Analiza porównawcza realiów etnokulturowych w polskich przekładach powieści Iwana Turgieniewa „Rudin”

The article discusses the problem of “translatability / non-translatability” of Turgenev’s ethnocultural elements of his Rudin translations to Polish by M. Nowinski (1886), S. Kolaczkowski (1948), and J. Dmochowska (1953). It analyzes one of the dominants of Turgenev’s works related with the cultural concept of “Russia” and its component “native man.” The main tool of expressing the “Russianness” as an ethnic trait of Turgenev’s characters is their speech and anthroponyms, i.e. person’s name. The analysis of word combinations carrying the key word “Russian” (or “in Russian”) revealed that in general, Turgenev’s dominant is present in the translations; whereas certain non-translatable culturally and historically conditioned meanings and linguistic elements were compensated by various other means. These include stylistic and expressive resources of the Polish language (such as inversion, repetition, and addition of words), as well as conscious (in many cases, justified) introduction of the “Polish element” (phraseology / proverbs) in the novel. The translations of nomina propria allow to assess the significance of translators’ linguistic decisions in terms of ethnic identity of the characters, author’s irony and a friendly communication distance specific to Russian culture that are reflected in character’s name. The article concludes that the strategies used by Nowinski, Kolaczkowski, and Dmochowska – from clearly visible attempts to Polonize and compromise to undoubted success – were determined by a certain level of development of the 19-20 c. Polish language, cultural and historical situation, as well as the tradition of translation in Poland. Keywords: “Rudin,” М. Nowinski, S. Kolaczkowski, J. Dmochowska, Polish translation, hero, concept of the artistic world, ethno-cultural identity, anthroponyms, classifi cation of anthroponyms. DOI:  http://dx.doi.org/10.15823/zz.2017.12