Marina Tsvetaeva, Translator of Federico García Lorca: the History and Poetics of Unknown Translations into French

Abstract

The article is concerned with the history of Marina Tsvetayeva’s last poetic work completed shortly before her death, namely her translations of poems by Federico García Lorca into Russian and French. The study presents previously unknown facts from Tsvetayeva’s creative biography to the academic community, and summarizes the results of the author’s archival, bibliographic, and textual critical work. The article focuses on Tsvetayeva’s five previously unknown translations of García Lorca’s poems into French that were recently discovered and published by the author (2020). Tsvetayeva’s notebook, her extant letters, memoirs and other sources are used to reconstruct the immediate historical and literary context, to describe the details of Tsvetayeva’s creative process, to establish the principles behind the choice of texts to be translated, and to identify the person by whom she was commissioned to produce the translations. Special emphasis is placed on the description of Tsvetayeva’s cultural outlook as regards Spanish culture. In addition, a comparative characterization of Tsvetayeva’s translation technique is provided based on her translations of García Lorca into Russian and French. The present study aims to enhance our understanding of Tsvetayeva’s artistic method and her poetic techniques in both Russian and French, as well as to establish new facts in the history of Russian-Spanish literary relations.