Seventy years of "Onegin" chinese translation
Yuan Shang
"Yevgeni Onegin" is a long poetic novel by the famous Russian poet Pushkin, this story has touched many Chinese readers, and "Onegin" has been fully published in China Chinese for more than sixty years.
Two translations before liberation
The first full translation of the first Chinese of "Onegin", translated by Suf, was published by the Guilin Silk Publishing House in September 1942, entitled "Eugen Onikin". This translation contains only 8 chapters, not "Onegin's Journey" and "Chapter X." This edition is a translation of the Nekrasov Esperanto translation published in Moscow in 1931, with references to Masao Yonekawa's Japanese translation. Judging from the structure of The onegin's translation by Suf, it can be inferred that the Esperanto book on which he is based is most likely only 8 chapters. This translation takes the form of free-form poetry, which is far from Pushkin's "Onegin Verses". Translation is difficult, and translating poetry is especially difficult. Translating Pushkin's long narrative poem can be said to have been more difficult from the very beginning. Many people have tried usefully over the past 60 years on how to translate Pushkin's long poems, but the beauty of Pushkin's poetic form has always been difficult to express. Later people criticized this first Chinese translation, among which Lü Ying's view was pertinent, and Lü Ying said that Sufu's translation was "dry and crude, and there are many places where the original poem differs greatly." The former question belongs to the translator's literary cultivation, and the latter question is the version on which the translator is based. As far as 60 years ago was concerned, the latter question could not be regarded as a translator's problem, and it was indispensable to be able to translate such a world masterpiece. Ge Baoquan also said that in this earliest translation, "the great German poet Schiller was mistakenly mistaken for the great English poet Shelley." At present, this version is difficult to find, and Mr. Goh has this copy in his possession.
Illustration of the original Russian edition of Onegin
After the publication of the first Chinese translation, in order to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the publication of Pushkin's long poem, in February 1944, the "Hope Society" published the modern literary theorist, aesthetician, and translator Lü Ying's translation of "Eugen Onikin" according to the Russian text, which was the first to be translated according to the Russian text, and this translation also included "Onegin's Travel Fragments" and "Chapter 10". This structure became the framework for all subsequent translations. There is also a translation by Hu Feng in this translation. They are chapter VI verses 15, 16, and 38. It took one winter for Lü Ying to complete the translation in the spring of 1942, and then to revise it for the first time in July. During this time, Mr. Hu Feng also helped him change some verses with reference to the Japanese translation. It can be seen from here that Hu Feng can be regarded as one of the founders of China's "Onegin complex." In the translation of Pushkin's poems, Lü Ying said: "If we reluctantly take care of the rhythm of the whole book, we will inevitably sacrifice the perfection of the content and the simplicity of the language, and use rhymes to harm poetry and words to harm meaning, which is not Pushkin's path, nor is it our truth." After Lü Ying's translation of "Eugen Onegin" was published in February 1944, another edition was published in Shanghai in 1947, and after liberation, there was another edition of Shanghai Haiyan Bookstore in 1950.
Two translations in the 17 years after liberation
After the founding of New China, the most representative translation of Pushkin's long poetic novels was the proofreading of Zha Liangzheng's translation and Lü Ying's translation. In the sense of version, Lü Ying's proofreading should be regarded as a new version.
The Chinese of the translation is also called Eugen Onegin, which is also based on the original Russian translation. The book was published by Shanghai HaiPingming Publishing House in October 1954. In translating the book, Cha liangzheng also referred to the German translation of Theodore Komishaw published by the former Soviet Foreign Language Publishing House, as well as the English translation of Babette Doych. In addition, Chalyang zheng also translated Sronimosky's "On Eugen Onegin". In 1983, the Sichuan People's Publishing House reprinted this translation.
Lü Ying's revised edition was published in December 1954. This revised edition is based on the 1949 edition of Yevgeni Onegin by the State Publishing Bureau of the former USSR and on the Complete Works of Pushkin (1950 edition, ten volumes) edited by the USSR Academy of Sciences. The appendix to the translation, according to the translator, because no new version could be found, is still based on the 1887 Petersburg Severin edition. The biggest change in the translation is the text, Lü Ying himself said: the reason for this is to "make it closer to the spoken language, closer to the original poem." After this revision, Lü Ying's translation has become recognized as the best version, and the translation is beautiful and elegant, which is a model work in foreign literary translations.
In 1947, Lü Ying went to taiwan to teach at the Normal College, and when he passed through Shanghai, he also borrowed from Ge Baoquan the English translation of the American "Modern Series" version of Babette Doich and the Russian version of Brodsky's "Yevgeni Onegin Detailed Explanation" to proofread his first translation. The Detailed Explanation of Evgeny Onegin, which he later used to revise the notes in the book, was already in Moscow in 1950.
Post-Cultural Revolution translation
The translation of Evgeny Onegin was never interrupted even before and after the Cultural Revolution. Of the translations published after the Cultural Revolution, the translations of Zhi Liang and Wang Shi xie were completed before the Cultural Revolution. According to his recollection, the first draft of the translation was published in 1982. Wang Shixie's first translation was completed in September 1963, and in 1970, when the translator was in line, he conducted a "word by word" review of the first translation in his spare time, and the final draft was finalized in 1979, published in December 1981, published by Heilongjiang People's Publishing House. Wang's translation is based on the 1950 Moscow translation, which, in addition to Onegin's eight chapters, also translates Inogen's Commemorative Album, Onegin's Travels (fragments) and Chapter X (fragments) into prose, and the annotated part of the translation mainly uses Brodsky's Pushkin's novel "Evgeny Onegin" and borrows some of the commentaries of other translations. Compared with other translations, wang's translation does not seek similarities in poetic form, but is mainly to be able to express the original meaning of the author.
The translation of The Wisdom was also published after years of training, according to the Moscow Russian version of "Onegin". In addition to the 8 chapters of the main text of "Onegin", the commentary, "Onegin's Travel Fragments" and "Chapter X", there is also a "separate draft" that is not found in other translations, and this "other draft" is a material compiled by former Soviet scholars based on the comparison between Pushkin's posthumous manuscript and "Onegin". This information is of great help in understanding the original poem.
In February 1982, the Shanghai Translation Publishing House published Feng Chun's translation of Onegin, which included 8 chapters of Onegin's main text, Onegin's travel fragments, and "Chapter Ten". The book was translated from the Moscow Russian edition in 1949. As for how to translate foreign poems, Feng Chun adopted the method of "a relatively free way, paying due attention to rhythm and rhyme, and the Lord demanded smoothness and fluency, better expression of thoughts and feelings, and not pursuing formal rigor." Of course, the translation of Onegin and Pushkin's original poetic grammar is "far from each other.".
In July 1996, Yilin Publishing House published Ding Lu's translation, which translated the same content as Feng's translation. In this translation, Dinglu tried to translate Onegin in the Chinese vernacular grammatical poems, and for this reason Dinglu also made a very detailed discussion in the article "Yevgeni Onegin" and the Translation of Poetry" in the front of the book.
Onegin also has a translation published in Taiwan Province, China, translated by Taiwanese writer Zheng Qingwen, translated into Chinese as "Eternal Lovers", published by Zhiwen Publishing House in June 1977. The over-localization of chinese translations of book titles is sometimes far from the original book's meaning. This Chinese translation is in prose style, and the book is based on three Japanese translations, according to the translator. Zheng Qingwen's translation only translated 8 chapters of Onegin's main text, and the rest were not translated.
Translated by Cha Liangzheng, 1954 feng chun translation, 1982 wang shixie translation, 1981 edition
It was first published in China Reading Daily on October 11, 2006