Translations of Aspazija’s poetry into Russian in the collection “Latyshskiye poety v perevodakh Viktora Tretyakova”

Abstract

Viktor Tretyakov was a little-known contemporary poet, translator and literary critic who lived and worked during the period of the first Latvian Republic and partly during the occupation period. He became most widely known with his book “Latyshskiye poety v perevodakh Viktora Tretyakova,” where he translated several famous Latvian poets into Russian.

Translations of Aspazija’s poetry into Russian in Viktor Tretyakov’s collection “Latyshskiye poety v perevodakh Viktora Tretyakova” are the subjects of this research. The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed comparative analysis of Aspazija’s poetry texts in Viktor Tretyakov’s translations with special attention devoted to translation strategies and methods. The research is problematic with regard to identification of the original poems of Aspazija as the translator did not include a link to the original works. The main methods applied during the analysis were comparative and descriptive, in combination with a biographical approach. As a result of the research, it was possible to discover both the most accurate and inaccurate translations of Aspazija’s works. Secondary objectives of this research are to provide brief information about Tretyakov and the history of his book. Tretyakov and his works are important today in the context of Latvian and Russian literary relations. Additionally, recent studies provide important insight in the area of cross-cultural literary exchange.