Boris de Schloezer: A translator’s paradox

Abstract

Russian born Boris de Schloezer (1881–1969) is mainly known as one of the first translators-cum-philosophers who contributed to spreading Leo Shestov’s ideas and to introducing the European audience to some of new musical forms invented by the Russian émigré composers and musicians. Schloezer is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest translators of Russian literature into French in the 20th c. He proposed his own way of translating Russian classics and among the authors he translated are Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but also the philosopher Leo Shestov. In the foreword ‘En marge d’une traduction’ to his 1960 translation of War and Peace [ Voyna i mir ] Schloezer explicated his principles of literary translation and author’s language. This text was not only a major landmark of his career as a translator but his final achievement in this matter. More than twenty years later this text was reedited in Paris in a special issue with different texts written by Schloezer and other majors French authors about Schloezer’s works. This publication makes this text accessible to the Russian readers for the very first time.