Fr. & Ger. transliteration from Russ.

[Steven Hill]

Dear colleagues,

There may be something in what Prof Israeli says, about different languages'
traditional transliterations of Russian suffixes like "-OV"("-OFF," "-OW," etc.).  

But still, whenever I see musicological references like the German-language
"Prokoview [sic], Die Liebe zu drei Orangen" or "Maxim Wengerow" (contemporary
violinist mentioned in another German source), I find it difficult not to think of
those as the normal GERMAN renditions of Russian names.  Or a Soviet film director
of the 1960s-1970s being transliterated "Wladimir Wengerow" in a German source. 
Or a contemporary Russian actor being re-spelled "Walerij Alexeiew" when he acted
in one German film.

On the other hand, when sci-fi pioneer Jules Verne, a FRENCHMAN, wrote his
pesudo-Russian adventure novel, he called it "Michel Strogoff."  When artist
Aleksandr Alekseev emigrated to France and went on to make classic animated films
for several decades in Paris, he re-spelled his name "Alexandre Alexeieff."  Same
for actor Valerii Inkizhinov: he emigrated to France c. 1930 and took on the
orthography "Inkijinoff." (Under that spelling he even acted in one of the first
film adaptations of a "Maigret" mystery by Simenon, as early as 1932.)

For curiosity I looked up some references to peripatetic composer Sergei
Sergeevich Prokof'ev, among which was a German-language entry, copied & pasted below:

Sergej Sergejewitsch Prokofjew - [ Translate this page ]
Prokofjew, Sergej Sergejewitsch (im Westen meist Serge Prokofieff) * 23. Apr.
1891 auf Gut Sonzowka [Sosnovka?] (Gouv. Jekaterinosl[a]w) † 5. März. 1953 in
Moskau ...
www.operone.de/komponist/prokofieff.html - 4k - Cached - Similar pages

The above entry offers an interesting contrast between the German rendition
of Prokofiev's name and the parenthetical note ("in the West mostly 'Serge
Prokofieff'").

No rule is ever without exceptions, and I'm sure one can find a fair number here.
But I'm not yet convinced that Prof Israeli is right, insofar as the
preponderance of cases is concerned.

Sincerely,
Steven P Hill (Univ. of Illinois).
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