{"id":13325,"date":"2019-03-28T13:38:22","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T13:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/?p=13325"},"modified":"2019-03-28T13:38:22","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T13:38:22","slug":"your-words-live-in-this-air-how-jews-interpreted-shevchenko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/your-words-live-in-this-air-how-jews-interpreted-shevchenko\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYour words live in this air\u201d: How Jews interpreted Shevchenko"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2019 we will be marking eighty years since the date of the most large-scale projects to publish Yiddish-language translations of [Taras] Shevchenko\u2019s<\/a> works. Two volumes of Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s<\/a> translations finally came out in 1939: a selection of poems from the Kobzar<\/a><\/em> for children and Selected Works<\/em> for adult readers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2019 we will be celebrating the 205th<\/sup> anniversary of Taras Shevchenko\u2019s birth. In connection with this important date, Dukh \u0456 Litera Publishers initiated an ambitious project to republish Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s Yiddish-language translation of Taras Shevchenko\u2019s Kobzar<\/em>, which was done in the 1920s and 1930s.<\/p>\n

It was decided to illustrate this publication with the paintings of Vasyl Sedliar<\/a>, a Boichukist [member of the school of Mykhailo Boichuk<\/a>], which were featured in the 1931 edition of the Kobzar<\/em>. Our project may be called a dual reading of the Kobzar<\/em>, through visual text and verbal text, that is, through the prism of another rich and unique literature: Yiddish.<\/p>\n

In the history of literature, translations have long been viewed as an important element of inter-cultural dialogue, and the interpretation of the Kobzar<\/em> in Yiddish is a unique interpretation of Shevchenko by writers who had a traditional Jewish education and were raised on biblical literature.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, the Ukrainian and Yiddish languages are very different in terms of grammar and syntax. On the other, Shevchenko was a poet, who also had a religious education\u2014Mykhailo Drahomanov<\/a> called him a \u201cbiblical scholar.\u201d His works are replete with allusions to and reminiscences about biblical texts and the Bible was the most important book in his life.<\/p>\n

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Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s translation of Shevchenko\u2019s Kobzar, issued by Dukh \u0456 litera Publishers in 2018, Photo: duh-i-litera.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As noted above, two volumes of Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s translations were issued in 1939: a selection of poems from the Kobzar<\/em> for children (published in Odesa) and Selected Works<\/em> for adult readers. His novel A Walk with Pleasure and Not Without a Moral<\/em> was also published.<\/p>\n

Yukhym Melamed<\/a>, a well-known expert on the archived Jewish legacy in Ukraine, posits three attempts to publish a book of Yiddish translations of the Kobzar<\/em> in Soviet Ukraine: 1929, 1934, and, finally, 1937\u20131939. It is difficult to say anything definite about the 1929 edition, apart from the fact that it was announced in the press and the translators themselves alluded to it.<\/p>\n

The following announcement appeared in the newspaper Komunist<\/em> on 10 March 1929: \u201cA group of Jewish poets (Kvitko, Markish, Hofshteyn, Riznyk, and Fininberg), commissioned by the State Publishing House of Ukraine, is preparing for publication T. H. Shevchenko\u2019s Kobzar<\/em> in the Jewish language. Part of the translation (around 6,000 lines) has already been submitted. The Kobzar<\/em> is supposed to come out this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

On 12 March 1929 the Kharkiv-based Yiddish newspaper Der shtern<\/em> (Star) \u201cannounced the planned complete edition of Shevchenko\u2019s poems in Yiddish.\u201d Our archival investigations attest that this project was completed. We come across references to the Kobzar<\/em> in Yiddish in the correspondence of the Shevchenko National Preserve in Kaniv with the State Publishing House of Ukraine (DVU).<\/p>\n

In April 1931 the National Preserve submitted a request to the DVU to send books about Shevchenko to the museum bookstore. On 19 April 1931 the head of the DVU Serhii Pylypenko sent a list of already published books as well as those held in the publishing house\u2019s editorial portfolio: this was the Kobzar<\/em> in the Yiddish language and The Life and Works of Shevchenko<\/em> (in the Yiddish language).<\/p>\n

This is probably a reference to a biography of Shevchenko written by E. [Ezra] Fininberg. For a long time the Yiddish translation of the Kobzar<\/em> gathered dust in publishing houses and for various reasons, above all censorship, it could not be published. Over the course of this period not only did responsible editors of projects and approaches to text selection change, but also the destinies of several authors of articles. For example, Yevhen Shabliovsky<\/a>, the director of the Shevchenko Institute, was arrested.<\/p>\n

Dovid Hofshteyn worked on Taras Shevchenko\u2019s poems for over twenty years, and the publication of Selected Works<\/em> (1939) represents only the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n

This is attested by manuscripts of texts held at the Division of Manuscript Collections and Textology at the Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, which we have reproduced in this book. Hofshteyn\u2019s creative work can be reconstructed only by relying on references to the author, which appeared in articles published in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1920 I began to translate T. Shevchenko\u2019s lyrical poems that are already included in textbooks for Jewish schools. Over the course of eighteen years my translations of many of the poet\u2019s verses were published in the Soviet Jewish press,\u201d writes Hofshteyn in the article \u201cShevchenko ievreiskoiu movoiu\u201d (Shevchenko in the Jewish Language, 1938).<\/p>\n

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Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s translation of Shevchenko\u2019s Kobzar, issued by Dukh \u0456 litera Publishers in 2018, Photo: duh-i-litera.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the essay \u201cIoho poeziia blyzka vsim trudiashchym\u201d (His Poetry Is Dear To All Workers, 1939) he mentions that in 1920 \u201che published two articles on Shevchenko in a special edition pegged to the poet\u2019s anniversary\u201d (it is not clear to which articles Hofshteyn is alluding).<\/p>\n

However, this global translation project to familiarize the Yiddish reader with all of Shevchenko\u2019s works could not have been initiated without the groundwork having been laid over the course of many years, as well as literary attempts, the search for translation strategies, discoveries, and failures.<\/p>\n

Yiddish-language writers had long been engaged\u2014since the late nineteenth century\u2014in the conceptualization of Shevchenko\u2019s works. The Kobzar<\/em> fascinated Sholom Aleichem<\/a>, who called this book the \u201cSong of Songs.\u201d Among prevolutionary works, we should mention Shimen Shmuel Frug\u2019s<\/a> poem \u201cIn Memory of T. H. Shevchenko\u201d (1891).<\/p>\n

One of the first translators of Shevchenko was Osher Shvartsman<\/a>, whose works include motifs of Ukrainian folksongs (\u201cThe River Carried the Boat\u201d [based on a Ukrainian motif], trans. Pavlo Tychyna). P. [Petro] Rykhlo<\/a> indicates the kinship between Shevchenko\u2019s work and that of Avrom Reyzen<\/a> and Mark Varshavski<\/a> (\u201cA Song about Bread\u201d) and Morris Vintshevski (Winchevsky) (The Free Harp<\/em>, a collection of poetry).<\/p>\n

In his in-depth article \u201cTaras Shevchenko and Jewish Literature\u201d (1940) Irme Druker<\/a> discusses the kinship between the works of Taras Shevchenko and Perets Markish<\/a>. In Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s works he perceives \u201cstrict consistency and harmony of Shevchenko\u2019s word and Shevchenko\u2019s image, philosophical formulations, and the aphoristic nature of expressions.\u201d In Druker\u2019s view, the works of Itsik Fefer<\/a> are characterized by \u201cthe melodiousness and narrativity of Shevchenko\u2019s verse.\u201d Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s study of Shevchenko\u2019s allusions and reminiscences is a fascinating topic for future comparativists.<\/p>\n

In addition to the already mentioned translators of Shevchenko\u2014Dovid Hofshteyn, Leyb Kvitko<\/a>, Perets Markish, Lipe Reznik<\/a>, Ezra Fininberg<\/a>, Itsik Fefer, and Moyshe Khashchevatski<\/a>\u2014some translators from western Ukraine should be mentioned: Shemaryahu Gorelik, Ber Horovits<\/a>, and Shimson Meltzer<\/a>. In one of his articles Dovid Hofshteyn announces the release by the Moscow publisher Emes of a collection of translations of Shevchenko, edited by the poet Shmuel Halkin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Draft of Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s translation of a section of the poem \u201cIn the Fortress\u201d
Source: Viddil rukopysnykh fondiv \u0456 tekstolohii Instytutu literatury im. Taras Shevchenka, f. 1, spr. 856.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The interaction between Ukrainian literature and Yiddish literature was bilateral, and Ukrainian writers of the 1920s and 1930s actively translated new Jewish literature. In 1920 a small volume by Yitzhok Perets<\/a> was published in a translation by Mykola Zerov<\/a> and Oleksandr Ger (pseudonym of the distinguished publisher and art historian Volodymyr Naumovych Vaisblat).<\/p>\n

It was entitled Folk Tales<\/em> and featured seven short novellas. Another project worth mentioning is the Anthology of New Jewish Poetry<\/em> (1923), edited by Vasyl Atamaniuk. Although this collection was only 36 pages long, it presented a group of young Jewish writers as an integral and original literary trend.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of books by Jewish writers were published in Ukrainian in the 1920s and 1930s. Curious readers can familiarize themselves with the list that appears in L. V. Kolomiiets\u2019s book Ukrainian Literary Translation and Translators<\/em> (Kyiv, 2013). Here I mention only a few.<\/p>\n

The poems of Dovid Hofshteyn were translated in particular. This Jewish poet had a long-standing friendship with Maksym Rylsky<\/a>, who edited a selection of translations of Hofshteyn\u2019s poetry (1938, 1939); he also wrote the foreword to the Russian (1958) and Ukrainian (1965) editions, the first books by Hofshteyn to be published after having been neglected for years.<\/p>\n

A number of Ukrainian translations of Sholom Aleichem\u2019s work were published in the 1930s: a two-volume edition was published in 1932, and in 1938 and 1930 Selected Works<\/em> (one volume) appeared in a translation by Efraim Raitsyn. In 1938 Osher Shvartsman\u2019s Poems<\/em> were published (fourteen of the translations in this collection were done by Pavlo Tychyna<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A selection of poems by Itsik Fefer (Skarb<\/em> [Treasure]), translated by Mykola Bazhan<\/a>, Leonid Pervomaisky<\/a>, Volodymyr Sosiura, and Pavlo Tychyna, was published in 1937. After many years of being neglected, the most complete edition of Jewish poetry for the Ukrainian reader was published in our time: Anthology of Jewish Poetry: Ukrainian Translations from the Yiddish<\/em> (comp. and ed. V. Chernin and V. Bohuslavska, Kyiv: Dukh \u0456 Litera, 2007).<\/p>\n

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Draft of Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s translation of the poem \u201cThe Branded Convict\u201d
Source: Viddil rukopysnykh fondiv \u0456 tekstolohii Instytutu literatury im. Taras Shevchenka, f. 1, spr. 856.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The most complete collection of Yiddish translations of the Kobzar<\/em> appeared on the eve of the Second World War, during the period of mass repressions and intensification of \u201cRussocentric\u201d tendencies in the cultural life of the USSR.<\/p>\n

Is it natural that one of the biggest Shevchenko jubilees fell precisely in 1939, the 125th<\/sup> anniversary of his birth? Such celebrations in states founded on violence and aggression were not accidental. In the 1930s measures aimed at honoring the writer included not only (and not so much) literary events but also the actualization of so-called \u201cperformative culture\u201d as described the scholars Jeffrey Brooks<\/a> and Jonathan Brooks Platt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Celebrations of writers\u2019 jubilees were held on a truly mass scale: jubilee editions are released; the ritualization of events takes place through the renaming of streets and institutions (it should be mentioned here that in 1939 Kyiv University and the Kyiv Theater of Opera and Ballet were named after Taras Shevchenko) and the unveiling of monuments (the Taras Shevchenko monument in Kyiv, located in what was called Vorovsky Park at the time).<\/p>\n

We can variously interpret the 1939 Shevchenko jubilee events, which took place against the background of aggressive military hysteria and public appeals to punish enemies of the people.<\/p>\n

First of all, such commemorative processes demonstrate the adoption by Soviet culture of the symbolic status of the national poet of Ukraine. Let us recall how aggressively periodicals fulminated against so-called nationalists, who \u201cincorrectly\u201d interpreted Shevchenko\u2019s works; the thesis that Shevchenko was no nationalist was trumpeted from every podium.<\/p>\n

Second, the jubilee was undoubtely formed by the canon of the \u201cSoviet\u201d Shevchenko (great, a people\u2019s poet, son of the Ukrainian people, bard of the Ukrainian people, Kobzar, suffering poet, revolutionary, great democrat, militant ally of Russian revolutionary-democratic writers).<\/p>\n

Henceforth, these periphrases became clich\u00e9s in Soviet-era textbooks. It is likely, however, that for the Soviet person living in the 1930s these memorable anniversaries were also a reflection of the traumatic experiences of a repressed society. Professor Jonathan Brooks Platt<\/a> of the University of Pittsburgh, who studies writers\u2019 cults in the Stalinist era, questions whether this dynamic tension between classical writers and hysteria was the result of the traumas that had been inflicted on the people, and an attempt to expunge these traumas.<\/p>\n

Making no claim for completeness, we will attempt to reconstruct some features of the reception of the figure and works of Shevchenko in literary works and essays by Yiddish-language writers of the 1930s.<\/p>\n

In an essay entitled \u201cShevchenko\u2019s Muse\u201d (1939) Itsik Fefer notes the \u201cwonderful musicality, rhythmicity, and clarity of the Ukrainian poet\u2019s thoughts and words.\u201d Taras Shevchenko is above all an artist who enchants \u201cwith his powerful, simple word and supreme mastery.\u201d Unfortunately, Fefer did not develop his interesting notion that the \u201cgenuine creative influence\u201d of Shevchenko is felt in Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s poems.<\/p>\n

In an article entitled \u201cHis Poetry Is Dear to Workers\u201d (1939) Hofshteyn reflects on the specific features of Shevchenko\u2019s poetics and themes. \u201cIncredibly rich sources of folk imagery,\u201d \u201cbrilliant social motifs,\u201d \u201cmotifs of the liberation struggles\u201d\u2014this characterization of Shevchenko is quite traditional for the 1930s. However, Hofshteyn formulates his task thus: \u201cTo preserve the folk nature of Shevchenko\u2019s poetry, its laconism.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this article Hofshteyn also mentions his own translation of the poems \u201cMaryna\u201d and \u201cThe Princess\u201d (these texts were not included in the 1939 edition).<\/p>\n

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Draft of Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s translation of the poem \u201cSon\u201d (The Dream; \u201cToiling in serfdom, she was reaping wheat\u201d).
Source: Viddil rukopysnykh fondiv \u0456 tekstolohii Instytutu literatury im. Taras Shevchenka, f. 1, spr. 856.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In analyzing Petro Altman\u2019s work, one of the first biographies of Taras Shevchenko in Yiddish, one must remember that it is oriented above all to a children\u2019s readership. The author creates a symbolic biography of a poet-fighter, who \u201cgave his life for the happiness of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The poet\u2019s importance is emphasized both by his external appearance and his character traits:<\/p>\n

\u201cOf average height and broad-shouldered, he drew people\u2019s attention with his open, honest face and clear eyes. By nature, the poet was the soul of goodness, friendly, modest, he loved to converse with ordinary people\u2014he did not like all sorts of empty, \u2018polite\u2019 conversations with priests.\u201d Also, \u201cShevchenko gladly helped poor people, regardless of their nationality, with whatever he could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar characteristics organically fit into Socialist Realist<\/a> rhetoric. Thus, authors did not sense a certain kitchiness and comicality in their descriptions. In keeping with tradition, Altman focuses attention on international motifs in Shevchenko\u2019s works, as well as on his friendship with Russian democratic writers\u2014a refrain often heard in the 1930s. Among the features of poetics, Altman emphasizes the presence in Shevchenko\u2019s works of motifs of Ukrainian folksongs and the theme of mother and child.<\/p>\n

One can agree in principle with the writer and translator Shimon Meltzer that \u201canti-tsarist\u201d and \u201canti-religious\u201d tendencies, above all, were important to Jewish writers in Soviet Ukraine and that Shevchenko was regarded \u201cas the voice of the suffering and rebellion of his peasant class, pushing his ethical and national outlook into the background.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as we have shown, the spectrum of Shevchenko\u2019s creativity and personality in Red Ukraine in the 1930s was diverse. Translators and critics were also interested in the question of his poetics.<\/p>\n

Jewish writers on the other side of the Soviet border emphasized first and foremost the national foundation of the Ukrainian poet\u2019s creativity. In Shimon Meltzer\u2019s view (1938), for the \u201cfew translators from Eastern Galicia\u201d Shevchenko is \u201cabove all a national and supra-class poet. Moreover, he adds, the most significant kinship between Shevchenko and Jewish writers lies in the importance to the latter of \u201cethical nationalism,\u201d questions of national awareness, and the quest for truth.<\/p>\n

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A Yiddish translation of Taras Shevchenko\u2019s poem \u201cThe Bewitched Woman,\u201d featured in Vybrani tvory: Vydannia-bilinhva (Dukh \u0456 litera, 2018)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A similar interpretation of Shevchenko and an assessment of the significance of his poetry are mirrored in the theses of Volodymyr [Ze\u2019ev] Jabotinsky<\/a>, who advanced them in his 1911 article \u201cThe Lesson of Shevchenko\u2019s Jubilee.<\/a>\u201d In Jabotinsky\u2019s view, Shevchenko is above all a \u201cnational poet\u201d: \u201cYou can discard all the democratic notes from his works\u2026and Shevchenko will remain as he was created by nature: a blinding precedent that does not allow Ukrainians to deviate from the path of national revival.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1930s are marked not only by Yiddish writers\u2019 translations of Shevchenko. During this period poetic texts dedicated to the Ukrainian poet also appear. In 1939 Dovid Hofshteyn writes the poem \u201cTo Taras Shevchenko\u201d (trans. M. Zisman) and a tetraptych entitled \u201cAt Shevchenko\u2019s Grave\u201d (trans. M. Rylsky).<\/p>\n

Both texts were created as a glorification of the new memorial complexes in honor of Shevchenko\u2014the unveiling of monuments to the poet in Kyiv and Kaniv (1939). However, this is not so much a question of the implementation of social demand for the anniversary as of works based on motifs of Horace\u2019s \u201cexegi monumentum,\u201d which preserve the entire \u201cmemory of the genre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s analyze these works in greater detail. Hofshteyn\u2019s poem \u201cTo Taras Shevchenko\u201d (1939) has twelve lines and is constructed as a dialogue between two poets. The distance of respect and honor is bolstered by the poet addressing Shevchenko formally as \u201cVy\u201d (\u201cMy heart\u2019s singing strays to you\u201d). The lyrical hero moves from the nocturnal space \u201cat night, far from the rumble and noise\u201d to the source of light: the monument to Shevchenko, who is \u201can image in the blaze of glory.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is possible that Hofshteyn and the translator deliberately emphasize the religious subtexts, since the expression \u201cblaze of glory\u201d is traditionally used in prayer texts. Shevchenko\u2019s words are introduced through an epigraph:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe day goes passing by, likewise the night\u2026<\/span>
\nAnd, pressing your dull head between your hands,<\/span>
\nYou wonder why the Lord of Truth and Light<\/span>
\nSends no Apostle to these darkened lands!\u201d<\/span>
\n[Trans: C.S. Andrusyshen & Watson Kirkconnell]<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In the journal Osnova<\/em>, where it was published in 1861, this poem is entitled \"Peredsmertni pisni\u201d (Death Songs). The context\u2014the singing of an old and solitary poet\u2014is actualized in Hofshteyn\u2019s dedication poem as a dialogue between the old, lonely, and wise Shevchenko and a solitary roamer, who addresses the poet as a \u201charbinger of joy and truth and learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is telling that Shevchenko\u2019s binomial formula of \u201ctruth and learning\u201d is changed in Hofshteyn to a trinomial one of \u201cjoy and truth and learning.\u201d Also emphasized is the fact that Shevchenko\u2019s poetic themes are not limited to invective and motifs of \u201crighteous (prophetic) wrath.\u201d Shevchenko\u2019s word appears as a personification of the trinomial formula of \u201clove,\u201d \u201cjoy,\u201d and \u201ctenderness.\u201d We see an image of Shevchenko being limned that is different from the officially constructed clich\u00e9 of \u201cpoet and revolutionary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hofshteyn\u2019s tetraptych \u201cAt Shevchenko\u2019s Grave\u201d (1939) consists of four poetic texts that differ in terms of rhythm and imagery. The first poem is the solitary poet\u2019s ascent to Shevchenko (like the image of the lyrical hero in the poem \u201cTo Taras Shevchenko,\u201d he is a lonely wanderer): \u201cAlone I went to the grave,\/That towers in the first rays\u201d (tellingly, here again is a contrast between darkness and light, and the image of Shevchenko is formed from descriptions of the morning radiance).<\/p>\n

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Draft of Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s translation of the poem \u201cTsars\u201d
Source: Viddil rukopysnykh fondiv \u0456 tekstolohii Instytutu literaturyn im. Tarasa Shevchenka, f. 1, spr. 856.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second poem contains images of youth (\u201clovable youngsters\u201d) and ruminations on the historical links between the Ukrainian and Jewish peoples. The opposition of night and day strengthens the opposition of old and new: \u201cnew commands,\u201d \u201cnew hopes\u201d; a projection of the future is created, where golden \u201crays\u201d change into electric wires of the Industrial Age: \u201chot, golden ropes \/ New avenues are being measured out for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third poem consists of \u201charsh\u201d iambic dimeters, with choppy masculine rhymes: znat\/vziat\/dal\/zhdat\/, stal\/striliat\u2014every line is a call to battle. The poetic cycle is concluded by a meditation in a quatrain written in the form of an internal monologue, muffling and neutralizing the preceding warlike agitation: \u201cWhy precisely here, not somewhere over there \/ Do I surrender to these thoughts? \/ And I myself cannot guess \/ But I know: It\u2019s time to say it.\u201d<\/p>\n

During this period other Jewish writers devoted their poems to Shevchenko, for example, Moshe Khashchevatsky\u2019s sonnet-diptych \u201c The Monument to Taras Shevchenko in Kharkiv\u201d and Itsik Fefer\u2019s \u201cBallad of the Burning House,\u201d the latter based on a real episode from Shevchenko\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

However, the most interesting and characteristic organic links between the poetry of Shevchenko and Jewish writers must likely be sought in the Bible: biblical imagery, motifs, paraphrases, the perception of the Word and the Book as the Divine Essence, as revelation; and in the complex symbolism of numbers and letters. This is precisely why it was forbidden to discuss this for ideological reasons in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

But the hermeneutic circle for such a perception of Shevchenko was already formed, and these quests were continued by contemporary researchers: Mykhailo Drahomanov calls Shevchenko a \u201cbiblical scholar\u201d and emphasizes the \u201cprophetic dominant in his works\u201d; Leonid Biletsky sees a \u201cbiblical complex\u201d in Shevchenko; George Grabowicz<\/a> reveals a \u201csymbolic projection of [Shevchenko] in the role of Christ\u201d; Liudmila Kiseleva reconstructs the complex of motifs and themes devoted to the Mother of God in Shevchenko\u2019s poetry; Stanislav Rosovetsky analyzes the topic of the Bible and Shevchenko in great detail\u2014the list of scholars could be continued.<\/p>\n

But even in the poetric dedications to Shevchenko in the 1930s one can reconstruct biblical subtexts. For example, Hofshteyn\u2019s poem \u201cAt Shevchenko\u2019s Grave\u201d features the motif of the word of a poet\/prophet, which has blended with the universe: \u201cYour words live in this air \/ Your paintings live in this space.\u201d<\/p>\n

The theme of the word as a curse should also be interpreted in a biblical context: \u201cNo, neither me nor my son \/ Did you curse: that was not the goal!\u201d This motif appears in another version of the translation, which talks about the \u201cbile of damnation\u201d: \u201cNeither at me or my children \/ <\/em>Did you direct the bile of your curses.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The biblical context will allow us conceivably to uncover profound thoughts in the memoiristic references of Jewish writers about the search for Shevchenko\u2019s book\u2014the Book in which we see the reception of Shevchenko\u2019s Word fitting organically and precisely into the biblical tradition. This appears in a simplified form in a poem by the Soviet writer Ayzik Guberman, \u201cInscription in a Book\u201d (trans. Hryhorii Plotkin, 1940) about a book that \u201cawakened childhood,\u201d a book that spurs one to set out on a pilgrimage:<\/p>\n

\u201cA book awakened my childhood <\/span>
\n(There were no books in our house!)<\/span>
\nThis book roamed in a distant village<\/span>
\nBecause of it, I went to that village.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The cultural and historical contexts described in the present article are important for an understanding of the stylistic features of Hofshteyn\u2019s translations. In this connection, we have the extraordinarily valuable observations featured in the essay \u201cShevchenko\u2019s Poetry in Jewish Translations\u201d (1944) by Moisei Maidansky, who was a contemporary of the events described and an associate of the Office for the Study of Soviet Jewish Literature, Language, and Folklore at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In his article the philologist analyzes the lexical and syntactical features of Yiddish translations of Shevchenko\u2019s poetry, focusing in particular on the work of Dovid Hofshteyn.<\/p>\n

What is Hofshteyn\u2019s translation style? According to Maidansky, on the lexical level the poet occasionally resorts to neologisms in order to amplify the text\u2019s sound instrumentation. In order to recreate the language of the originals, which is organically rooted in the folkloric tradition, the translator uses idiomatic expressions.<\/p>\n

Hofshteyn recreates Old Slavic words in Shevchenko\u2019s poems with the aid of \u201cobsolete Hebrew lexical elements or archaic words of foreign derivation.\u201d In his translations he makes frequent use of Ukrainisms both in order to provide ethnographic color and more accurate recreate realities (words, such as soves<\/em> [owl], syches <\/em>[horned owl], tsaples <\/em>[heron], solovei <\/em>[nightingale], zozolie <\/em>[cuckoo], klen<\/em> [maple], etc.<\/p>\n

Some Ukrainian words remain untranslated; for example, the word batko<\/em> (father), although, according to Maidansky, there are lexical errors in Hofshteyn\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Analyzing the syntax of the translation, Maidansky notes that Yiddish-speaking writers faced the challenge of reconciling the diverse syntactical intentions of languages. \u201cThe \u2018influx\u2019 of syllables that are created in the Jewish translation through the analyticity of syntax is not covered automatically by an \u201coutflow,\u201d stemming from the ubiquity of words of few syllables in the Jewish language. Here, balance does not appear by itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, the analyticity of Jewish syntax makes translations from the Ukrainian \u201cstretched out and multisyllabic,\u201d and Yiddish words with few syllables shorten a line. Here it was necessary to demonstrate translation skills in order to preserve the rhythmic and metrical pattern of the original.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Draft of Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s translation of the poem \u201cTsars\u201d (continuation)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the most fascinating problems in translation analysis is how a translator changes the original and what precisely determines these changes. It has been established that here and there Hofshteyn not only added individual images, but also \u201cappended\u201d entire stanzas to Shevchenko\u2019s poems.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, an epithet that is absent in the original, but which is made possible by the context, appears at the end of some lines. Maidansky provides the following examples: \u201cAnd yet my eye foresees [clearly] (in the poem \u201cI don\u2019t feel well\u201d); \u00a0\"[Dear] girls sing while walking\u201d (Part VIII of \u201cIn the Fortress\u201d);\u00a0 \u201ccasts ashes on his [aged] head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here and there Hofshteyn changes the imagery of the original:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether the bright sun shone to win me<\/span>
\nOr some deep impulse stirred within me,\u201d<\/span>
\n(\u201cWas I a captive of the sun\u2019s radiance, or was it bright from reality\u201d)<\/span>
\n\u201cNo cock\u2019s crow with the darkness strove<\/span>
\nOr hailed a sky with dawning streaked.<\/span>\u201d(added: \u201cThe earth is full of blue tranquility.\u201d)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Oksana Shcherba, one of the compilers of our bilingual edition and translator from the Yiddish, discovered cases where Hofshteyn added his own text to Shevchenko\u2019s poems, thus placing a necessary emphasis. We included these \u201cinsertions\u201d in the footnotes, and here I will try to interpret some of these \u201ccontemporized additions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hofshteyn added five lines to the poem \u201cTo A. O. Kozachkovsky\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cA day passes, a week passes,<\/span>
\nAnd it may be, o friend of mine,<\/span>
\nThat my final years will flow by the same way\u2026<\/span>
\nThey punished me for truth.<\/span>
\nI carry my cross [lit. my fate], I do not curse my fate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It should be noted that Shevchenko\u2019s poem \u201cTo A. O. Kozachkovsky\u201d is an uneasy lyrical monologue of doubts and projections into the future, and the most utilized syntactical construction in it is comprised of rhetorical questions. Hofshteyn\u2019s lines, however, demonstrate what is important to the translator and his reading audience: the image of the poet-martyr who has suffered for the sake of truth. Here we have a unique interpretation of the poem, which is a response to those rhetorical questions that are scattered throughout the original.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Draft of D. Hofstein\u2019s translation of the poem \u201cO gentle light, light fair to see\u201d
[Andrusyshen & Kirkconnell trans.] Source: Viddil rukopysnykh fondiv \u0456 tekstolohii Instytutu literaturyn im. Tarasa Shevchenka, f. 1, spr. 856.<\/figcaption><\/figure>In the poem \u201cTsars\u201d Oksana Shcherba also reveals several insertions that were made by the translator, which intensify the poem\u2019s social motifs and underscore the theme of the poor and destitute:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is how noble tsars live,<\/span>
\nBut how do ordinary people live? It is not permitted to say.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ten \u201cHofshteyn\u201d lines are found in the poem \u201cMaria.\u201d On the one hand, they underscore the anti-religious motifs (Maria is crucified by monks); on the other, they develop the apocryphal motif of the crucifixion of the Mother of God:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd after this the monks<\/span>
\nDressed you in purple, crowned you <\/span>
\nLike a tsar\u2026and crucified you, <\/span>
\nLike him, your son, and spat on you,<\/span>
\n\u041e merciful Virgin Mother, <\/span>
\nThey defiled you, the mad executioners!<\/span>
\nLike gold that is smelted in a furnace,<\/span>
\nIn the human soul, you have risen again<\/span>
\nIn the soul of weak man.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the context of this authorial intrusion into the Shevchenko original, a question arises about the translator\u2019s biographical extrapolation into an image of the lyrical hero. In other words, is Hofshteyn\u2019s emphasis on Shevchenko\u2019s motifs of suffering and martyrdom for the sake of the Word and punishability for truth the voice of Hofshteyn himself, and did he interpret his life as an artist in the USSR as the path of a sufferer and solitary wanderer?<\/p>\n

We can reply to this question in the course of a further, careful reading of the texts. As for Hofshteyn\u2019s recreation of the features of Shevchenko\u2019s versification, I will cite the words of Shimon Meltzer, who states that the Jewish writer \u201cuses blank verse where Shevchenko delights in assonance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Published with the publisher\u2019s permission: Oksana Pashko, \u201cTaras Shevchenko v interpretatsii ievreiskykh pysmennykiv (deiaki sposterezhennia),\u201d in Taras Shevchenko, Kobzar: Vybrani tvory; <\/em><\/strong>vydannia-bilinhva [\u201cTaras Shevchenko in the Interpretation of Jewish Writers (Some Observations,\u201d in Taras Shevchenko, Kobzar: Selected Works; Bilingual Edition]<\/em><\/strong>, trans. Dovid Hofshteyn (Kyiv: DUKH I LITERA, 2018). <\/strong><\/p>\n

12.02.2019
\nOksana Pashko<\/p>\n

Istorychna Pravda\u2019s \u2018Shalom!\u2019 media project, which explores the Ukrainian-Jewish dialogue, is made possible by the Canadian non-profit organization Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Translated from the<\/em> Ukrainian<\/em><\/a> by Marta D. Olynyk.<\/em><\/h5>\n
A note on the translation<\/em>: <\/em>The Yiddish-language translations of fragments of poems from Shevchenko\u2019s, altered by the Yiddish translator Dovid Hofshteyn, have been translated from the Ukrainian-language versions as presented in Oksana Pashko\u2019s article in <\/em>Istorychnya Pravda into English by Marta D. Olynyk . Where unmodified parts of original Shevchenko poems are cited, the English-language translations from the Ukrainian are by C.S. Andrusyshen & Watson Kirkconnell in <\/em>The Poetical Works of Taras Shevchenko. The Kobzar, published for the Ukrainian Canadian Committee by University of Toronto Press, 1964.<\/em><\/h5>\n
Edited by Peter Bejger.<\/em><\/h5>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2019 we will be marking eighty years since the date of the most large-scale projects to publish Yiddish-language translations of [Taras] Shevchenko\u2019s works. Two volumes of Dovid Hofshteyn\u2019s translations finally came out in 1939:...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,124,8,134,130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literature","category-sponsored-projects","category-culture","category-other-programs","category-istorychna-pravda-other-programs","primary-category-124","primary-category-sponsored-projects"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13325"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13355,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13325\/revisions\/13355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ukrainianjewishencounter.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}