Baratashvili blue color translation boris parsnak. Color sky blue

"My Prayer" (film about Baratashvili)

Baratashvili is considered the second most important Georgian national poet (after the author of The Knight in the Panther's Skin).

Life was short (27 years - like his friend Lermontov). And full of sorrows and trials.

The poetic heritage of Nikoloz Baratashvili includes 36 lyric poems And historical poem"Destiny of Georgia".

For the first time, several poems by Baratashvili were published only seven years after his death.

A magnificent dancer, while studying at the Tiflis Noble School, Baratashvili injured his leg when he fell down the stairs. An incurable lameness prevented him from entering military service though he longed for military career. He failed to continue his education at the university: the only breadwinner in the family, he was forced to higher education to enter the judiciary in the Expedition of Judgment and Punishment for a modest bureaucratic position.

The tragedy of his life was the unhappy love of Princess Ekaterina Chavchavadze, daughter famous poet Prince Alexander Garsevanovich Chavchavadze and sister Nina Griboyedova-Chavchavadze.

Interestingly, when Lermontov dedicated poetry to the ruler of Megrelia, Ekaterina Alexandrovna Chavchavadze-Dadiani, he also wrote about the color of her eyes:

Like heaven, your eyes shine
blue enamel,
Like a kiss, sounds and melts
Your voice is young;

For the sound of one magical speech,
For your one look
I am glad to give the handsome sich,
My Georgian bulat;

And sometimes he shines sweetly,
And it sounds sweet
At the sound of that soul trembles
And the blood boils in the heart.

She sings - and the sounds melt,
Like kisses on the lips
Looks - and the heavens play
In her divine eyes;

Does it go - all its movements,
Ile says the word - all features
So full of feelings, expressions,
So full of wondrous simplicity.

The poem "Blue Color" (in the original - without a title), written by N. Baratashvili in 1841 and translated by B. Pasternak no later than 1938, has long become in Russia a kind of calling card of the brilliant Georgian poet. At the thought of him, the lines spontaneously appear in the memory: “The color of heaven, the blue color / I fell in love from an early age ...”. Few people can remember other poems by Baratashvili, but "The Blue Color" is definitely known to all fans of Russian poetry. Before Pasternak, this poem was translated into Russian by V. Gaprindashvili, whose translation was published in 1922 in what was then Tiflis and, of course, could not reach the Russian public. In Georgia, Pasternak's translation is widely known, although the attitude towards it is not as reverent as in Russia, but more jealous and biased. And, I must say, there are reasons for this. But more on that below.

Until now, none of the Russian critics somehow had the idea to compare the original "Blue Color" with its translation. There are at least three reasons for this, in my opinion. First: the genius of Pasternak's text, which one does not want to find fault with. The second is the unwillingness of professional literary critics to spoil their reputation by criticizing a Russian classic. You can understand them: the vast majority of Russian philologists do not know the Georgian language, The Blue Color has been translated for a long time, the translation itself is not just a masterpiece, but a part of Russian culture. The third reason is the possible absence in Pasternak's archives of exactly the interlinear from which the Russian poet translated the poem of the Georgian poet.

Maybe this will not seem quite correct to someone, but I intend to make a kind of experiment: to compare Pasternak's translation with someone else's (almost verbatim) interlinear translation, performed at my request by the poetess I. Sanadze, since I myself can not boast of knowledge of the Georgian language. And although the interlinear of the same poem, compiled by different people at different times, can and should differ in some way, in the main they must still coincide: the language in which the original poem was written remained the same, no one canceled explanatory dictionaries , and the possible nuances of meaning are not significant in this case. Especially with the approach (I will say, looking ahead) that Pasternak demonstrated, transposing the Georgian original with Russian verses.

The translation achievements of Pasternak, as the largest Russian translator and translation historian E. Vitkovsky rightly notes on his website, will undoubtedly never lose their significance, despite the fact that, say, ““Hamlet” in his translation is rather Pasternak’s “Hamlet” than Shakespeare’s”(http://vekperevoda.com/1887/pasternak.htm). To paraphrase another statement by Yevgeny Vladimirovich, Pasternak's exposition leads one to believe that "... there is something in the original". Moreover, I will add from myself, something very, very significant, not taken into account by the poet, discarded by him as unnecessary, taken out of the brackets of the original text. This is especially true of N. Baratashvili's poem "The Blue Color".

I intend to penetrate into the texts sequentially, stanza by stanza, gradually bringing to the pages both the original in its interlinear presentation and the poetic translation. This contradicts the generally accepted practice of correlating the original with its poetic transcription, but in this case, a departure from it seems necessary, allowing a more thorough understanding of both the features of the original text and the congeniality of the corresponding interpretation. After all, experiment so experiment!

When assessing the accuracy and freedom of translation, I decided to use, among other things, the method of the late Russian philologist M. Gasparov, set out by him in the article “Interlinear and measure of accuracy” (Gasparov M. L. On Russian poetry: Analyzes, interpretation, characteristics. - St. Petersburg, 2001. - 480 pp. http://www.philology.ru/linguistics1/gasparov-01e.htm). Mikhail Leonovich suggested, in his words, “... a simple and rough, but, I think, quite indicative way to measure accuracy for a start: counting the number of significant words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs) saved, changed and omitted-added in translation compared to the interlinear”. Having thus measured one or another translation with the corresponding interlinear, Gasparov determined “... an indicator of accuracy is the proportion of accurately reproduced words from the total number of words of the interlinear; and the indicator of liberty - the proportion of arbitrarily added words from the total number of words of the translation (both in percentage) " capable, in his opinion, "...characterize the translation as a whole".

This is exactly what I will now do in relation to Pasternak's translation of Baratashvili's poem "The Blue Color". Moreover, if Mikhail Leonovich did not take into account the synonyms and synonymous constructions used by translators, so that I would not be accused of bias towards Pasternak, I will nevertheless take them into account as significant. Bold matches of significant words in the interlinear and translation are highlighted in font; underlined words introduced by the translator into the translation.

Interlinear (1 stanza) [in square brackets explanations of the interlinear author]:

IN sky blue,

original color

And unearthly [not of this world]

I'm with youth in love.

Translation (1 stanza):

Sky color, blue color

fell in love I'm with small years.

IN childhood he me meant

Sineva other began.

Accuracy rate: 66.7%, Liberty rate: 50%. (Here and below: intermediate data are omitted. Everyone can check the calculation results on their own. If you find any discrepancies, please notify the author of this article about this so that appropriate corrections can be made to it.)

Pasternak, on the one hand, conveyed the first stanza almost congenially - the indicator of accuracy is quite high; on the other hand, brought to the translation a large number of gag. If from the original text dropped out primordial colors and most color(used by Baratashvili three times, Pasternak twice), then brought in from the side - small summer doubling youth original, and an attempt to replace this very primordial blue expression blue other began . In general, the impression from the translation of the first stanza remains quite good: the meaning is basically conveyed, and it is generally unthinkable to imagine Pasternak's translation without a frank gag. True, Baratashvili only outlines the topic in the first lines, with some kind of trepidation, it seems to me, reporting that he has long fallen in love with the unearthly color of heavenly azure and the universal fundamental principle. Unlike the Georgian poet, Pasternak confidently takes the bull by the horns, that is, not only declares his love for blue, but also interprets his love for it in the manner I have indicated. However, in general, I repeat, Pasternak's text does not spoil the interlinear.

Interlinear (2 stanzas):

AND now that blood

I'm getting cold

I swear - I I won't love

Never different color.

Translation (2 stanzas):

AND now that has reached

I peaks days their own

IN sacrifice other colors

blue Not I will give.

Accuracy rate: 44.4%, Liberty rate: 60%.

The decrease in the first and increase in the second indicator is explained by the fact that Pasternak in the first couplet conveyed the metaphor of the original with his own metaphor, and in the second he changed, so to speak, the direction of the love of the lyrical subject: the Georgian poet swears not to fall in love different color , Russian - stay true to the same blue color. In this case, in my opinion, some inferiority of the Gaspar method is manifested: the indicators of accuracy and freedom of translation have clearly deteriorated, while in general Pasternak coped with the transfer of the meaning of this stanza (even to a greater extent than the first). And this, I believe, is the main criterion for the translation profession. But I (unlike the readers of this article who are familiar with the interlinear) are confused only by the noun in the text of the translation victim , but I will talk about him in his place.

Interlinear (3rd stanza):

IN eyes V beautiful

I'm in love with heaven color;

He, saturated with sky,

Exudes excitement.

Translation (3 stanzas):

Accuracy rate: 55.6%, Liberty rate: 44.4%.

Almost the climax of the unfolding of the text. Despite the fact that, compared with the previous stanza, the indicator of accuracy has increased, and the indicator of liberty has fallen, it is here that Pasternak decisively departs from the original, sharply narrowing the pathos of the original text. (Another confirmation of the incomplete adequacy of the method proposed by Gasparov. However, he would never put an equal sign between saturation of the sky And blue , as a result of which the indicator of the accuracy of the translation of this stanza would decrease, and the indicator of liberty would increase. Moreover, the first expression refers to bloom , the second - to look .) In the third stanza, which is complex in terms of syntax, Baratashvili speaks of love for sky-colored eyes, for any blue eyes - no matter who they belong to. Pasternak declares his love for drunk with blue to the eyes of a particular person, a particular beloved (" This sight bottomless is yours"). (That is why I did not equate the sacrament in love original adjective favorite translation: two different love.) Unfortunately, the brightest characteristic heavenly colors : He exudes delight, and thanks to the enthusiastic blue, the turquoise eyes also, presumably, shine with joy. According to Baratashvili, the owners of blue eyes, through the blue that is contained in them, are cheerful about everything that exists. And Pasternak draws beautiful blue eyes, looking exclusively at the lyrical subject. The difference is significant.

Interlinear (4 stanzas):

Duma - dream

Pulls me to the heavenly heights,

So that having melted from love [charm],

I merged with blue color.

Translation (4 stanzas):

Accuracy rate: 33.3%, Liberty rate: 66.7%.

As they say, the frost was getting stronger: the accuracy of the translation is falling, the liberty is growing rapidly. This is quite understandable: it is from the fourth stanza that Pasternak begins to speak loudly about his own, and not about what is contained in the original. The translator's text is connected with the interlinear by only three words (gerund participle having melted I equated the noun solution , otherwise the connection with the interlinear translation would have decreased by a third). Apparently, here the translator got tired of keeping within the framework of the source text, and he, the translator, as they say, creatively soared. In the fourth stanza, Baratashvili no longer talks about his favorite blue; the author, drawn to heaven by a thought-dream, intends to merge with it once and for all. But not just merge, but preliminary - having melted from love. From love - to what or to whom? The answer is obvious: to the Deity, to a certain Universal Essence, to the Creator who created the heavenly color (color pristine- see the first stanza), leading the author into a kind of ecstasy. Whereas Pasternak stands firmly on the ground and, looking up, reflects on what, in his opinion (and not in the opinion of the original author), blue is: color dreams lyrical subject , paint heights , receptacle earthly space . But, I repeat, arguments about transcendental turquoise are no longer of interest to Baratashvili, who has soared spiritually: fascinated by azure, he dreams of complete dissolution in it, in other words, with the Divine Himself. It is at this point that the reader begins to vaguely guess: is this not a prayer? And for a positive answer to this question, as will be seen from the following presentation, there are good reasons. But let's continue.

Interlinear (5 stanza):

I'll die - I won't see

Tears I'm native

Instead the sky is blue

Sprinkle me with the dew of heaven.

Translation (5 stanza):

Accuracy rate: 11.1%, Liberty rate: 85.7%.

The result is stunning. There is no need to talk about accuracy at all, since the translation has practically nothing to do with the interlinear. All significant words have been omitted from it and replaced by the translator with their own. The case in the translation practice of the twentieth century is almost unique. Baratashvili sadly talks about his death, that he, having died and merged with the blue of heaven, having become a spiritual entity, will not see from there a single tear shed over him by a native (close) to him - in spirit - person; but the poet is ready to put up with it, because - he is sure - his favorite blue sky will sprinkle(sanctify) heavenly moisture his ashes. Pasternak, following the long tradition of portraying the poet as unhappy, impoverished, early dead, undeservedly forgotten, talks about the funeral of the lyrical subject, about his complete disappearance (in the interlinear, the lyrhero dissolves or intends to dissolve in Divine azure) and about relatives mourning the deceased. But in the case of Baratashvili, it is hardly legitimate to talk about his relatives in such a context. The high-ranking relatives of the poet, among whom was his uncle, the general and ruler of Avaria Grigol Orbeliani, did nothing to help him; during his lifetime, the poet could not even be printed. Is it conceivable that he, in his most, perhaps, lofty, bright and sad poem, would talk about relatives? Hardly.

Interlinear (6 stanza):

Grave mine when

Cover fog ,

Let him be sacrificed

Beam [glow] to the blue sky!

Translation (6 stanza):

Accuracy rate: 20%, Liberty rate: 77.8%

End of the poem. The interlinear and the translator's version are divorced, so to speak, by 180 degrees. Literally. Baratashvili understands that his name will be forgotten by his descendants, but he hopes that a ray, one should think, God's ray will dispel the foggy twilight over his grave - for the poet's unrequited love for blue, azure heights, turquoise infinity. Significant here becomes a completely non-significant part of speech, a particle let. It confirms the assumption that this poem is a kind of prayer. The poet, confident in everything heavenly, in his coming dissolution in the azure of the Creator, is not confident in anything earthly, therefore he himself sacrifices everything earthly for the sake of heaven. Moreover. He sacrifices his frailty to unearthly eternity, where only his spirit, oppressed by the hopelessness of existence, can become free. Pasternak not only covers the poet's grave blue , but sparse, frost , but also throws a cover bluish winter smoke - smoke of oblivion - in the name of the brilliant author of "The Blue Color".

For Baratashvili, blue is only in the heights inaccessible to the mortal body, at the very top of the universe, Pasternak does not care where: in a pure transcendental world or on the sinful earth that hides the ashes of the great poet. Baratashvili in his poem rises up - from earth to heaven - and from there watches what is happening in the secret hope that his spiritual component, his essence will not be forgotten. Pasternak, in translation, stands firmly on the ground, shifting his gaze from the azure skies to the dead tombstone, tightly draped in a double veil of frost and smoke, over which no - even Divine - blue has power. Baratashvili creates an almost spiritual poem, Pasternak - frankly lyrical. Therefore, it was no coincidence that he withdrew sacrifice from the last stanza for the sake of the second, for he did not bother to recall it by the end of the translated poem. The translator was not up to it: starting from the text of an unknown Georgian poet, he created his own piece of art on your own topic. This is also evidenced by dry numbers. Total translation accuracy rate: 37.5% (range: 66.7 to 11.1), Total translation liberty rate: 62.5% (range: 44.4 to 85.7).

Not deeming it necessary to stick to the original, Pasternak initially changed the formal features of the translated poem. Baratashvili's original was written in logaeda, a complex meter that combines dactyl and trochee. But this kind of complexity is not needed by Pasternak, and he arbitrarily changes the logaed to the standard trochee, which in the practice of this translator is not a crime at all. (Although reasoning about the metrics of Georgian versification is beyond the competence of the author of these lines, it was not difficult to make sure that the translator did not adhere to the metrical outline of the original.) In addition, Pasternak, reflecting on what the blue color is for a lyrical subject, applied in In translation, a lexical anaphora: the author of the translation begins seven lines with a particle (a bunch) “this”, which is not in the source text at all. As a result, the translation, starting from the third stanza, resembles a kind of register of the essential features of the blue color. Of course, thoughts about this come to mind only when comparing the translation with the original, Pasternak’s work itself does not evoke such sensations, but within the framework of this article, I’m just talking about the relationship between the original text and its transcription.

Thus, Pasternak's work has practically nothing to do with translation as such. Moreover. It is a good illustration of how poetry should not be translated. Pasternak's text is not even a transcription, not a retelling, and not a translation based on the original. Pasternak's "Blue Color" has to be assessed in two ways: as an original poem, it has no price; as a translation of Baratashvili's poem, it simply does not exist - no matter how paradoxical this statement may be. If Pasternak called his text, say, "The color blue (in memory of Nikoloz Baratashvili)", this would remove all future questions. But he calls his poems a translation, clearly realizing that this is not a translation at all...

The information that Pasternak, to put it mildly, did not quite adequately interpret Baratashvili's The Color Blue, overtook me quite a long time ago, about 20-25 years ago. I remember about some book, the characters of which, the Georgians, discussed this topic. Having looked closely at Pasternak's translation style, the merits of which are anything but careful attitude to the original, I wanted to get acquainted with the amazing "Blue Color" as briefly as possible, preferably at the level of interlinear. Over time, I was seized by an irresistible desire to translate this poem myself.

Last year, on one of the literary sites, I accidentally discovered poems by the poetess Irina Sanadze. I wrote her a letter outlining my request for an interlinear copy of Baratashvili's poem, and to my happiness she responded. Accurately on the eve of Orthodox Christmas, I received from her not only the original poem and its interlinear translation, but also transliteration; after examining it, I established some of the formal features of "Blue". In order to penetrate the text of the original, I had to learn for some time to pronounce sound combinations unusual for a Russian person, but in the end I - I won’t say, I learned it - but I was imbued with the fantastic sound of the original, the transliteration of which I want to quote in full.

Tsisa Perce, Lurjsa Perce,

pirvelad kmnilsa pers

yes ar amquecniurs,

sikrmitan windpodi.

Yes akhlats, grew sishli

maqvs gaciebuli,

vpitsav me - ar vetrpo

ar oden persa skhwas.

Twalebshi mshveniers,

vetrpi me tsisa pers;

mosruli igi cit

hamoctys siamite.

Pikri me sanatri

mimicevs cisa cads,

rum ashkhit damdnari

shavarto lurjsa pers.

Movkdebi - ver vnahav

tsremlsa me mshobliurs, -

mis matzvlad tsa lurji

damaprkvevs tsvars ciurs!

samares chamsa grew up

gars nisli moetsvas, -

igitsa shestsiros

cyagma lurjsa cas!

As it was possible to establish, the formal component of the "Blue Color" (except for the identical size in all stanzas) was of the least interest to its brilliant author. The first three stanzas are written in couplets, the second three - with the help of cross rhymes. I had to think about rhymes. The second couplets of the first and second stanzas turned out to be non-rhyming, in the fourth stanza the boundary agreement connecting the second and fourth lines turned out to be not quite accurate, and in the fifth stanza the first and third verses did not rhyme with each other. How to translate? On the one hand, there was a temptation to keep the rhyme field of the original, on the other hand, there is Pasternak's text with absolutely exact rhymes. And the fact that my translation would be compared with Pasternak's, giving the palm to the classics in advance, was beyond doubt. And since Pasternak, translating the "Blue Color", conveyed the terms of agreement accurately, I had to admit slack, that is, translate in the same way as he did.

And the last. The translation of Baratashvili's poem, which I love, is a kind of low bow to Georgia, which was my home for almost two years when I served in the ranks Soviet army. Until now, my memory keeps the names of the villages (Patara Lilo, Dili Lilo, Varketili); amazing Georgian hospitality (we, the soldiers, could not pass by the village holiday: they would drink and feed); inimitable feasts, when you get drunk not so much from great wine, but from a festive union of souls. There was also a unique delicacy - pita bread with grapes, when there was an extra fifty kopecks in a skinny soldier's purse. There were also raids on the vineyards, when the gardeners, catching us there, not only did not take away what had already been collected in sidor, but also added a box or two of their own (“Soldier, don’t steal. Come, ask - we’ll give it ourselves!”). There were also unauthorized absences to handsome Tbilisi, where, despite citizen(civilian clothes), we were still recognized as soldiers and were allowed everywhere without a queue. There were funiculars flying to Mount Mtatsminda, and a visit to the grave of Griboedov, and much more, which you will never forget ...

In pure azure,

into the original light

in blue transcendental tone

I have been in love since I was young.

But even when my ardor

in the veins almost cooled down,

I am with no other

color is incompatible.

dear to me for a long time

eye turquoise gaze;

enchanted by the sky

he shines with happiness.

Powerfully attract my

thoughts me on the air,

where, dissolving in love,

I will pour sapphire into the mountain.

Hardly a tear dear

my exodus will be sprinkled,

but dew is on me

the sky will shed azure.

Mist over my hill

get up, but let her

will be like smoke sacrifices,

ascended into the sky!

P.S. I express my deep gratitude and deep gratitude to Irina Sanadze, who gave the author of this article the happiness of working on the translation of N. Baratashvili's The Blue Color.

Lifshits Yury Iosifovich. Genus. in 1957 Poet, translator, writer, member of the Union Russian writers. He translated seven Shakespeare plays: Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing. He also translated L. Carroll (“Alice in Wonderland”, “Alice Through the Looking-Glass”, “The Hunt for the Snark”), A. Milne (“Winnie the Pooh”, “The House on the Pooh Edge”), A. Rimbaud (“Drunk ship"), performed the arrangement of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign". Wrote the novel-CD "And we", the manual "How to translate Shakespeare's sonnets".

1. Lifshits Yu. I. The Word about Igor's Campaign: Arrangement // Nauch. app. Shevchenko Institute. Notebook No. 5. Orenburg, 1995.

2. Lifshits Yu. I. Notebook and Word and shelf: Sat. poems. Chernogolovka: Bogorodsky printer, 2001.

3. Lifshits Yu. I. Poem about Nothing // newspaper " School psychologist", 2001, Moscow.

4. Shakespeare W. Sonnets 137, 152 / Per. Yu. I. Lifshitz // Shakespeare W. Sonnets: An Anthology modern translations. St. Petersburg: Azbuka-klassika, 2004.

5. Shakespeare W. Sonnets / Per. Yu. I. Lifshitz. Yekaterinburg, Ural University Press, 2006.

6. Shakespeare W. Sonnets 19, 55, 66, 71, 73, 74, 90, 106, 116, 130 / Per. Yu. I. Lifshits // Vesi magazine, Yekaterinburg, 2007, No. 1, p. 48-49.

7. Carroll L. Hunting for the Snark / Per. Yu. I. Lifshitz // Carroll L. Hunting for the Snark. St. Petersburg: Azbuka-klassika, 2007.

8. Florya A. V., Lifshits Yu. I. 66th sonnet of W. Shakespeare as presented by B. L. Pasternak. Pedagogical University. - 2008. - No. 4. ISBN 1997-9886. pp. 323-333.

9. Lifshits Yu. I. “The Blue Color” by Nikoloz Baratashvili translated by Boris Pasternak / M .: Literary Study, 2009, No. 6. P. 125-135.

10. Shakespeare W. Hamlet / Per. Yu. I. Lifshitz. Statement of the Chelyabinsk Youth Theater. Seasons 1991-92, 1992-93