Grossman: VSE TECHET: poznala & uznala

[John Dunn]

I wonder if I might raise a different point here and respectfully ask Robert why he found it necessary to change the word order of the final sentence.  He has the advantage of having seen the full context, but it strikes me that the important information here concerns the mixture of Russian and Western elements, rather than the chaos, which is a (possibly implicit) given.  This, I would suggest, could be reflected in two ways in English, either by placing this information at the end (as in the original) or by 'topicalising' it,  using the 'It was ... that' construction.  This would give two possible versions:

A/the chaos worse than Babylon was the result of combining ......

or (and this would be my preferred option):

It was the combination of ....... that led to/caused a/the more (worse?) than Babylonian chaos.  

Incidentally (and much more tentatively), I wonder if Хаос here could be translated by 'disorder'. 

Sorry to be difficult.

John Dunn.


-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Chandler <kcf19 at DIAL.PIPEX.COM>
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 21:44:07 +0100
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Grossman: VSE TECHET: poznala & uznala

Dear all,

Many thanks - as always, I have learned a great deal of importance even from
messages I have not been able to act on.

There clearly is considerable depth of meaning in 'poznala' (and the
subsequent 'poznavanie'), and I think this is best revealed not through
elevated vocabulary but through being as simple as possible.  So I now have
this:

The name of Stalin is inscribed for all eternity in the history of Russia.

Looking at Stalin, Post-revolutionary Russia knew herself.

The 28 volumes of Lenin’s Collected Works – speeches, reports, programmes,
economic and philosophical studies – did not help Russia to know herself and
her fate.  The result of combining Russian ways of life and Western-style
revolution was a more than Babylonian chaos.

Всего доброго,

Роберт


   Имя Сталина навечно вписано в историю России.
   Послереволюционная Россия, вглядываясь в Сталина, познала себя.
   Двадцать  восемь  томов  ленинских  сочинений - речей, докладов, программ
экономических   и  философских  исследований  - не  послужили  самопознанию
Россией  себя,  своей судьбы.  Хаос,  превышающий  вавилонский, был вызван
смешением западной революции с русским строем развития и жизни.


d0¸  философских  исследований  - не  послужили  самопознанию
Россией  себя,  своей судьбы.  Хаос,  превышающий  вавилонский
John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it

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