Translations of Ibsen’s plays first appeared in the Soviet Georgian periodicals in the 1950s, more than forty years after the work of the Norwegian playwright, namely The Wild Duck was last published in Georgia under the Russian Empire. After the October revolution, the main agenda of the Soviet officials was introducing a different social order in the Soviet republics and spreading the communist ideology and values among them. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the era when social-realism was the leading trend of literature, the works of Ibsen focusing on subjects not related to question that were topical during the Soviet Union, as the role of the proletariat and communist values, did not attract the attention of Georgian translators. However, in the 1950s, alongside with commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the playwright, interest towards Ibsen’s oeuvre revived in Georgia. In 1958 მოჩვენებანი (Ghosts) and ჰედა გაბლერი (Hedda Gabler) translated by Akaki Gelovani were published as a book. After twenty years, one more book − Henrik Ibsen’s dramas translated into Georgian, consisting of Brand translated by V. Betsukeli, Peer Gynt, Ghosts, An Enemy of The People and Hedda Gabler translated by Akaki Gelovani, Nora or A Doll’s House translated by Eliso Betsukeli, with an introductory note and remarks by D. Lashkaradze was published by the editorial house საბჭოთა საქართველო (Soviet Georgia). In 1988, Akaki Gelovani and
Vakhtang Betsukeli translated and published Catiline and The Master Builder.
Retranslations of Ibsen’s plays were well received by Georgian readers and literary critics. In 1959 a translation review was published in საბჭოთა აჭარა (Soviet Achara). The author of the article, S.Turnava claimed that translations of A. Gelovani sounded melodic in Georgian, even though the translator preserved Ibsen’s style of writing in his
Brand Hedda Gabler A Doll's House Ghosts An Enemy of the People Cataline
The Master Builder Emperor and Galilean The Wild Duck
Fig. 10. Chart over the relative proportions of translations of Ibsen’s plays.
67 translations. Furthermore, according to Turnava, Gelovani successfully relayed idiomatic expressions into Georgian. The only criticism was the fact that Engstrand’s language is over- provincialized (თურნავა 1959). However, it seems that the translator took this comment into consideration and in the next edition of the translation changed the weak parts Turnava had pointed out. In the late 1980s, translations of Ibsen’s dramas made by an outstanding Georgian translator, Bachana Bregvadze, appeared in Georgian periodicals. In 1988 the first translation of Emperor and Galilean was published in საუნჯე, followed by the retranslation of The Wild Duck, published in საბჭოთა ხელოვნება (Soviet Art).
The translations of Ibsen’s plays into Georgian during the Soviet Union were not relayed only through Russian. On the cover page of the book of Ibsen’s dramas including Catiline and The Master Builder one can read that those plays were relayed into Georgian through German (იბსენი, გელოვანი et al. 1988). Even though translations of Bachana Bregvadze do not indicate which languages he was translating from, in a telephone interview, the translator told me that when relaying the works of the Norwegian playwright into Georgian, he used Russian and French translations (Bregvadze 2012). Everyone who translated Ibsen’s plays into Georgian during the Soviet Union were professional translators. Akaki Gelovani and Vakhtang Betsukeli mostly translated German literature into Georgian, namely works of Goethe, Heine, Zweig and Schiller. It seems that Betsukeli was particularly interested in Norwegian literature, since besides Ibsen’s works he translated Mysteries by Knut Hamsun. As for Bachana Bregvadze, he is one of the best known literary translators in Georgia whose translations of the works of Plato, Dante, Cervanates and Marcus Aurelius are highly appreciated by both Georgian readers and translation critics.
Donald Rayfield in his article “Censorship in Georgia” claims that the Russian “thaw” came to Georgia twenty years later, in the 1970s. In 1973, Shevardnadze was appointed as head of the Georgian party and Government. Shevardnadze, unlike his predecessors, was rather liberal and even supported the works of some progressive Georgian authors of the time to get past censors (Rayfield 2005). As a result of the “thaw”, translating European literature into Georgian became more common. Most of the new translations were published in a bimonthly journal საუნჯე (Treasure). The Censorship machine was gradually weakened and finally was brought to a halt in 1989, two years before Georgia became one of the first Soviet republics to declare its independence (ibid.). Bachana Bregvadze who started translating
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Ibsen’s works in the 1980s and continued after the declaration of independence, stated that his translations were never censored by the Soviet officials, probably due to the fact that he was a well-established and respected translator. However, as translations of historical dramas by Ibsen such as Catiline and Emperor and Galilean first appeared in Georgia in the late 1980s proves that it was due to the “thaw” that translating and publishing works that were formerly forbidden became possible in Georgia.
Having studied the Georgian translation of An Enemy of the people published in 1974, I discovered that the “misunderstandings” regarding the concept of freedom that were frequent in Georgian translations made during the Russian tutelage are absent in Gelovani’s translation. For example, Doctor Stockmann’s promise to his sons: “men jeg vil få jer til at bli’ fri, fornemme mænd” (HIS 7:735), was translated as “და ვეცდები თავისუფლების მოყვარული და პატიოსანი ვაჟკაცები გამოგიყვანოთ“ (იბსენი 1903:82) [I will try to make you freedom-loving and honest men] by Ivane Polumordvinov, was relayed by Gelovani as “მე თქვენ ნამდვილ, თავისუფალ, მოწინავე ადამიანებად უნდა გაქციოთ“ (იბსენი and გელოვანი 1974:852) [I am going to make you real, free, forward men]. Even though this translation is relatively close to the original, Gelovani’s version still sounds like a communist motto. The problem with the translation is that “fornemme mænd”, translated as “noble-minded men” into English by Eleanor Marx-Aveling (Ibsen and Marx- Aveling 2013), is translated by Gelovani as “მოწინავე“[forward]. “Forward” was an epithet that was used in the Soviet periodicals for describing successful Soviet citizens. Articles on “forward collective farmers”, “forward dairymaids” and “forward tea collectors” were daily published in the Soviet printing press. For this reason, the word “forward” awakes associations with the Soviet proletariat and gives a different subtext to the translated text. The part of the original where Doctor Stockmann claims: “jeg vil ha’ ret til at se mine gutter I øjnene, når de engang blir voksne fri mænd” (HIS 7:607), [I want to have the right to look into my sons’ eyes when they are grown free men] is relayed by Gelovani as “მე მინდა მოვიპოვო უფლება, რომ გაბედულად შევხედო თვალებში ჩემს პატარებს, როცა ისინი გაიზრდებიან და პატიოსანი, თავისუფალი ადამიანები გახდებიან” (იბსენი and გელოვანი 1974:787-788) [I want to obtain the right to boldly look into the eyes of my youngsters when they grow up and become honest, free people]. As one can see, unlike the translation made by Polumordvinov in the early 1900s, where the textual information was
69 altered that led to changing the conceptual information, Gelovani’s translation has correctly translated the textual information given in the original and therefore managed to maintain the conceptual information.
Jauss proposes that the previous experience of people has an inevitable influence on their understanding of new literary works. I believe that this idea can be extended to translation. The experience of the translator can have an impact on how he interprets and translates this or that part of the original. For example, the comment of people on Doctor Stockmann’s speech: “Hoho, er ikke vi folket? Er det bare de fornemme, som skal styre!” (HIS 7), translated as “Oho!—we are not the People! Only the superior folk are to govern, are they!” by R. Farquharson Sharp (Ibsen 2010), is relayed by Gelovani as “ოჰო! მაშ ჩვენ ხალხი არა ვართ. ან იქნებ მხოლოდ ბატონები გამოდგებიან მმართველებად?” (იბსენი and გელოვანი 1974:824) [Oho! –so we are not the people. Or only the maseters are useful for governing?]. Furthermore, the paragraph where Doctor Stockmann states: “Men slig går det altid, så længe det almueagtige sidder i kroppen på en, og så længe en ikke har arbejdet sig ud til åndelig fornemhed” (Ibsen 2008) translated as “But that is always the way, as long as a man retains the traces of common origin and has not worked his way up to intellectual distinction” by Farquharson Sharp (Ibsen 2010), is relayed as “მაგრამ ასე მოსდით ყოველთვის მათ, ვის ძაღვებშიაც ჯერ კიდევ ჭარბობს გლეხური დვრიტა, ვინც ჯერ კიდევ ვერ გარდაქმნილა სულიერ არისტოკრატად” (იბსენი and გელოვანი 1974:826) [but that always happens to those in whose veins there is more blood of peasants and those who have not transformed themselves into spiritual intellectual yet]. I believe that the reason why Gelovani chose to translate “fornemme” as masters and “almueagtige sidder” as “peasant blood” was that his “horizons of expectations” encompassed the social reality of Georgia in the second part of the nineteenth century, when the peasants, the former serfs who were granted liberation but no property, still remained dependent on their masters. Juxtaposing masters with peasantry in Georgian translation causes Georgian readers to draw parallels between Ibsen’s drama and the social hierarchy existing in Georgia before the Soviet annexation.
There is one more detail that I find interesting in Gelovani’s translations. Even though the translator does not tend to ”Georgianalize” professions or the names of the characters as „kamerherre Alving“ is translated as ”კამერჰერი ალვინგი“ [Chamberlain Alving],
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”byfogd Peter Stockmann” is relayed as „ბურგომისტრი პეტერ სტოკმანი“ [burgomaster Peter Stokmann], in the list of characters of the Georgian translation of ”Ghosts”, Pastor Manders is relayed as „მოძღვარი მანდერსი“ [priest/father Manders] (იბსენი and გელოვანი 1974:670). Moreover, other characters of the play often address the pastor as ”priest/father Manders”. During the Soviet era atheism was preached, churches were closed, clergymen were arrested and those who remained religious were mocked. Glergymen were looked as the negative power hindering the progress of Soviet citizens. Many Soviet writers mocked priests in their works and portrayed them as corrupt and egoistic. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Ibsenian pastor whose main concerns were his own reputation rather than the welfare of his parish; who interfered with the lives of others, showed them the wrong way and forced them to put up with the ruling injustice, was associated by the Georgian translator with the Orthodox clergymen who were social and political outcasts during the Soviet era. To conclude, all in all nine translations of Ibsen’s plays were published in the Soviet Republic of Georgia, although some of them were translated more than once. All translations were made by professional translators. Unlike their predecessors who relayed the plays of the Norwegian playwright during the Russian tutelage, Soviet Georgian translators did not choose to translate Ibsen’s works for political purposes but rather for their literary value. Interestingly, alongside with the realistic dramas of Ibsen, also the symbolic and historical dramas of the Norwegian playwright attracted the attention of Georgian translators. However, the historical dramas only appeared after the Russian “thaw” arrived in Georgia in the 1970s. Having compared the Soviet Georgian translations of Ibsen’s dramas to the original led me to the conclusion that they were much more close to the original than their predecessors. Furthermore, I could not trace any cases of censorship or ideological changes in those translations. However, in a number of examples that I have chosen for examples, one can see that the “horizons of expectations” of the translator had an impact on his understanding and in the translating of some parts of the original that led to altering or introducing new subtextual information in the translation.
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