Abstract
Shakespeare came to Russian readers only in the mid-18th century. From that time up to the 19th century, his Russian reception was largely influenced by the French literature context and rare references to the original sources. Following French literary criticism, Shakespeare in Russia in the period under study was considered “wild”: the key elements of Shakespeare’s poetics- blended genres and violation of rules, as determined in translations from Voltaire’s, elicited much criticism. Russian literature and criticism are full of antinomies: Shakespeare is bad because he combines the high and the low; yet, Russian theater develops in the same way of fusion, which can be applied to the earliest cases of Shakespeare’s reception in Russia. Besides criticism, Shakespeare becomes familiar via translations. In the preface to his translation of Julius Caesar (1786), Nikolay Karamzin explicitly opposes the French classicist demand to adjust works of literature to suit modern aesthetics, which Karamzin finds unacceptable. However, translating Shakespeare, Karamzin still makes one significant transformation: he uses prose, not blank verse. Since he is interested in the content, rather than the form of the original tragedy, he employs an innovative translation strategy, preserving Shakespeare’s text. The fate of Karamzin’s work is also interesting: when Karamzin was accused of Freemasonry, his translation became a bibliographic rarity; therefore, his novel translation strategy failed to spread. The politicized content of Julius Caesar might have detained the development of translation in Russia. This idea encourages us to focus on another problem of Shakespeare’s early reception in Russia - the choice of plots for translation. It would be interesting to note that the first complete Russian translations of Shakespeare - Hamlet by Aleksandr Sumarokov and Julius Caesar by Nikolay Karamzin - address the most topical themes of the 18th-century literature - usurpation of power, regicide, and restoration of justice. Yet, the history of Karamzin’s translation testifies to the negative attitude of the authorities towards such stories. Thus, the Russian literary process was inclined to adopt the French experience, but the need for texts and plots allows for Shakespeare’s works to fill the niche for those interested in political issues. Since these themes were raised in Shakespeare’s tragedies, over time, the Russian translations of Hamlet, for instance, started to prevail in terms of quantity and quality over other works. The Russian comedy tradition slowed down the translation of Shakespeare’s comedies - the theater showed no need for translated comedies, having Russian comedy dramatists in abundance. The author declares no conflicts of interests.
Published Version
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