Grossman: the confusion of tongues (Babel and Babylon)

[Inna Caron]

I second Svetlana Grenier's and Paul Gallagher's suggestion that "Rossiia
poznala sebia" should be translated as "Russia came to know itself/herself"
rather than "knew." First, there is that meaning of "poznanie" as
"cognition," as SG has pointed out. Second, "poznat'" is the verb used to
designate the "knowing" in biblical sense (as in "Adam poznal Evu"). Whether
physical possession or deep self-realization, "poznanie" carries the
function of some inward reaching, which, according to Grossman, Russia was
able to achieve while seeing its/her reflection in Stalin's words and
actions.

Moi dve kopeiki :)

Inna Caron

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Robert Chandler
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 12:01 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: [SEELANGS] Grossman: the confusion of tongues (Babel and Babylon)

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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