how best to deal with "deiatel'"?

[Oleg Pashuk]

Margarita,

I would translate "kul'turnyi deiatel'" as "a cultural figure," or maybe 
simply "an intellectual."

Cheers,
Oleg Pashuk


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Margarita Nafpaktitis" <nafpaktitism at VIRGINIA.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 1:08 PM
Subject: [SEELANGS] how best to deal with "deiatel'"?


> 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
>
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> 6:55 AM
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>
> 


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Checked by AVG. 
Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.5.6/1577 - Release Date: 7/28/2008 6:55 AM

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