MARSHAK EDITOR OF GIANNI RODARI’S CIPOLLINO’S ADVENTURES. SOME PRELIMINARY ARCHIVE-BASED OBSERVATIONS

Abstract

Samuil Marshak’s brief account “Why Did I Translate Gianni Rodari’s poems” [Marshak 1971] provides an interesting “inside look” at his translation practice in relation to the poems of the Italian children’s poet. Nevertheless, the information it contains is far from exhaustive on the subject of “Marshak translator of Gianni Rodari”. Moreover, Marshak was also the editor of other translations of the Italian writer’s works, namely The Adventures of Cipollino by Zlata Potapova. When analysing Potapova’s translation and Marshak’s suggested changes—included in a typewritten copy kept in Marshak’s archive — one can easily observe a number of translation strategies that underline not only Samuel Yakovlevich’s close attention to the transfer of the verbal text and whole cultural system from Italian into Russian, but also his freedom to shift the emotional and logic accent of the text according to his own belief about what makes children’s literature great. Such preliminary observations aim at providing a starting point to identify his approach to editing and translation of children’s literature.