Translations of T. Shevchenko’s works
Yanka Kupala discovered the creativity of the great Ukrainian Kobzar owing to verbal existence of T. Shevchenko’s works in the environment of our compatriots. “Without exaggerating, I shall tell that Ukraine was for Yanka Kupala a second native land”, – wrote in 1947 Maxim Rylsky in the article “Yanka Kupala”.
In the beginning of the 20th century Yanka Kupala translated only three verses from Shevchenko’s poetry: The Leaf Has Faded…The Eyes Have Dimmed / Пажоўкнуў ліст... Прыгаслі вочы, The Thought / Думка (Why Do I Need Black Eyebrows / Нашто чорныя мне бровы), A Thought Is Flying After A Thought Like A Swarm Of Bees / За думаю дума роем вылятае. The first was published in Polymja only in 1930, later it was included in all editions and began to be printed in post-war collected works of Yanka Kupala. The two last translations were first published in The Little Flute.
Kupala’s translations from Shevchenko were the first in Belarus and they paved an original way of the Kobzar’s creativity to the Belarusian reader. The poem The Leaf Has Faded…The Eyes Have Dimmed is a translation of Shevchenko’s work The Days Pass, The Nights Pass / Минають дні, минають ночі written on December, 21st, 1845. In this verse the Ukrainian poet sharply opposes a sleepy obedience, humility of the dependent person proving that it is the most terrible to live in shackles, in slavery, and calls for action. For the Kobzar the meaning of the human life is struggle and battle instead of blind submission.
Obviously, in the very beginning of his creative way Yanka Kupala chose this poem of T. Shevchenko for a reason. In fact the spirit and the tendency of Shevchenko’s work was the original sample of lyrics of high humanistic sounding that met both the spirit of the age and a social orientation of the poetry of the Belarusian Bard.
A comparative analysis reveals certain divergences in the use of lexical equivalents but the basic contents is not broken anywhere. Thus, instead of the lexeme “malevolent” Yanka Kupala uses the Belarusian word with the meaning “bad” replacing a set expression “malevolent fate” with an individual author’s epithet “bad fate”. The Ukrainian poem is getting a Belarusian intonation. The perfect mastering of graphic means of the Belarusian language allows Kupala to transmit the finest shades of the original. He manages to keep the sincerity and the simplicity of Shevchenko’s poem, its deep conviction and significant generalization.
Kupala creatively recreates the poem The Thought (Why Do I Need Black Eyebrows) – one of the best samples of female lyrics where through a monologue of the heroine the theme of tragic orphanage of a girl betrayed by a “traitor lover” is personified. The translation recreates Shevchenko’s repetitions and an internal rhyme. Yanka Kupala is respectful to the original and transmits masterfully its contents and formal features. Deeply imbued with the verse, he diligently re-embodies a figurative system of the primary source preserving idioms, Old Russian infinitive suffixes and lexemes and by that he shows his profound competence and a great translator’s skill. The Ukrainian poem of Shevchenko gets a purely Belarusian sounding.
While the translation of The Thought shows a careful and even almost literal transfer of the primary source, the reconstruction of the poem A Thought Is Flying After A Thought Like A Swarm Of Bees displays also Yanka Kupala’s skills for interpretation. The destiny of this Shevchenko’s poem is interesting enough. It is written on December, 30th, 1844 in Petersburg, the autograph is placed in an album Try Lita and the heading is added with a pencil later: “To Gogol”. This is a characteristic sample of revolutionary lyrics of T. Shevchenko of the period of Try Lita in which the Ukrainian poet confirms a revolutionary value of creativity of the great Russian writer identifying his public position with his own. In conditions of severe political repressions, survival, persecution, the Belarusian Bard by means of translations from the Ukrainian classic speaks what he can’t tell any more on his own behalf. In the 1930s, Kupala translates 21 poems of the Kobzar from 26. Among them there are works of sharp political satire such as A Dream / Сон, Caucasus / Кавказ and others.
As a whole Yanka Kupala’s reference to T. Shevchenko’s poetry, to his revolutionary works shows the Belarusian poet’s knowledge of lyrics of the Ukrainian writer, the great responsibility of Kupala-translator for its qualitative perusal, his great skill for reconsideration of the original in the Belarusian language. He was acquainted with the language, literature and history of Ukrainian people that allowed him to approach rhythms, intonations, images and semantics of translations to originals.
Translations of T. Shevchenko’s works
- The Tought / Думка
- The Though / Думка
- The Commandment / Запаведзь
- Katsjaryna / Кацярына
- The Leaf Has Faded / Пажоўкнуў ліст
- For A Reason / Прычынна
- A Dream / Сон
- Poplar / Таполя
Sources:
- Воінава, А. М. Асаблівасці перакладу твораў Тараса Шаўчэнкі на беларускую мову Янкам Купалам / А. М. Воінава, А. М. Палуян // Рэспубліканскія Купалаўскія чытанні: зб. навук. арт. / ГрДУ імя Я. Купалы. – Гродна, 2010. – С. 190–195.
- Рагойша, У. В. Доўгі шлях да Шаўчэнкі і Купалы – шлях да спазнання Украіны і Беларусі / У. В. Рагойша // Творчасць Янкі Купалы – духоўны і эстэтычны феномен: IX Міжнар. Купалаўскія чытанні – навук. канф., Мінск, 14 кастр. 2009 г. / уклад. А. Р. Мацевасян; рэдкал. В. П. Рагойша (гал. рэд.), А. Р. Мацевасян, А. С. Дражына. – Мінск, 2011. – С. 130–135.
