— Eh bien, mon prince. Gênes et Lucques ne sont plus que des apanages, des поместья, de la famille Buonaparte. Non, je vous préviens que si vous ne me dites pas que nous avons la guerre, si vous vous permettez encore de pallier toutes les infamies, toutes les atrocités de cet Antichrist (ma parole, j'y crois) — je ne vous connais plus, vous n'êtes plus mon ami, vous n'êtes plus мой верный раб, comme vous dites. Ну, здравствуйте, здравствуйте. Je vois que je vous fais peur, садитесь и рассказывайте.
Thus begins Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece, War and Peace, widely regarded not only as one of the greatest works of Russian literature, but of world literature. And yet, that first paragraph is mostly French! There is no translation, even in a footnote. There is no context that could make the meaning obvious to a Russophone reader. What is going on?
The mystery deepens if we examine the opening of this French translation from 1901:
« Eh bien, prince, que vous disais-je ? Gênes et Lucques sont devenues les propriétés de la famille Bonaparte. Aussi, je vous le déclare d’avance, vous cesserez d’être mon ami, mon fidèle esclave, comme vous dites, si vous continuez à nier la guerre et si vous vous obstinez à défendre plus longtemps les horreurs et les atrocités commises par cet Antéchrist…, car c’est l’Antéchrist en personne, j’en suis sûre ! Allons, bonjour, cher prince ; je vois que je vous fais peur… asseyez-vous ici, et causons... »
That's... not the same. Even accounting for the need to replace the Russian phrases peppered into the original, you'd think if someone was translating French into French, they could just use the original French, right? The initial serialization of War and Peace began in 1865, so this translation was done only 36 years later--hardly long enough for the French language to have changed so much as to need updating for modern readers.
One clue comes from the fact that the speaker in that opening paragraph is not French--it is, as we learn in the second paragraph, Anna Pavlovna Sherer, maid of honor to Empress Maria Feodorovna, speaking to Prince Vasily.
Tolstoy is not using French as a secondary language, such as I have investigated in other works. Thus, he has no need to employ any of the special techniques for incorporating secondary languages. Rather, War and Peace is a bilingual novel (or, a bilingual work of literature, anyway; Tolstoy himself did not like to call it a "novel"). It is written under the assumption that its readers will already know two languages--Russian, and Russian French.
In the time during which War and Peace was set, and in which it was written, French was the literal lingua franca of Europe, and the language of the European aristocracy--including the Russian aristocracy. But just as, e.g., Indian English is different from, despite being mostly mutually intelligible with, British English, Russian French was not exactly the same as standard French French. Hence, the translation, from one dialect to another, which would be more intelligible to French readers.
Because Tolstoy expected his audience to comprehend the language, he could accurately represent the language that his characters really would have been using. And without having to employ any of the special techniques used to support comprehension of a secondary language, Tolstoy could convey changes to the character's political affiliations and sense of personal identity through their choice of language as the Napoleonic wars progress and the occurrence of French declines over the course of the story (partially as a result of Francophone Russians learning actual Russian for the first time!)
Modern Russian readers, however, cannot generally be assumed to be French/Russian bilinguals--and yet, materially altering the text of Tolstoy's masterpiece by translating the French into Russian in-line would be culturally unacceptable! The French, thus, has to be treated as a secondary language, but with very limited opportunities for improving integration. In practice, modern Russian editions add extra footnotes with Russian translations of the original French. And at least one audiobook edition does a very audiobook-specific thing: playing the original French dialog at lower background volume, while the Russian is spoken over it!
If you liked this post, please consider making a small donation!
No comments:
Post a Comment