Molodets (The Swain) in English?

[Alexandra Smith]

Dear Molly,

As far as I know, there is no English translation of Tsvetaeva's  
"Molodets" available to general readers at this stage. There was an  
English translation prepared by one British translator -- Alec Brown  
(he was a friend of Mirsky) in the end of the 1920s: there was a plan  
in 1929 to publish a French and an English versions of the poem and  
include Natalia Goncharova's illustrations. You could read about this  
plan in Tsvetaeva's letters to Gonsharova (esp. in her letter written  
on 3 March 1929):http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/podshivka/7311.php
One of the specialists on Goncharova from Newcastle have managed to  
find surviving relatives of Alec Brown, in hope to obtain the  
manuscript but he was told that the translator's archive was burnt in  
his relatives attic after the WW2.
The bilingual edition that includes Tsvetaeva's own translation of the  
poem into French was published in 2005 in Moscow:
Цветаева М.И. Молодец=La Gars / Ил. Н.Гончаровой. - М.: Эллис Лак  
2000; Дом-музей Марины Цветаевой, 2005. - 328 с. - На фр. и рус. яз.
It contains Efim Etkind's translation of Tsvetaeva's preface to the  
French edition.
Some passages from this book are available here:
http://fringilla-pinso.livejournal.com/1319.html

Neither French, nor English versions of the poem with Goncharova's  
illustrations were published in 1929 -- for financial reasons.

There is a bilingual edition of the poem that includes Christiane  
Hauschild's translation of the whole poem into German (plus her  
Notes): Молодец. Сказка./Molodec. Ein Marchen.-Herausgegeben and  
ubersetzt von Christiane Hauschild. Wallstein Verlag, 2004.
(Sorry I can't reproduce all German letters  properly in this e-mail.)  
Christiane has also published her dissertation on this poem as a book:  
Christiane Hauschild. Haretische Transgressionen. Das Marchenpoem  
"Molodec" von Marina Cvetaeva, Wallstein Verlag, 2004.

With best wishes,
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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