Features of the style and genre: Translated children’s poetry by M. Boroditskaya

Abstract

The most influential persons in contemporary Russian poetry belong to the elder generation of authors. It is they who now maintain the entire tradition of Russian poetry, which is being consciously or unconsciously abandoned by many representatives of the younger generations, impoverishing their own verse practice. There are few poets today whose importance is recognized not only by their supporters but also by representatives of other aesthetic groups. Among these persons is the poet and translator Marina Yakovlevna Boroditskaya (b. 1954). Despite the aesthetic importance of her work, which has long been recognized by critics, and her wide popularity among the public, philology has so far hardly studied her poems and translations. Boroditskaya’s position in literature is in many ways unique, as she acts both as a lyric poet for adults, as a children’s poet and as a poetic translator, with all three types of her literary activity mutually enriching each other. The article considers Boroditskaya’s translations from children’s English-language poetry of the twentieth century (Dr. Seuss (USA) and Julia Donaldson (Great Britain)) and the influence of Russian poetic classics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on the versioning and stylistic features of the translated texts. The article proves that Boroditskaya actually realizes in her translations an implicit cultural synthesis, masterfully combining English and Russian poetic traditions, and overcomes the artificial barrier between poetry oriented towards adult and children’s audiences, respectively.