Derzhavnaya bogoroditsa?

Thu Oct 29 18:26:49 UTC 2009

Apparently there is a difference between British Orthodox and American 
Orthodox translations. The British usually (?) translate both Bogoroditsa 
and Bogomater' as Mother of God; the Americans usually (?) translate 
Bogoroditsa as Theotokos and Bogomater' as Mother of God. I personally would 
probably follow the American approach (your first translation); if there is 
a distinction in the original language, there should be a distinction in the 
translation.

But I'm not at all a specialist in this! I'm just very opinionated.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Svetlana Malykhina" <mlsvetka at YAHOO.COM>
To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Derzhavnaya bogoroditsa?

What about the following example:
Праздник Успения Пресвятой Владычицы нашей Богородицы и Приснодевы Марии
Should it be translated as
The Feast of the Dormition of Our Most Holy Lady, the Theotokos and 
Ever-Virgin Mary
or it would be better to say
The Feast of the Dormition of our Lady the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin 
Mary
Any other suggestions?

--- On Thu, 29/10/09, Michele A. Berdy <maberdy at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

From: Michele A. Berdy <maberdy at GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Derzhavnaya bogoroditsa?
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Date: Thursday, 29 October, 2009, 5:10 PM

This is very interesting. And sorry to beat a dead horse, but… I still don’t 
agree. I think language and religion are being confused. “Virgin” “Virgin 
Mary” “Our Lady of” etc are common Catholic names of religious paintings; 
"Mother of God of..." is a common Orthodox name of an icon. The former is 
more familiar to an English-speaking audience, but that’s just because there 
are more Catholics in the US/UK than Orthodox. Mother of God doesn’t sound 
“foreign” to English-speaking Orthodox.

When you translate Bogomater’ as “The Virgin Mary” or "The Virgin," you are 
not just switching languages, you’re switching religious traditions. I think 
it’s inappropriate to add Catholic associations/connotations to an Orthodox 
icon, as it is also inappropriate to add Orthodox associations/connotations 
to a Catholic religious painting when translating into Russian. I’m not sure 
that this is a big deal (despite my nattering on about it), but I’m sorry 
the art world is doing it (on both sides). Why not just translate literally? 
Accurate translations would seem a bit odd or cumbersome to audiences raised 
in different religions and religious environments, but in time they’d get 
used to it.

My two (perhaps overly sensitive) cents

----- Original Message ----- From: "William Ryan" <wfr at SAS.AC.UK>
To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:15 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Derzhavnaya bogoroditsa?

> I absolutely agree with this.
>
> For many words, titles, names, expressions etc there is no such thing as a 
> 'correct' translation, only an appropriate one, and that may depend on 
> such variables as context, stylistic register, and convention. And even 
> within specialist areas (e.g. specific religious communities, or the world 
> of art and culture) there may be considerable variety of usage.
>
> The comparative Google searches which I quoted in my previous posting may 
> not have been very scientific but they were very illuminating - I 
> recommend a little browsing.
>
> Will Ryan
>
>
> Margaret Anne Samu wrote:
>> Since Russian icons and liturgical images started moving into the art 
>> world about a century ago, let me chime in from the art historian's 
>> viewpoint.
>>
>> The standard name used by art historians is the Virgin (Virgin of 
>> Vladimir, etc.) almost regardless of the image's country of origin. There 
>> are notable exceptions with famous images whose historical names stuck, 
>> such as Raphael's Alba Madonna (National Gallery of Art, Wash., D.C.).
>> You will see this usage in most art history publications, including ones 
>> with objects from diverse countries, such as the catalogue from the 
>> Metropolitan Museum of Art's recent exhibition, Byzantium: Faith and 
>> Power, which included an entire gallery of Virgins--many from Russia. I 
>> see the Met as a standard of scholarly neutrality, which may or may not 
>> be the goal here.
>>
>> Some publications dealing exclusively with Russian and Byzantine objects 
>> do aim for linguistic accuracy by using the term Mother of God, such as 
>> the catalogue for the traveling exhibition The Gates of Mystery. This 
>> exhibition had a very different aim, it seems to me, from the Met's. The 
>> Gates of Mystery (as its title implies) was very much about creating an 
>> aura of foreignness around the art, giving the visitor access to a 
>> mysterious Russian spiritual world, while the Met's Byzantium exhibition 
>> tried to place late Byzantine (including Russian) images in a broader 
>> context that visitors would readily understand.
>>
>> The main problem with using the phrase Mother of God is that it the extra 
>> preposition can get unnecessarily bumbly when you are trying to create a 
>> readable sentence, since most of them are "of" something or somewhere, 
>> and you are usually dealing with attribution (by) and place of origin 
>> (from). But it is used sometimes, especially when the images' liturgical 
>> aspects are being emphasized.
>>
>> Similarly, art historians usually use "Christ" (figure of Christ, infant 
>> Christ, Christ Pantokrator, etc.) instead of the liturgical Jesus (baby 
>> Jesus, etc.) or Savior--not that the latter never appear, either.
>>
>> Meanwhile, I hope the original question about sources on the image under 
>> discussion has been answered.
>>
>> Margaret
>>
>> ======================
>> Margaret Samu
>> Ph.D. Candidate in Art History
>> Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
>> 1 East 78th Street
>> New York, NY 10075
>>
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