Заповiт – Завещание – Testament by Taras Shevchenko and translator’s problems

Abstract

The article examines the problems of translating a programmatic poem of Taras Shevchenko Заповiт into related languages, namely Polish and Russian. Therefore, the author draws attention to errors resulting from the close relationship of these languages, and above all to the mistakes resulting from the existence of the so-called “false friends of the translator”. In this case, it is the translation of the Ukrainian word могила into the Polish “mogiła” and the Russian word могила, which led to the mound being replaced by a grave and to the distortion of the original poetic image. In the Polish versions of the poem, we can also observe the introduction of the term “sine morza” (blue seas) or “oceany” (oceans) in place of the original permanent epithet синєє море, which metaphorically refers to the vastness, not the colour. In the Russian variants, this epithet has the same equivalent.

In the subsequent part of our deliberations, issues related to censorship were discussed. This concerned both the censorship of the source text and the target text (translation). In this case, some attention was paid to the publication of two stanzas of the poem and the omission of the remaining ones in the early editions of Shevchenko’s work, as well as the omission of fragments of the text. In this context, the translators’ attitude towards both the words of the lyrical subject referring to God and the aspirations he expresses towards the liberation of Ukraine were analysed.

Moreover, some attention was paid to the problem of the politicisation of translation, namely the use of prepositional expressions: на/в Украіні and respectively: “na/w Ukrainie” and на/в Украиине, which since the 1990s has become a source of dispute between Ukrainians and Russians, including language experts, and has resulted in the popularisation of the form “w Ukrainie” among the Poles. This problem was demonstrated in the context of translation and its updating.