1958: The Nobel Prize and Boris Pasternak “Police Measures” During the Khrushchev Thaw

the article will focus on the history of the first publication of the novel “Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak, on its influence on the formation of opinion about Boris Pasternak as a truly major prose writer, as well as on the potential role in the further receipt of the Nobel Prize by the author in 1958. As one knows, the first publication took place in Italy. It is from Italian cultural figures Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (the first publisher of the novel) and Pietro Antonio Zveteremich (its translator) it depended on how the novel would be received abroad, where Boris Pasternak had not been well-known by the late 1957 – the Swedish Academy initially refused to nominate the writer as a Nobel laureate due to insufficient fame in wide literary circles. After the publication of “Doctor Zhivago”, it was essential to determine what the content of the first reviews of this work would be. The paper reviews the first reviews of the novel in the Italian press, in particular, the discussion that unfolded in the independent monthly magazine “Il Ponte”. Such well-known cultural figures in Italian literary circles as Guglielmo Petroni, Carlo Cassola, and Manlio Cancogni spoke out. Their opinions were not ignored, they were accepted by the general public.

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CULTURAL SPECIFICS OF FICTION TEXTS:

GÃªnero & Direito ◽

10.22478/ufpb.2179-7137.2019v8n7.49973 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (7) ◽

Author(s):

Ildar Kh. Safin ◽

Alexander V. Pankov ◽

Khalida N. Galimova ◽

Mariia I. Andreeva

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Nobel Prize ◽

Small Town ◽

Nobel Prize Winner ◽

World War ◽

Romeo And Juliet ◽

Antony And Cleopatra ◽

Boris Pasternak ◽

Great Idea ◽

The World

Authors have considered a special stage in the life and its reflection on the works of the world-famous Russian poet, novelist, and the Nobel Prize winner in literature Boris Pasternak in his three year evacuation period during the World War II in Chistopol – a small town on the Kama River. During that time Boris Pasternak was mostly translating. The study is focused on the cultural specifics of fiction texts, i.e. texts translated or created by B. Pasternak. Within the first two months staying in Chistopol the poet translated the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by Shakespeare, and then the great cycle of poems by Juliusz Slowacki, poems and the tragedy ‘Mary Stuart’ written by Shiller. At the same time he implements a great idea he had planned long before – he translates ‘Antony and Cleopatra’. The study highlights cultural peculiarities of Pasternak’s translations and his own style reflected in fiction. The research states the ambiguous attitude of critics to Pasternak's translations. He was both considered as the brilliant translator and criticized for liberty, inadequacy and excessive individuality.

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Promoting ‘Lesser-Used’ Languages Through Translation

TranscUlturAl A Journal of Translation and Cultural Studies ◽

10.21992/t9jw4q ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 68 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Tom Priestly

Keyword(s):

Nobel Prize ◽

National Language ◽

The Other ◽

National Policies ◽

Boris Pasternak ◽

The Status ◽

The One ◽

Very High

The globalization of communication in ‘major’ languages has become incompatible with the claims made by the other languages. Many minor, ‘lesser used’ languages were formerly marginalized and ignored because of their incompatibility with national policies; more recently, while acknowledged by specialists, they still have had to struggle to be more publicly recognized as vehicles for important literature, and also in some cases as actually existing. Having the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded is not necessarily effective: within years of Frédéric Mistral’s Nobel prize few people would have acknowledged the existence of Provençal as a language. One potentially more profitable means of achieving recognition is through being translated into better-known languages. The paper will look at two examples. First: Slovene, the language of just 2 million people in Europe; a language with an established literature; officially a national language; but not generally known. Promotion through translation has been extraordinarily active: great efforts have been made to translate all the major works of literature into ‘major’ languages. Among the results: an enormous translation factory, where sometimes quality is sacrificed to quantity; and very high pay for translators. Second, at the other end of the ‘status-as-a-language’ spectrum: Lakhian, which very few people recognize as a ‘language’ rather than a dialect; and yet one that received huge (if temporary) recognition when the one person who wrote what is recognized as ‘serious’ literature in Lakhian, Ondra Lysohorsky, had his poetry translated by Boris Pasternak and W.H. Auden.

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