Derzhavnaya bogoroditsa?

Thu Oct 29 18:31:55 UTC 2009

I agree that one thousand years of Roman Catholic theological shifts  
now contribute to
Post-Schism Catholic terms in English being translated as if they were  
also applicable to
various Orthodox associations, and may lead the uninitiated to  
conclude a greater degree
of closeness between the two faiths than actually exist.  Let's face  
it, this is one of the reason
that we pedagogues exist, to identify the similarities and  
differences.   So--  while
we're at it,  how do dear colleagues deal with the slippery concept of  
"Uspenie"?  Assumption?
Dormition?    That Cathedral in the Kremlin is often translated as the  
Assumption Cathedral, although
I note that the Wikipedia entry uses "Dormition."

George Kalbouss
Emeritus  The Ohio State University

On Oct 29, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Michele A. Berdy wrote:

> 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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