Derzhavnaya bogoroditsa?
Michele A. Berdy
maberdy at GMAIL.COM
Thu Oct 29 18:26:49 UTC 2009
Apparently there is a difference between British Orthodox and American
Orthodox translations. The British usually (?) translate both Bogoroditsa
and Bogomater' as Mother of God; the Americans usually (?) translate
Bogoroditsa as Theotokos and Bogomater' as Mother of God. I personally would
probably follow the American approach (your first translation); if there is
a distinction in the original language, there should be a distinction in the
translation.
But I'm not at all a specialist in this! I'm just very opinionated.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Svetlana Malykhina" <mlsvetka at YAHOO.COM>
To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Derzhavnaya bogoroditsa?
What about the following example:
Праздник Успения Пресвятой Владычицы нашей Богородицы и Приснодевы Марии
Should it be translated as
The Feast of the Dormition of Our Most Holy Lady, the Theotokos and
Ever-Virgin Mary
or it would be better to say
The Feast of the Dormition of our Lady the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin
Mary
Any other suggestions?
--- On Thu, 29/10/09, Michele A. Berdy <maberdy at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
From: Michele A. Berdy <maberdy at GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Derzhavnaya bogoroditsa?
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Date: Thursday, 29 October, 2009, 5:10 PM
This is very interesting. And sorry to beat a dead horse, but… I still don’t
agree. I think language and religion are being confused. “Virgin” “Virgin
Mary” “Our Lady of” etc are common Catholic names of religious paintings;
"Mother of God of..." is a common Orthodox name of an icon. The former is
more familiar to an English-speaking audience, but that’s just because there
are more Catholics in the US/UK than Orthodox. Mother of God doesn’t sound
“foreign” to English-speaking Orthodox.
When you translate Bogomater’ as “The Virgin Mary” or "The Virgin," you are
not just switching languages, you’re switching religious traditions. I think
it’s inappropriate to add Catholic associations/connotations to an Orthodox
icon, as it is also inappropriate to add Orthodox associations/connotations
to a Catholic religious painting when translating into Russian. I’m not sure
that this is a big deal (despite my nattering on about it), but I’m sorry
the art world is doing it (on both sides). Why not just translate literally?
Accurate translations would seem a bit odd or cumbersome to audiences raised
in different religions and religious environments, but in time they’d get
used to it.
My two (perhaps overly sensitive) cents
----- Original Message ----- From: "William Ryan" <wfr at SAS.AC.UK>
To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:15 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Derzhavnaya bogoroditsa?
> I absolutely agree with this.
>
> For many words, titles, names, expressions etc there is no such thing as a
> 'correct' translation, only an appropriate one, and that may depend on
> such variables as context, stylistic register, and convention. And even
> within specialist areas (e.g. specific religious communities, or the world
> of art and culture) there may be considerable variety of usage.
>
> The comparative Google searches which I quoted in my previous posting may
> not have been very scientific but they were very illuminating - I
> recommend a little browsing.
>
> Will Ryan
>
>
> Margaret Anne Samu wrote:
>> Since Russian icons and liturgical images started moving into the art
>> world about a century ago, let me chime in from the art historian's
>> viewpoint.
>>
>> The standard name used by art historians is the Virgin (Virgin of
>> Vladimir, etc.) almost regardless of the image's country of origin. There
>> are notable exceptions with famous images whose historical names stuck,
>> such as Raphael's Alba Madonna (National Gallery of Art, Wash., D.C.).
>> You will see this usage in most art history publications, including ones
>> with objects from diverse countries, such as the catalogue from the
>> Metropolitan Museum of Art's recent exhibition, Byzantium: Faith and
>> Power, which included an entire gallery of Virgins--many from Russia. I
>> see the Met as a standard of scholarly neutrality, which may or may not
>> be the goal here.
>>
>> Some publications dealing exclusively with Russian and Byzantine objects
>> do aim for linguistic accuracy by using the term Mother of God, such as
>> the catalogue for the traveling exhibition The Gates of Mystery. This
>> exhibition had a very different aim, it seems to me, from the Met's. The
>> Gates of Mystery (as its title implies) was very much about creating an
>> aura of foreignness around the art, giving the visitor access to a
>> mysterious Russian spiritual world, while the Met's Byzantium exhibition
>> tried to place late Byzantine (including Russian) images in a broader
>> context that visitors would readily understand.
>>
>> The main problem with using the phrase Mother of God is that it the extra
>> preposition can get unnecessarily bumbly when you are trying to create a
>> readable sentence, since most of them are "of" something or somewhere,
>> and you are usually dealing with attribution (by) and place of origin
>> (from). But it is used sometimes, especially when the images' liturgical
>> aspects are being emphasized.
>>
>> Similarly, art historians usually use "Christ" (figure of Christ, infant
>> Christ, Christ Pantokrator, etc.) instead of the liturgical Jesus (baby
>> Jesus, etc.) or Savior--not that the latter never appear, either.
>>
>> Meanwhile, I hope the original question about sources on the image under
>> discussion has been answered.
>>
>> Margaret
>>
>> ======================
>> Margaret Samu
>> Ph.D. Candidate in Art History
>> Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
>> 1 East 78th Street
>> New York, NY 10075
>>
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