Notas de um tradutor em 2012

Abstract

IUNDERSTAND THAT the main concern in the translation of books such as Tolstoy's should be to maintain features of language and thought that seem strange to us, that do not match the patterns or habits prevailing among us. Some language preferences in the original text express a perspective, an angle from which to view life and society. A crucial part of the meaning of this type of work lies precisely in what sounds discrepant from what we expect of a "classic of literature."It is necessary to at least suggest that underlying these linguistic concerns there is a different view of the world and of history, rooted in the society where that work took shape. This contrasts with today's strong pressure for widespread standardization. Also in this aspect -the appreciation of diversity -translation can make an important contribution. 2In other words, the risk in translating Russian literature lies in assimilating those books from the perspective that prevails in our society. This includes reducing in the critical and questioning scope of the works. Strictly speaking, it is a colonizing translation that borrows the word from the original.Without some level of critical notion of the context in which the work was written, of what was at stake at the time it was written, of the relationship between Russian literature and society at that time on the one hand and, on the other, between Russian literature and the concept of art that was boasted by Europe as a universal value, the translation of such books will necessarily lose a vital part of its meaning.3 This assimilationist treatment of the translation of Russian works also reveals a certain fear: the fear of seeing, and showing, that there are other possible, viable forms of facing and organizing social life beyond that which prevails among and is accepted as universal. In other words, the fear of seeing and showing the underlying weaknesses of existing social forms.That fear, or more specifically the object of that fear, is the very reason why those books attract us so much and have so much to tell us.