Medieval Studies in the Ocean of Translation. On the Literal and the Correct

Abstract

Do historians think? Do translators think? Do they have to think? It seems to be a rhetorical question: of course, people of intellectual labor think (reflect) because it is their professional duty. But the word “think”, like many other words, has different shades of meaning. However, it always implies reflection, doubt, and comparing different options. Nevertheless, it is one thing to think within the established professional schemes and tasks: for a historian it is how better to reproduce the events of the past and their meaning, for a translator it is how better and more accurately to transmit the original text. The creative element in both cases is secondary and limited. It is another thing to question the very schemes and stereotypes that have been worked out, to try to make sense of them anew. Reflection on beginnings is useful for any intellectual activity and constitutes, if not the main, then a very important part of it, so here I list in theses form a number of problems of historical research, primarily in medieval studies, related to one or another type of translation, since the work of the historian and the translator are closely connected.