the long, see-through citizen
Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita - Russian/English/French
We haven’t yet explored a Russian-first text, and seeing how I’m currently working my way through Mikhail Bulgakov’s Мастер и Маргарита (Master and Margarita), it seemed an appropriate time to find an English and a French translation and see whether there was anything interesting to discover there. As you might guess from the existence of this newsletter, there was.
Bulgakov was a Kyiv-based author, but because of how borders worked then, he’s considered Russian and not Ukrainian, at least in America. The translation notes in the English edition I’ll link below offer a good overview of the time and situation in which Bulgakov wrote Margarita, but tl;dr it was a book written in the early decades of the Soviet Union and never really meant to see the light of day.
As a last preface, this direction of translation (Russian into English and French) is of particular interest to me because of how intrinsic style is to grammar and structure in Russian writing. As I write here, it’s a matter of the choice of structure being indelible from the meaning of the text because structurally more of Russian is ‘fair game’ than English or French. What interests me in light of that is the choices translators make with a more limited structure set, where word choice often has to make up for the things structure cannot delineate.
Text and translation
Russian original:
Но это, увы, было, и длинный, сквозь которого видно, гражданин, не касаясь земли, качался перед ним и влево и вправо.
[Semi-literal: But this, alas, was, and the long, through which could be seen, person, not touching ground, rocked before him to the left and to the right]
English translation by John Dougherty:
[He … thought in confusion: This cannot be!"]
But, sadly, it was, and the long, see-through citizen, not touching the ground, swayed before him from side to side.
French translation by Françoise Flamant:
C’était possible, hélas! puisque cela était. Sans toucher terre, le long personnage, toujours transparent, se balançait devant lui de droite et de gauche.
[Semi-literal: This was possible, alas! for so it was. Without touching ground, the long person, always transparent, swayed before him to the left and the right]
Structure of the original
Russian sentence structure is very fluid. As a general rule, practically any permutation of words within a sentence is grammatically sound and conversationally normal as long as you don’t break up specific pairs/groups of words which act upon each other. In this sentence, that shows up as fragments arranged using commas. To see how the order of these fragments is relevant, let’s break down the sentence into its constituent phrases.
Но это [but this]
увы [alas]
было [was]
и длинный [and the long]
сквозь которого видно [through whom could be seen]
гражданин [citizen/person]
не касаясь земли [not touching the ground]
качался [swayed]
перед ним [before him]
и влево и вправо [to the left and to the right]
This specific sentence could take many permutations, each of them perfectly readable and not unusual. One permutation might be:
Но увы, это было, и перед ним качался, не касаясь земли, и влево и вправо длинный гражданин сквозь которого [было] видно. [But alas, this was, and in front of him swayed, not touching the ground, to the left and the right a long person through whom you could see]
Or:
Но это было, увы, и не касаясь земли, перед ним качался длинный гражданин сквозь которого [было] видно, и влево и вправо. [But this was, alas, and not touching the ground, in front of him swayed a long person through whom you could see, to the left and the right]
And at this point you might be wondering why this is important. Those semi-literal English translations in brackets seem vaguely readable even if the references are a bit confusing, so it’s not like English is that hard-pressed to keep up with Russian structural changes. But even setting aside the fact that this particular sentence might be easier to replicate structurally than most given its already-fragmented nature, I would argue the permutations above are more common and acceptable in Russian than they are in English. (We’ll leave aside for the moment a thorough discussion of the nature of French sentence structure, as I am far less equipped to talk about that, but I feel it follows more closely the abilities and connotations of English than it does Russian).
Russian words are ingrained with modifications that point them toward other words. In English, there is virtually no declension, compared to what is regular and systemic in Russian. Not only do Russian verbs take different conjugations when performed by different people and in different situations, nouns also have their own modification options. If you were to say “that’s a persimmon,” “I saw a persimmon,” “I want some persimmon,” and “I gave a haircut to the persimmon” (bear with me), you’d be using a different word for ‘persimmon’ in every case. Moreover, that declension would eliminate the need for some of the helper words in that sentence, so you would be saying something like “that’s persimmon,” “I saw persimmon,” “I want persimmon,” and “I gave persimmon haircut.”
I think that lessened reliance on helper words because of the way those directions are built in to the ‘main’ words themselves is why Russian is so structurally independent compared to English. Those above permutations of Bulgakov’s sentence would perhaps be valid in English, but they introduce uncertainty. To whom do the words belong? Who do they address? I would like to stress just how little difference that permutation makes on whether the sentence sounds stilted or structurally unusual in Russian.
Which, in a fun way, makes those decisions mean less as individual choices and more as a whole in Russian. Each permutation carries just a little bit of a different flavor, and given the freedom of choice it’s easier to prescribe an intentionality to the overall sentence structure within a work, that wouldn’t necessarily be justifiable to prescribe in English. The differences in connotation are much more subtle in Russian, the choice of structure in any given sentence is very easily overlooked in a way that it might not be in English, and so the sum of the choices the author makes are likely to have a profound impact in terms of subconscious mood-setting, where the same in English might be grating or overly obvious.
Let’s take just three words out of this sentence as a last example before we get on with our lives and look at the English translation. Bulgakov’s character “качался [swayed] перед ним [before him].” However, “перед ним качался” is also a normal phrase a normal person might say in Russian. Again, it makes no difference to comprehensibility whatsoever. The second order (‘before him swayed’) just introduces the geographic location of the swaying before the action itself, perhaps highlighting the elements slightly differently. But the English “before him swayed” has a wildly different connotation than “swayed before him.” It’s more stilted, reminiscent of a story about King Arthur. “There King Arthur stood, and before him swayed the dragon, drunk off the ceremonial wine.”
In not having as much freedom of movement before a permutation becomes grating or noticeably irregular, English limits an author’s ability to make a large quantity of those choices, even though each separate choice might have more influence on the meaning or tone of that phrase itself. In Russian, the vast freedom of permutation degrades the impact of most individual structural decisions but allows for a significantly higher quantity of those decisions before the text becomes stilted or visibly bent to achieve a certain tone.
Which is not to say that there are no sentence structure choices that signal a vast tone shift in Russian. There is opportunity for stilted text, for text with a very obvious characteristic or flavor, but there’s also room for more subtle differences.
English
Dougherty’s translation follows Bulgakov closely in terms of sentence structure, and I think if I write any more on that I will lose anyone who dared remain to this point, so we won’t talk about it. What we will talk about is word choice.
Увы carries a connotation of sadness or longing, a dejected “alas.” Somewhat literary, it does have a place in conversation where someone is or wants to appear genuinely dismayed. “Увы, не сошлось” [literally ‘alas, it did not come together’] is something you might say after trying to achieve some far-fetched goal, or someone in a pharmacy might say “увы, we’re out of throat lozenges.” But even then it’s a little much, a little like someone saying “alas” in normal English conversation. It’s one of those cases where there’s a nice, connotationally almost perfect single-word translation between Russian and English. Dougherty’s “sadly” plays a little toward the calmer side of увы, but places it in the land of marginally less moody wording, which is an interesting tactic to me. I haven’t read the entirety of his translation (I’m saving it for after I finish the original), and I’d be curious whether this is part of a larger shift toward a calmer or more modern-feeling style. Word choices like this in translation could make up for a sizeable part of the large-scale subconscious mood setting that gets lost in the arrested freedom of sentence structure (I know, I know, sorry, I’ll stop).
I think there is both lost and gained meaning in “citizen.” A гражданин is literally a citizen, yes, but colloquially it bends toward “person, respectfully” more than it does “person, who belongs to a certain country.” And in English I perceive a flipped connotation set, where the belonging to a country is placed higher in the definition than the general person-ness of the individual. I’d be interested in knowing whether the ‘citizen’ was a conscious choice in light of that, or whether it was a casualty of temporal constraint or generally the constant balancing act of translation.
And finally, the “see-through” citizen. Bulgakov’s character, сквозь которого видно [‘through whom one could see’], is thin. There is the image of this character as literally translucent, but the secondary definition is one of thinness, as though he’d eaten so little that his skin became as thin as paper. I’m not certain whether any English words or phrases carry that connotation, which is interesting to me.
French
Flamant’s “hélas!” swings wildly in the opposite direction as Dougherty’s “sadly.” Hélas! is dire, it’s desolate. Not to the point of absurdity, but one tick higher on the desolation scale than the English alas. So the English and French translations balance each other out on this point.
The “puisque” construction is deeply fascinating to me. It separates the ‘it was possible’ and the ‘it happened’ into distinct thoughts in a way that neither Bulgakov nor Dougherty do, and renders the sentence more obviously comical. I think I really, really like this choice. Especially since puisque doesn’t have a one-to-one translation that encompasses all of the meanings (to my knowledge). Puisque is ‘because’ but it’s also ‘since’ and ‘so’ and ‘for’ and ‘in that’, and I had great difficulty in choosing between “… alas! for it happened” and “in that it happened” for the semi-literal translation. It’s such a lovely, idiomatic expression that matches tone-wise with Bulgakov’s comedy.
“Personnage” is also closer to гражданин by way of not literally being a citizen, but also farther away given its tendency toward the meaning ‘character’. A personnage is usually a fictional character, and in ascribing this fictitiousness to him, Flamant loses some of the ‘realness’ that Dougherty does, but in a new direction.
“Se balançait” is a false cognate, a word that has a meaning other than what you would expect given similar-sounding words in other languages. ‘Se balancer’ means to sway, not to balance oneself, and the word in French for the English verb ‘balance’ is ‘s’équilibrer’. This is a fluke of the specific direction of translation, but the Russian сбалансировать (sbalansirovat’) is closer to the English ‘balance’, so in Russian as in English the phrase “se balançait” might have a tone that falls more toward someone trying to regain their balance than it does toward someone who’s lost all sense of it. False cognates are great that way.
My last point will be one of structure, if you will excuse the indulgence. Flamant’s translation is configured with the ground-touching first and the transparency third, not at all like Bulgakov’s permutation of those characteristics. Perhaps it is just a French distaste for the comma, but it seems tighter, more punchy, and in that way exceedingly more French. However, it loses some of the implied emphasis on the length and translucent nature of the character. I’m also curious about the “toujours transparent.” My knowledge is that it means ‘always’ or ‘still’ transparent, and therefore I am confused by its place in this description.
After living most of my formative life in California, I wouldn’t say that Russian is necessarily the language I’m most comfortable being able to academically describe. However, it’s my first language and one in which I am still comfortably fluent, and with that comes an intrinsic sense of grammar and structure that makes this type of exercise particularly fun. Bulgakov’s writing is deliciously native in its flow, as is most ‘classic’ Russian-language literature. There’s something literary in the fabric of the language, and looking at translations I think helps tease out some of the ways in which that’s not just a positive association with my own culture and heritage.
As I move through Master and Margarita, I am also keenly reading Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris. So with today’s newsletter you also get an unsolicited recommendation, if you are a fan of adventure, exploring, and/or bikes.