Dmitry Smirnov as William Blake’s translator and biographer

Abstract

The article discusses the versatile talent of Dmitry Smirnov (Sadovsky), a composer and translator, who lived in the UK and died there in 2020. The article addresses the following topics: analysis of Smirnov’s work as William Blake’s translator; examination of the guiding principles behind D. Smirnov’s biography of Blake the artist; and analysis of Smirnov’s part in the adaptation of Blake’s oeuvre to symphonic music. In his lifetime, Smirnov completed and partially published his unique collection of William Blake’s translations into Russian; he authored and published the first scholarly biography of Blake in Russian; and composed a great many musical pieces, In a variety of genres, on Blake’s verse. A notable accomplishment of Smirnov’s as a co-creator of a ‘Russian Blake’ is his translation of two monumental prophecies penned by the poet of English Romanticism: Jerusalem and Milton. Regrettably, Smirnov’s work as a translator and biographer is little known in Russia — undeservedly so — although it merits serious attention; therefore, the article seems more than timely.