TLS: Pushkin & The Captain's Daughter

[Olga Meerson]

Dear Robert, dear all,
Please do mention Davydov: he has a very fine ear for such things. Also, Nabokov cites one of the best alliterational plays in the plot, also a summary of it, in a way: "beda, barin: buran!" David Bethea knows all that full well, as he does Sergey Davydov, as well as his (David's) Pushkin, and his Nabokov. I wonder where the disagreement is, or rather why. Is it possible that it is territorial? A. Dolinin, Bethea, and Davydov have considered Captain's Daughter their own domain. Sometimes, even unconsciously, this creates a hostility towards someone who makes similar judgments but from the outside of their scholarly circles. Everyone familiar with your work, Robert, knows what an ear you have as a poet--not merely as a translator--or rather, what your brilliant translations owe to your poetic ear. But not everyone is aware of your greatness, who works with the originals without resorting to translations or studying translators' considerations. I know Davydov and Bethea well a!
 nd!
 Dolinin, by his papers at conferences. They definitely are a professional clique, beautifully powerful, intellectually, and, inwardly, very collegial. But the danger of this clique, of being as exclusive as any other, is huge. In general, the problem with schools and cliques is that they often believe that, unless an insightful observation in their field comes from one of them, it is plagiarism. Pushkin's genius transcends cliques but scholarly domains don't. Alas. My observations are based on my observations alone. I know both your work on Pushkin, and the work of Bethea, Davydov, and Dolinin, and I admire all of it. So the only explanation for any possible strife in the matter, I think, can only be explained by non-intellectual, and even non-academic, factors.   Perhaps there was no strife to begin with? 
o

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