Grossman: the confusion of tongues (Babel and Babylon)

[Penelope Burt]

I third it ("Russia came to know itself").
I also wonder, given the reference to the Tower of Babel, whether  
"smeshenie(m) in the last line of the third paragraph might be  
translated with something a little stronger than "combining"???

On Sep 8, 2009, at 2:44 PM, Inna Caron wrote:

> 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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