"Heart of a Dog" translation

[Alexandra Smith]

Dear Anna,

I think that Michael Glenny's translation of "Sobach'e serdtse" is  
good in many ways. You can read it on this website:  
http://www.lib.ru/BULGAKOW/dogheart_engl.txt
You could compare it to Mirra Ginzburg's translation (some pages are  
available for perusal through the amazon  
site:http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Dog-Mikhail-Bulgakov/dp/0802150594)
It's curious though that both versions render Bulgakov's reference to  
porridge in a peculiar way: while Glenny translates the sentence  
"Pozharnye uzhinaiut kashei, kak izvestno" as "firemen have soup for  
supper, you know", Ginzburg says, "The firemen get kasha for supper,  
as you know".
I think that Glenny's version is more laconic and has a better flow.  
To my mind, despite of some inaccuracies here and there in this  
particular translation, Michael Glenny stands out as a person who has  
"a sensitivity to style in both languages and sound judgment", to use  
Helena Goscilo's phrase. (I totally agree with Helena's point.)
In terms of bibliography, I think that many interesting and useful  
points about the contextual setting of "Sobach'e serdtse" and  
Bulgakov's responses to various political and intellectual debates of  
the 1920s are offered in these works:
*Белобровцева, И. "Мотив гомункулуса в творчестве Михаила Булгакова",   
Булгаковский сборник: Материалы по истории русской литературы XX века.  
Таллинн, 1994, 47-36.
*Иоффе, С. "Тайнопись в «Собачьем сердце» Булгакова", Новый Журнал,  
кн.168-169, 260-274.
*Howell,Yvonne. "Eugenics, Rejuvenation, and Bulgakov's Journey into  
the Heart of Dogness", Slavic Review, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Autumn, 2006),  
pp. 544-562
*Burgin, Diana L."Bulgakov's Early Tragedy of the Scientist-Creator:  
An Interpretation of The Heart of a Dog", The Slavic and East European  
Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Winter, 1978), pp. 494-508.
*Milne, Lesley. Mikhail Bulgakov: A Critical Biography. Cambridge:  
Cambridge University Press,1990.
*Fusso, Susanne. "Failures of Transformation in Sobac’e serdce", The  
Slavic and East European Journal,Vol. 33, No. 3, autumn 1989, 286-399.
*Mørch, Audun. "Platonov’s Happy Moscow and Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog:  
Prosaic Imaginations of a New Man", Essays in Poetics. Vol. 24, autumn  
1999. 143-157.
*Richmond, Steven. ”And who are the judges?” Mikhail Bulgakov versus  
Soviet censorship, 1926- 1936", Russian history/Histoire Russe, 33,  
No.1, spring 2006. 83-107.
*Lovell, Stephen. "Bulgakov as Soviet Culture", The Slavonic and East  
European Review. Vol. 76, No. 1, January 1998. 28-48.

All best,
Alexandra



------------------------------------------
Alexandra Smith (PhD, University of London)
Reader in Russian Studies
Department of European Languages and Cultures
School of  Languages, Literatures and Cultures
The University of Edinburgh
David Hume Tower
George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9JX
UK

tel. +44-(0)131-6511381
fax: +44- (0)131 -651 -1482
e-mail: Alexandra.Smith at ed.ac.uk



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