Sources of Panteleimon Kulish’s Views on Translation

Abstract

Panteleimon Kulish’s views on translation were based on his own experience of translations and shaped under the infl uence of contemporary Ukrainian translation practice and scholarly thought (observations by H. Kvitka-Osnovianenko, P. Hulak-Artemovskyi, Ya. Holovatskyi, and M. Maksymovych; biblical texts in translation of P. Hulak-Artemovskyi, M. Maksymovych, V. Aleksandrov, and P. Morachevskyi), as well as the German translation studies (ideas of J. Herder, W. Humboldt, F.Schleiermacher, and A. Schlegel). The Ukrainian critic’s understanding corresponds to the views of other Slavonic authors: some Czech critics considered translation as a significant power for creating a new literature and nation and saw the roots of this strength in the language, but more detailed criteria for evaluating translation quality weren’t discussed yet; Russian researchers emphasized the significance of the author’s approach for the correct translation of his/her writings. P. Kulish considered the problems of reproducing the identity of the text much deeper, drawing attention to what makes any translation a different literary work and how the text may or should be modified with respect to the specific features of the reader’s perception. In terms of translation studies of the time, P. Kulish regarded the “poetic spirit and composition” of the text as the main criteria of the equivalent translation. However, the term ‘composition’ does not only designate the formal structure of a text. It is related to the concept that the form is shaped by the language and specific lingual means as well.  P. Kulish was aware of the semantic problems of translation, but available linguistic knowledge of the time didn’t offer proper terms for their description. In addition, P. Kulish was actually one of the first (if not the first) to introduce into Ukrainian translation studies the term ‘untranslatable’, which became very popular in the theoretical and critical discussions of the 20th century.