
shoes of a matching colour. His grey beret was cocked rakishly over one ear;
under his arm he carried a stick with a black knob shaped like a poodle's
head. He looked to be a little over
forty. Mouth somehow twisted. He was clean-shaven,
dark-haired. His right eye was black,
left - for some reason - green. He had dark eyebrows, but one higher than the
other. The serial has miserably failed to depict THIS Woland.
Pontius Pilate is a very strong character in the novel about Christ –
which is a sub-theme in the novel. This is how he appears in the novel:
“In a white cloak with blood-red lining, with the shuffling gait of a
cavalryman, early in the morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of
Nisan, there came out to the covered colonnade between the two wings of the
palace of ‘Herod the Great' the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate.”
The serial shows Pilate as a weak, tired, old man, with no trace of
that thunder in his voice and cruelty, for which he was known.
One more thing that is mentioned time and again in the novel is
Pilate’s headache due to migraine, which forces him not to open his mouth
fully, nor move his head. He is sitting like a stony statue, but the feelings
of pain are reflected on his face,
This
Pilate is just devoid of any emotions, he speaks in a feeble voice, does not
move like a cavalryman but walks like an old and tired man. The whole aura of
terror around Pilate is lost in the novel.
Yeshua in
the novel is shown in light blue dress. His head is covered by a white cloth
with a leather band around his head.
Bulgakov
had some purpose in using the ‘light blue’ colour for Yeshua’s dress. It
indicated peasantry, the common village folk. By showing Yeshua, he is not
showing ‘The Christ’ but the common man of Russia of that time, But here, in
the serial, by showing Yeshua in blackish dress, that significance is lost.
These
small deviations change the whole perspective of the original and do not make
it as impressive as the novel. Perhaps, another attempt would be made to depict
the whole mystery of the novel magnificently.
*****
