how best to deal with "deiatel'"?

[Kirsty McCluskey]

I have used "actor", but of course that can seem a bit ambiguous depending
on context.  Hopefully other Seelangsovtsy will have better suggestions.

Kirsty McCluskey


On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 1:08 PM, Margarita Nafpaktitis <
nafpaktitism at virginia.edu> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
> Has anyone come up with an effective way to render "deiatel'" -- I'm
> particularly plagued by the phrases  "kul'turnyi deiatel'" and "Deiateli
> Khudozhestvennogo Slova" (vis-a-vis Russian cultural life in the 1920s) --
> into English?  For the second phrase, I've experimented with
> "promoters"/"supporters" and don't absolutely hate it, but I haven't found
> anything that works for the first (I've already rejected "activist" [too
> edgy], "figure" [too static], "agent" [too contemporarily anthropological
> and/or Cold War espionage-ical]).   The Bol'shoi tolkovovyi slovar'
> russkogo
> iazyka published by the RAN Institut lingvisticheskikh issledovanii (2002),
> even kind of fudges, by using a  word with the same root in the definition:
> "Litso, proiavivshee sebia v kakoi-libo oblasti obshchestvennoi
> deiatel'nosti."  (deiatelnost' - rabota, zaniatie kogo-libo v kokoi-libo
> oblasti).
>
> Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions!
>
> Margarita
>
> --
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> Margarita Nafpaktitis
> Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures
> University of Virginia
> 109 New Cabell Hall / PO Box 400783
> Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4783
> Tel: (434) 924-3548 FAX: (434) 982-2744
> http://www.people.virginia.edu/~mn2t/home.html<http://www.people.virginia.edu/%7Emn2t/home.html>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>


-- 
Vulpes Libris
A collective of bibliophiles writing about books
vulpeslibris.wordpress.com

revisitingrussia.wordpress.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------