“Eugene Onegin” in Latvian Translations

Resumen

The article focuses on the translations of Eugene Onegin into Latvian. There are altogether three complete translations of this novel in verse: firstly, the free translation made by a writer and provincial educator from Ventspils Herbert Dorbe in 1926; secondly, the 1948 translation by men of letters and translators Janis Plaudis and Andrejs Šmidre; and thirdly, the most recent translation by a poetess Mirdza Bendrupe published in 1968. The given article discusses the history as well as the cultural and historical context of these translations and refers to existing literary criticism on translations of Pushkin's works. Each of the existing translations has significant flaws: the first is very loose, the second artificial and stylistically cumbersome, the third too literal, with colloquial and casual language elements. Particular attention is paid to the first translation of the novel as the translation that has not been thoroughly researched and is overlooked today. The analysis of the selected excerpts of Dorbe's translation reveals the interpretation of the original text dominated by the pursuit of concretisation and transformation of the translated text in favour of a national and religious picture of the world. Such a choice of translation type is purely pragmatic and is driven by the intention of the translator to transform the text of classical Russian literature for pedagogical and didactic purposes, as moral material for the study of spiritual, moral, and ethical values.