Vasily Grossman & Beethoven /and the Russian translator Globa

[Alexandra Smith]

Dear William,

Thank you for your informative e-mail about Beethoven's Irish songs.
You are absolutely right about the lack of information regarding the  
Russian song "Irlandskaya zastol'naia".

As far as I can judge, the Russian song called The Irish party Song  
makes use of Beethoven's music from this piece: Ludwig van Beethoven:  
Come draw we round a cheerful ring, from Irish songs, WoO 152, No. 11.
You can hear part of it (performed by Ann Murray) here:  
http://www.classicalm.com/en/composition/1969/25-Irish-Songs
You can see the picture of the LP gramophone  record described in  
Grossman's passage here:  
http://www.russian-records.com/details.php?image_id=12514&l=russian

It was produced in the Soviet Union in 1938. The recording features  
Russian singer and voice teacher Professor A.L. Dolivo who sings two  
party songs - the Irish song and the Scottish on. Both songs -- The  
Irish Party (Drinking) Song and the Scottish Party Song use  
Beethoven's music but they don't match the original songs -- they were  
penned by Andrey Globa (1888-1964), an established Russian -Soviet  
poet, writer and playwright. (In 1922 Valerii Briusov praised his  
poetic achievements.) They were inspired by the original and might be  
defined as transpositions rather than translations. The Irish Party  
Song in Globa's rendering preserves the image of Winter described in  
the second stanza of the song "Come draw we round a cheerful ring" (it  
was written by the Scottish writer and poet Joanna Baillie):

Who shakes the door with angry din;
And would admitted be?
No, Gossip Winter, snug within,
We have no room for thee.
Go, scud it o'er Killarney's lake,
And shake the willows bare;
The water-elf his sport doth take,
Thou'lt find a comrade there.

Globa's version reads:
Iz nochi I moroznykh viug
Kto v dver' stuchitsia k nam?
I otchego nemoi ispug
Na blednykh litsakh tam?

Needless to say, Globa omits all the references to Irish landscapes.

The images of "grog" and "Betsy" appear in both songs created by  
Globa: in the Irish Party Song and in The Scottish Party Song. I think  
that this image derives from Pushkin's poem "Piruiushchie studenty"  
that features students drinking grog. The image of Jenny inserted by  
Globa into the Irish song invokes the image of loyal lover Jenny (who  
will always remember Edmond: a Edmonda ne zabudet Jenny dazhe v  
nebesakh): it appears in Pushkin's Mary's Song from A Feast in Time of  
Plague. The girl Betsy - who is featured in both songs penned by Globa  
(once again there is no Betsy in the original Scottish song)- invokes   
Liza (whose father was an anglophile and called her Betsy) from  
Pushkin's story "The Lady Peasant" (Baryshnia krestian'ka). Just like  
Pushkin's story promotes the advantages of using theatrical modes of  
behaviour and disguise as well as wit and inventiveness, Globa's  
poems/songs promote the same creative approach to established  
conventions. They can be called translations in disguise. It seems  
that Globa managed to convince some of his contemporaries in his  
abilities to be a brilliant translator, including Mariia Iudina who  
praised his translations (she also defines Globa as a typical Moscow  
dandy: tipichnyj moskovskij estet). She praises Globa's translations  
of Beethoven's songs prepared by Dolivo (Irish and Scottish songs) as  
truly remarkable: http://judina.ru/sozdanie-sbornika-pesen-shuberta/

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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