The Russian Literature in English Translations of the 20th Century: the Problem of Cultural Context

The article is dedicated to problems of the Russian literature translation into the English language, and, in particular, to the question of differences both in the content and forms transferring, which are caused by asymmetry within cross-cultural and cross-lingual communication.The author considers the reasons for loss of information which possesses special features of a fiction text, and in particular, of its esthetic, evaluational, emotive and expressive components.The difference between the Russian and English poetic traditions which in many cases explains the nature of transformation in translations of the 20th century is analyzed: when rhythmic and metric canon, sound imaginary, rhyme and other methods for the organization of artistic information in the poem are considered as something secondary, then the translated text seems to be a reproduction of lexis, i.e., in fact, poems are translated through prose or reconstructed with changes in original means of expression.As the result of such experiments, the Russian poetic text is translated with severe misrepresentations and does not create the whole concept of the original poetic idea.Such translations most drastically damage the works by such "musical poets" as Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelshtam.By analyzing the processes accompanying the translation, the author addresses to complications, coming from cultural components, i.e. from the necessity to take into consideration a wide cultural and historical context.Regarding this fact, the author also focuses on such a method of compensation for the lost meanings as translation notes and comments.