Derzhavnaya bogoroditsa?

Thu Oct 29 19:58:34 UTC 2009

Dear Michele -
Thank you for bringing the dead horse back to life, and while my  
computer suddenly seems to be working again here in Germany, I want to  
say that I agree with you and disagree with art historians who distort  
the religious reality of images by tagging them with misnomers from  
their own culture.  This is like calling the Nazi symbol a "swastika"  
in English, when such a term belongs to Hindus, Buddhists, etc. who  
are offended when THEIR term is misappropriated by mass murderers who  
in fact utilized a Christian hooked cross (Hakenkreuz).  My best  
German friend (whose father served in the Wehrmacht) tells me he never  
heard of a "swastika" till he came to America.

And thank you Svitlana Malykhina for your informative and balanced  
comments.

With regards to the list -
Daniel RL

On Oct 29, 2009, at 8:10 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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