Two New Translations of The Little Golden Calf

[William Ryan]

Anne Fisher's courteous reply adds more points to consider. I am not a 
specialist on Ilf and Petrov, just a happy reader, and I was not aware 
of the tentative alternative titles (if that is what they are) on the 
manuscript original, which, I must confess, puzzle me a little:

1. Burenushka is an affectionate diminutive for a brown cow - it is not, 
I think, a very common word except in folk tales and would surely not be 
associated by anyone with the biblical calf of gold - so what in fact 
would this have signified as a title? How would it relate to the content 
of the book?

2. Zlatyi telets is from the Church Slavonic and certainly is a 
reference to Exodus 32, albeit via an already existing literary 
'krylatoe slovo', also existing in a  Russianized form as Zolotoi 
telets. There is no particular need to invoke Dostoevskii - Shaliapin's 
rendering of the Golden Calf song from Gounod's Faust was famous 
throughout Europe.

3. Telyata (pl. of telenok). Again this would have no biblical resonance 
(except perhaps to the calves of gold in 1 Kings 12 which are hardly 
relevant), nor would it have any obvious significance as the title of 
the book, nor would it link up with the references in the book to 
zolotoi telenok in the singular. And Ostap Bender was certainly no 
telenok in the colloquial sense.

4. Telushka-polushka. Perhaps an echo of the saying 'Za morem telushka - 
polushka, da rubl' perevoz', but again what could it have meant as a title?

Possibly these are just ruminations on a bovine theme because none of 
them except no. 2 could have been used for the title of a book about the 
pursuit of wealth.

The problem remains that the change from 'Zolotoi telets' to 'Zolotoi 
telenok' in Russian required only the change of the last syllable, and 
every Russian reader would immediately understand the reference and the 
humorous change of register, which is typically a journalistic trick. 
The other Slav languages don't have the stylistic relationship with 
Church Slavonic that Russian has, and probably this kind of humour would 
not work, and I certainly can't think of any alternative play on words 
which might have been used to translate it into English. Perhaps someone 
else can? Personally, I still find that the introduction of the word 
'little' into the title of Anne Fisher's translation does not in fact 
convey the Russian humour but obscures it.  Even if Il'f and Petrov had 
kept the standard phrase 'Zolotoi telets' the irony of the title would 
still have been there, and similarly it seems to me that 'The Calf of 
Gold' stands perfectly well as a humorously ironic title for the English 
translation without further embellishment.

I hasten to add that none of this should be read as hostility to Anne 
Fisher's new translation, which I have ordered and look forward to reading.

Regards,
Will Ryan



Anne Fisher wrote:
> Dear SEELANGers,
>
>
> I think Ilf and Petrov would’ve loved this! They were very particular about
> their translations, by the way, and threatened to withdraw permission for
> the French translation of *Zolotoi telenok* if it didn’t use the version of
> the text they wanted.
>
>
>
> Will Ryan raises a very interesting question.
>
>
>
> If we consider the authors’ intent, the effect they clearly wanted their
> title to have on readers, then it is evident that they wanted readers to
> recognize both 1) the Biblical image, and 2) the “lowering” of it. The
> manuscript of *Zolotoi telenok* shows this: on the cover of the file
> containing the manuscript, they wrote
>
>
>
> Burenushka
>
> Zlatyi telets
>
> Telyata
>
> Telushka-polushka
>
>
>
> It seems from this list that they toyed with both extremes, from a faux-OCS
> rendering (“zlaty telets” - which is faux if, according to Will and Daniel,
> the phrase as used really should be either the “telets litii” of the OC
> Elizabethan Bible or Dostoevsky’s “zolotoi telets”) to the overly jokey
> “telushka-polushka,” and eventually settled on a rendering that captured the
> resonance they wanted.
>
>
>
> All translators of the novel have to decide what to do with this semantic
> shift between “telenok” and “telets.” For example, as far as I know from my
> limited knowledge of Polish and German, there is only one version of the
> word “calf,” just like in English. But in their versions of the title (*Złoty
> cielec*, *Das Goldene Kalb*) they repeat the Biblical phrase exactly, with
> no indication of the semantic shift.
>
>
>
> The previous two English translations of *Zolotoi telenok* are evenly split:
> Charles Malamuth’s of 1932 is *The Little Golden Calf*, while John
> Richardson’s of 1961 is *The Golden Calf*. The French Ilf and Petrov scholar
> Alain Prechac (apologies for the lack of diacritics!) wrote in 2000, “Le
> titre appelle un commentaire: le Veau d'or biblique, ou celui du zodiaque
> (en francais: le taureau), se dit en russe "telec". Mais Ilf et Petrov lui
> ont préfère le simple "telenok", qui le dedramatise et le rend plus proche
> de nous: c'est le «Little Golden Calf" de la version anglo-américaine.”
> Strangely, although he seems to approve of the Malamuth rendering, he adds
> nothing in his own translation of *Zolotoi telenok *- *Le Veau d’or *- that
> would echo the “dedramatizing” effect of which he approves.
>
>
>
> Can anyone else offer analyses of the title’s translation into other
> languages?
>
>
>
> Regards to the list,
>
>
>
> Annie
>
>
>   

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