Grossman: the confusion of tongues (Babel and Babylon)

[Robert Chandler]

Dear all,

The number of possible errors one can fall into seems greater than ever.  It
has been brought to my attention, off-list, that Œvavilonskii¹ here has to
do not with the City of Babylon, but with the Tower of Babel.  This, of
course, is blindingly obvious ­ and yet I had gone on blindly translating
Œvavilonskii¹ as ŒBabylonian¹...

So here is yet another version:

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 Lenin¹s 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
revolution was a chaos greater than that of the Tower of Babel.

In hope that the Tower of Babylon is not playing any more tricks, at least
for the time being,

Robert

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