EDUCATING THE RUSSIAN TRANSLATION RECEPTION OF ROBERT BURNS’S POEM “JOHN ANDERSON MY JO”

Abstract

The article considers the history of Russian translation reception of Robert Burns’s poem “John Anderson my Jo” in the middle of the 19th – beginning of the 21st centuries. The first translation of this work into Russian made by M.L. Mikhaylov in 1856 became an undoubted creative triumph of the interpreter, having considerably predetermined the interest of Russian criticism in “John Anderson my Jo” and stimulated emergence of the subsequent interpretations. In the next years P.I.Veynberg (1869), V.M.Mikheyev (the 1880- s), A.M.Fedorov (1896), S.Ya.Marshak (1938), S.A.Orlov (1939, 1959), S.B.Bolotin and T.S.Sikorskaya (1954), S.Sapozhnikov (2014) translated Burns’s poem. Comparison of the translations of different years allows to see the specifics of each of the interpretations caused both by features of creative identity of Russian interpreters and distinctions connected with evolution of approaches to poetic translation in the course of literary development. Burns’s poem “John Anderson my Jo” was mentioned by I.S.Turgenev in his letter to P.Viardot of November, 23 (December, 5), 1870; K.I.Turner, R.Ya.Right-Kovaleva, S.A.Orlov, Ye.S.Belashova, A.A.Golikov, etc. wrote about it in their researches. The poem “John Anderson my Jo” became one of the most popular Burns’s works in Russia thanks to achievements of Russian translators.