Olga Rzhannikova’s Seminars on Literary Translation from Bulgarian into Russian

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the seminars on literary translation from Bulgarian into Russian held regularly over the course of several years for students of the Department of Slavic Philology at Lomonosov Moscow State University by associate professor Olga Rzhannikova (1955–2014). The article discusses Rzhannikova’s approach to teaching Bulgar- ian and the role of different types of translation in training future linguists. The learning process at the translation seminars is described through the eyes of its participants: students of the Slavic and Russian departments at the MSU Faculty of Philology who studied Bulgarian as their primary foreign language. Notable features of the seminars included the active participation of each student as well as the detailed discussion and analysis of all translation options. Seminar participants translated works by famous Bulgarian writers, which allowed them to not only practice their translation skills but also to familiarize themselves with contemporary Bulgarian literature. Several participants went into translation professionally and are currently successfully working in this field. After the death of Olga Rzhannikova in 2014, some of her former seminar participants continued her work teaching translation from Bulgarian to anyone interested. This continued for several more semesters, for as long as there were people still interested in taking the course. The purpose of this article is to preserve the memory of Olga Rzhannikova not only as a professor of Bulgarian language, history, and dialectology but also as a professor of translation, as well as to highlight and preserve the tradition of translating Bulgarian literature into Russian. The article outlines some of the accomplishments of the seminars: translations of short stories by Georgi Gospodinov, Deyan Enev, Peter Chukhov, and Yordan Radichkov.