Bohdan Kravtsiv as a translator of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry

Abstract

The paper presents a modified three-level model of possible relations between different cultures proposed by W. Welsh. There have been outlined multicultural, intercultural and transcultural aspects of such relations. The model is exemplified by the translations of Bohdan Kravtsiv. Life circumstances forced Kravtsiv to leave Ukraine and spend his life abroad. He had to work on his translations in different countries and cultures. Just like other cultures influenced his way of thinking, life experience and poetic creativity, due to his political, social, poetic, and translation activities, he himself influenced the cultures he was immersed in and where he was involved in the creative activity. Remoteness from Ukraine did not make the poet and translator break off his relations with his home country. In the Diaspora he did his best to help Ukrainians, replenish the poetic translations of the Ukrainian literature, retain memories of the repressed poets, enrich Ukrainian cultural heritage (transcultural aspect). The language personality of Bohdan Kravtsiv as a translator is considered in terms of his translations of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry. The structure of the language personality of the translator encompasses verbal, cognitive and pragmatic-motivational levels. The paper focuses on the analysis of Kravtsiv’s translations of Rilke's poems into Ukrainian. It has revealed Kravtsiv’s brilliant mastery of the poetic word. The translations of Rilke's poems performed by Kravtsiv testify to the translator's efforts to remain faithful to the form and content of the original. In spite of the different morphological and phonetic structures of German and Ukrainian, he succeeded in most cases. The translator’s individual style is marked by concise and euphonious translations, multiple new coinages and in-depth knowledge of the original works.