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Вестник Московского университета. Сер. 22. Теория перевода. 2016. № 4
ИСТОРИЯ ПЕРЕВОДА И ПЕРЕВОДЧЕСКИХ УЧЕНИЙ
И.И. Валуйцева,
доктор филологических наук, профессор кафедры теоретической и прикладной лингвистики Московского государственного областного университета; e-mail: irinaiv-v@mail.ru
Г.Т. Хухуни,
доктор филологических наук, профессор, заведующий кафедрой теории языка и англистики Московского государственного областного университета; e-mail: khukhuni@mail.ru
О ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИХ И ЛИНГВОКУЛЬТУРНЫХ АСПЕКТАХ ПЕРЕВОДА БИБЛИИ
(к 140-летней годовщине выхода в свет синодального перевода)
Статья посвящена некоторым лингвистическим и лингвокультурным аспектам Синодального перевода Священного писания на русский язык, вышедшего в свет в 1876 г. Отмечается, что этот труд вызвал неоднозначную реакцию и подвергся критике с разных позиций. Авторы статьи приходят к выводу, что, несмотря на некоторые выдвигавшиеся против него обвинения (например, в «устарелости» языка, попытке переводить «с еврейского под руководством греческой Библии», приводившей к определённому эклектизму, и т.д.), названные недостатки могут быть объяснены историей и условиями их создания. В связи с этим проводится типологическое сопоставление названного перевода с английской Библией короля Иакова.
Ключевые слова: Синодальный перевод, Библия короля Иакова, русский, славянский, английский, перевод, оригинал, Библия.
Irina I. Valuytseva,
Dr. Sc. (Philology), Professor at the Department of Language Theory and Applied Linguistics, Moscow State Regional University, Russia; e-mail: irinaiv-v@mail.ru
Georgy T. Khukhuni,
Dr. Sc. (Philology), Professor, Head of the Department of Language Theory and English Studies, Moscow State Regional University, Russia; e-mail: khukhuni@mail.ru
LINGUISTIC AND LINGUOCULTURAL ASPECTS
OF BIBLE TRANSLATION: CELEBRATING
THE 140th ANIIVERSARY OF SYNODAL TRANSLATION
The present paper is dedicated to linguistic and linguocultural aspects of the Russian Synodal translation of the Holy Writ made in 1876. The public's reaction to this work was quite contradictive and it was criticized by many. The authors postulate that despite some
accusations against this translation (e.g. the "obsoleteness" of its language, an attempt to translate from Hebrew but "under the guidance of the Greek Bible" leading to certain eclecticism, etc.) these shortcomings can be generally justified by the history and circumstances under which the translation was made. Its typological comparison with the King James Bible is provided.
Key words: Synodal translation, the King James Bible, Russian, Slavonic, English, translation, the original, the Bible.
The so-called Synodal Translation of the Holy Writ published in 1876 "with the blessing of the Sacred Governing Synod" was the first full Russian translation of the Bible text. Its dramatic history is quite well-known and has been described many times (see in particular [Чистович, 1899; Рижский, 2007] and others). In fact, its appearance was a result of the contribution of several generations of translators. This work began in 1816, when Emperor Alexander I ordered Prince Alexander Golitsyn, President of the Russian Bible Society, to afford the Russians an opportunity to read the Bible in their native language, which would be more intelligible for them than Slavonic being used for that purpose («доставить и россиянам способ читать слово Божие на природном своём российском языке, яко вразумительнейшем для них славянского наречия, на коем книги священного Писания у нас издаются» [Флоровский, 2003]). This fact raised a discussion (continued until now) about the status of the Synodal translation: may it be treated as just the "superficial editing' of the RBS translation [Выступление..., 2011] or despite its connection with the latter, it must be actually defined as a new translation because it contains many substantive emendations [Дес-ницкий, 2015: 226].
In no event shall the present article pretend to solve this dilemma. However, it should be mentioned that the similar issue arises almost every time when a final text becomes the product of collaborative efforts of a group of people covering a long period. E.g., in certain aspects, we can observe the same sort of situation in respect of the King James Bible 1611. Its creators had entirely recognized the role of their predecessors. Cf. the words from the Preface to the 1st Edition: "<...> we are so farre off from condemning any of their labours that traveiled before us in this kinde, either in this land or beyond sea <...> so, if we building upon their foundation that went before us, and being holpen by their labours, doe ende-vour to make that better which they left so good. Truly (good Christian Reader) wee never thought from the beginning, that we should neede to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one <...> but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one <...>" [King James Bible.]. The Tyndale Bible has become especially important from this point of view. And still, despite this well-
known fact, the King James Bible has been always treated as a new translation, and not just as a simple emendation of its previous versions.
Although the two named versions, i.e. the Synodal Translation and the King James Bible (Authorized Version), were created within different periods and different religious traditions, the definite typological similarity exists between their history and the roles (see [Осипова, 2015]). Both books were published after the "activity" of the key figures in English and Russian literary traditions (W. Shakespeare and A. Pushkin, respectively). Both of them were based on the sources (the Tyndale Bible and the Russian Bible Society materials) either created before the beginning of this activity (in the first case) or while making just the first steps (in the second case). Both of them covered a period of the modern literary language formation and stabilization. Finally, the Churchmen of the high rank were the spiritus moventes for both: Archbishop of Canterbury Richard Bancroft in the 17th century (England) and Moscow Mit-ropolite Filaret (who also took an active part in the previous Russian Bible Society's translation) in the 19th century (Russia). Incidentally, both the said persons had died before their work was finished. However, there is also one important diversity. Whereas a role of the KJB in the history of the English language is universally recognized (although some prominent representatives of the English culture spoke about it with the "buts" and estimated it quite critically)1, the Synodal Translation, from this point of view, actually stays — linguistically speaking — out of this process. Usually, two main reasons are identified for explanation of this aspect. Firstly, this translation appeared when the problem of creation of new standards of the modern Russian literary language was solved by means of the secular literature (cf. [Алексеев, 2002]). Secondly, the language of this version was qualified as "obsolete", "archaic" and "graceless" [Евсеев, 2016].
Both factors may be accepted as quite realistic. However, we think that in addition to these, so to say, linguistic aspects, there was also a lin-guocultural one, connected with the functional spheres of the Bible translations.
Of course, the primary purpose of any translation is to generate a text that may be understood by the audience that uses their target language,
1 See [Norton, 2000]. The most popular in this aspect is the sentence of S. Maugham: "To my mind King James Bible has been a very harmful influence on English prose. I am not so stupid as to deny its great beauty. It is majestical. But the Bible is an oriental book. Its alien imagery has nothing to do with us. Those hyperboles, those luscious metaphors, are foreign to our genius... Those rhythms, that powerful vocabulary, that grandiloquence, became part and parcel of the national sensibility. The plain, honest English speech was overwhelmed with ornament. Blunt Englishmen twisted tongues to speak like Hebrew Prophet" [Maugham, 1951].
for whom the text in the source language or the existing translations in other languages available in the given society as "cultural" are not intelligible. But speaking about the Bible translation (mutatis mutandis the religious life in whole), we must also consider an aspect of the liturgical practice. In the societies, where the religion is an important part of cultural and national identity, the using of the vernacular in this sphere usually has a great influence on formation and codification of the literary language standards.
This postulate may be illustrated with the following example. The 16th century was a crucial point of the said process in many aspects in many European countries (e.g. German-speaking states and France). But whereas in the first ones, namely, the Bible translation played a leading (to a certain degree, decisive) role (Luther Bible), in France, the creation of the new literary norms was connected primarily with the activity of secular writers (Joachim Du Bellay, Jacques Amyot, Michel de Montaigne, etc.). Of course, many reasons may be given to explain this fact. We think, however, that the confessional aspect must be also taken into consideration. In Roman Catholic France, even when the translation of the Holy Writ was allowed, it remained out of the Church service, where Latin preserved its monopoly till the second part of the 20th century. In protestant German-speaking lands, the vernacular became a liturgical language and, thus, an authoritative source of linguistic codification. Cf. a well-known opinion of M. Lomonosov expressed in his work Foreword on the benefit of church books in the Russian language. According to its author, German was a "wretched, simple and feeble" («убог, прост и бессилен») when Latin was the language of the Church, but when the German Folk began to read books and listen to the Service in vernacular, the richness of German increased and skillful writers appeared. It is significant that the author underlines a contrast between the Protestant and Roman Catholic parts of German Lands: in the latter, where the Church uses only "barbarous Latin", German hadn't such achievements («в ка-толицких областях, где только одну латынь, и то варварскую, в служении употребляют, подобного успеха в чистоте немецкого языка мы не находим» [Ломоносов, 1980: 395]).
Although this sentence is not quite objective (in France, the vernacular was not an ecclesiastical language at that time, but neither the language itself nor the literature of this country may be characterized as "wretched, simple and feeble"!), it contains a grain of truth. And returning to the King James Bible and the Synodal Translation, we may highlight the similar aspect. The first was created as the official Book for the Anglican Church (although it was used not only by its representatives); the second — only for "home reading" («для домашнего употребления»), whereas the status of Slavonic in the Church Service remained inviolable.
This difference cannot be explained purely by a confessional factor. Despite substantial discrepancies between the Orthodox and various Protestant Churches, both principally (unlike their contemporary Roman Catholics) recognized a possibility of not only reading the Bible in the native language but also using it in liturgy. But whereas for the "former Catholics" (i.e. European Protestants), the rapture with Rome meant also a change of alien Latin to their own vernacular, the Russians were in another situation. From a linguistic point of view, Old- / Church Slavonic (the distinction between the said terms isn't the subject of the present paper) and (Old) Russian belong to different sub-groups of Slavonic Languages (Eastern and Southern, respectively). But the perception of them in terms of diglossia and not of bilingualism, i.e. as "elevated" and "colloquial" styles of one language (cf. [Успенский, 1994]) had its supporters even in the 19th century. Such an authority person as Alexander Shishkov, President of the Academy, was among the latter. According to him, both the using of "the high Slavonic Style" in "a simple talk" and "a simple language" in the Holy Writ was "strange and barbarous": «Сколько смешно в простых разговорах говорить высоким славенским слогом, столько же странно и дико употреблять простой язык в Священном Писании» [Успенский, 1994: 159]. So after the death of Emperor Alexander I and the dissolution of the Russian Bible Society, the translation of the Bible into the Russian language was discontinued, and attempts by G. Pavsky and Archimandtrite Makariy (Mikhail Glukha-rev) to continue it were stopped with the administrative means.
When after the beginning of the reign of Alexander II this work was renovated, it had also influential opponents. Thus, implementation of the said project demanded that its organizers consider the following. First, it had to be emphasized that the Russian text wouldn't be used as liturgical one but just as a means to understand the Holy Writ by those who didn't know Slavonic well enough («перевод на русский язык сначала книг Нового Завета, а потом постепенно и друг. частей Свящ. Писания необходим и полезен, но не для употребления в церквах, для которых славянский текст должен оставаться неприкосновенным, а для одного лишь пособия к разумению Священного Писания» [Библейские переводы]). Second, because the Slavonic was a symbol of the sacred language for the most parishioners of the Russian Orthodox Church, authors of the Synodal Translation tried to preserve its connection with the Slavonic text (the so-called Elizabethan Bible published in 1751 and 1756) in the linguostylistic aspect, specifically to retain, where possible, words and expressions of the Slavonic origin2, if
2 Sometimes, within one and the same text, the authors of the Synodal Translation use Slavonic and Modern Russian forms, making no distinction. E.g. in John 19. 26: «Жено! Се сын Твой» (the first word has the form of \focative) and John 20. 13: «жена! что ты
they are intelligible enough («чтобы слова и выражения вразумительные не были без нужды заменяемы простонародными» [Корсунский])3. Cf. with the King James Instruction to creators of the Authorized Version where the said Monarch underlined that "old ecclesiastical words <...> were to be retained" [King James' Instruction.].
And yet, one important difference also exists between these two Bible versions illustrating a possible discrepancy between pure linguistic and linguocultural aspects of the Holy Writ translation.
As is well known, the Slavonic Bible (speaking about the books of the Old Testament) is, so to say, the translation from the second hand, namely from the Greek Septuagint, whereas its original had been written in Hebrew. Cf. the Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims English Bible translated from Latin Vulgate as the most authoritative text for Catholics, although its authors, of course, were linguistically able to produce a translation from the Hebrew and Greek originals. In both traditions, there was an argument ascribed to early Christian martyr Justin [Dialogue.] about the distortion of the Hebrew Bible by Jews as they wanted to conceal the prophesies about Christ's Advent.
In contrast to their Catholic opponents, Protestants rejected Latin as a source language (although actually, if not officially, they used it in their work) and translated the Old Testament from Hebrew. The creators of the Russian Bible faced the similar dilemma in the Hebrew and Greek texts and chose a compromise solution: to translate from Hebrew but "under the guidance" of the Greek Bible («с еврейского под руководством греческой Библии»). As any compromise, such an attempt provoked criticism. Particularly, the following moment attracted special attention. The method, wherein a preference was given to the Hebrew text in some occasions, but in others — to the Greek one, might lead to the arbitrariness of the translators, providing no means to abandon such arbitrariness: «Смешение и, так сказать, слияние двух текстов, с предпочтением в одном случаев еврейского, а с другой — греческого было и всегда останется делом произвола переводчиков, и нет никаких средств положить конец этому произволу» [Чистович, 1899: 339]. This statement, of course, can't be denied. But it is necessary to remember that the full and demonstrative rapture of the Russian Version with the Septuagint tradition, on which the Slavonic text had been founded, was hardly possible. Many well-known Church representatives thought that the only acceptable source for the Russian translation (if such trans-
плачешь?» (Nominative is used in the same function). In the Slavonic Bible, naturally, we find the form «жено» in both sentences.
3 It may be added that a degree of Slavonic elements in the Synodal Translation seemed insufficient to many persons of influence. Thus, K. Pobedonostsev was among them, being Chief Procurator of the Sacred Synod during a long period.
lation had been necessary at all) might be exclusively the Greek Bible (e.g. [Святитель Феофан...]). On the other hand, opponents of the Russian Translation also emphasized that, in due time, Divine Providence organized the Slavonic Translation of the Old Testament books not from Hebrew but from Greek: «Когда приспело блаженное время обращенiя въ Христ1анскую В'Ьру Славянскихъ народовъ, Промыслъ Божш такъ устроилъ, что и для нихъ сдЪланъ былъ переводъ Свя-щеннаго Писанiя на родной имъ Славянскш языкъ и Ветхозав'Ьтныя книги переведены не съ Еврейскаго текста, а именно съ Греческаго Семидесяти толковниковъ <...>» [Мнение.]. So the solution to use both texts, despite the inevitable eclecticism, could partially mollify this controversy.
Upon 140 years of publication of the Synodal Translation, more new full Russian Bibles appeared. Over and over again, shortcomings and even follies of the Synodal Translation had been criticized from different positions. But till nowadays, it remains the main text of the Holy Writ in Russian, and its language is now recognized as the model of "biblical Russian". We may anticipate that, probably, this work will also retain its status in the future. Therefore, it may be postulated that from both linguistic and linguocultural points of view, it was up to the challenge of the time of its creation.
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