The 20th century has been a rough time for Soviet-American relations. Since its post-World War 2 enactment, The Cold War did more damage than previously thought. While not a single shell was fired during the war, the cultural embargo that was in effect ravaged each country. The effects of which are still felt in today’s modern society. Now, nearly 20 years after the ending of the Cold War, American and Russian cultural exchanges have started taking shape. While each culture is beginning to share and draw off one another, problems still exist. The problems of translating the language barrier in a post propagandized world have taken their full effect, and are playing heavily on the remnants of Cold War ideologies. By highlighting some problems …show more content…
But due to the fact that it is one of the world’s most well know Russian novels, the problem of translation needed to be answered. How could his novel be transferred into the far corners of the world, translated into any and all languages, and still hold its narrative prowess? The answer is: very carefully. But alas, these attempts to translate the manuscript, particularly into American English, have not held true to Bulgakov’s initial story, in a few particularly key …show more content…
The proper translation of the Russian idiom would be, according to the commentary, “quiet as a fish on ice” (352). Something much more befitting to the scene as either the fish in question is in a frozen body of water, or dead and chilling on ice. A more appropriate translation to American audiences would then be instead, “quiet as a mouse,” in that it instills the same level of perceived quietness expected from the scene. This Russian idiom is another example of culture lost due to translation. Whether that idiom was well known in the Soviet era, it is undecided, but the proper translation would have lent a better understanding, and recognition, of a Russian idiom and its proper use. Why the translators chose to leave out the proverbial quality of this line is unknown. The problem of translation is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to an American understanding, and cultural acceptance, of Bulgakov’s work. The next issue comes about due to the remaining trends and foreign policy ideologies after the ending of the Cold
Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati...
Fay, Laurel E. ‘Shostakovich vs. Volkov: whose Testimony?’ The Russian Review (October 1980), pp. 484-93.
Considered to be among the greatest novels of the 20th century, Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is a timeless favorite, enjoyed and studied now as much as it was 50 years ago. The novel’s multiple interpretations and deep-seated nuances on behalf of the author have captured the attention of scholars and students alike. Among the main characters of the novel are Dr. Woland and his gang, who are representations of Satan or Satanic figures, and follows the mischief that they concoct around Moscow. Naturally, an inclusion of Satan as a main character who kills and seems hell-bent on driving people mad can appear pretty heretical from the outside, I could agree. But regarding the statement that “The Master and Margarita is the most heretical novel of the twentieth-century”, I would contend that claim and instead argue that the book celebrates spirituality and free-thinking, more specifically in the context of Christianity, because of the book’s status as a satire of an atheistic Russia and because Bulgakov doesn’t posit the book in an Anti-Christian sort of way.
During the Cold War (1947-1991), the Kitchen Debate demonstrates an illustrative exchange between U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in which they exchange cultural viewpoints in each of their societies. The American National Exhibit displays the “American way of life” to the citizens of the Soviet Union to represent the advancements in the American society. The Kitchen Debate and Cold War Consumer Politics shows a diversification of culture between the United States and Soviet Union. The debate between the two superpowers discusses a series of topics such as production, technology innovation, and standard of living. The American National Exhibit establishes their capitalistic ideas of domestication, food production, and global politics to Soviet Union. The Soviet Union won the debate with their effective ways of utilizing their resources and pushing parallel structure.
One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich . (n.d.). Retrieved may 10, 2011, from Bookrags: http://www.bookrags.com/notes/ivan/
...s tale turns into an attack on the ridiculous, heartless nature of Russian society – especially Russian in civil service. Gogol portrays the trivialness of this through the use of distinct contrasts, mostly between how the poor official in this tale sees his prized overcoat, and how his fellow workers view it, and him, with scorn and mocking laughter. It is not a pleasant tale, and there is no happy ending. But it is effective in how well it presents the absurdities of life at this time in St. Petersburg.
The end of the Cold War was one of the most unexpected and important events in geopolitics in the 20th century. The end of the Cold War can be defined as the end of the bipolar power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had existed since the end of the World War II. The conclusion of the Cold War can be attributed to Gorbachev’s series of liberalizations in the 1980s, which exposed the underlying economic problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc states that had developed in the 1960s and 70s and prevented the USSR from being able to compete with the US as a superpower. Nevertheless, Reagan’s policies of a renewed offensive against communism, Gorbachev’s rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine and the many nationalities
Appel, Alfred Jr. & Charles Newman, editors. Nabokov : criticism, reminiscences, translations, and tributes. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, l970.
Russian literature was very much influenced by the literary trope known as the superfluous man. This trope was ideal for writers to describe the shortcomings of Russian high-class society. There has been a witnessed general consistency when dealing with the superfluous man such as the exhibition of cynicism and existential angst, while indulging in vices such as affairs, gambling and duelling. These individuals are typically from noble birth yet refused to fit into society and disregard the societal norms. This trend can be witnessed through many examples such as Alexander Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” and “Diary of a Superfluous Man” by Ivan Turgenev. The characters described by these authors reflects the lifestyles of such a man, and seems to imitate the lives of the men who wrote these stories, as the real life Pushkin and Turgenev were both to be described as superfluous men.
Lafeber, W. (2002), America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2000. 9th edn. New-York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
This paper seeks to review the themes found in the book entitled Heart of a Dog, which has been authored by Mikhail Bulgakov. In summary, the themes of the book are a satirical representation of the state of affairs in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. The book was written during the era in which censorship was in full force throughout the country. Mikhail was therefore forced to write his book in a satirical and subtle manner in order to himself from the dictatorial leadership (Bulgakov, 1988).
Exaggerated descriptions of Nevsky Prospect and physical appearances of the people that walk the streets demonstrate the artificial and fictional nature of the setting. In the first line of the story, the narrator states that “there is nothing better than Nevsky Prospect, at least not in Petersburg; for there is everything” (Gogol 245). The narrator quickly establishes Nevsky Prospect as a utopian-like setting where people promenade and forget about whatever needs to be done. As the fawning portrayal of Nevsky Prospect becomes more obvious, it becomes evident that the narrator’s exaggerations are implications of the street’s fantastic nature. Moreover, the narrator describes the different people one will meet while on Nevsky Prospect. Watching the exhibition of people walking along Nevsky Prospect, he points out a person displaying “a foppish frock coat with the best of beavers,” another with “a wonderful Greek nose,” the third bearing “super side-whiskers,” the fourth with “pretty eyes and an astonishing little hat” (Gogol 249). The narrator describes the individuals by only a small aesthetic feature of their appearance. St. Petersburg, represented by Nevsky Prospect, is being portrayed as a superficial place where “there is a host of such people as, when they meet you, unfailingly look at your shoes, and, when you pass by,
Nikolai Gogol has been widely recognized as one of the most inspiring and remarkable authors of the Russian Empire and the one who produced an enormous impact on literary work of countless contemporaries and successors, both in the Tsarist Russia and abroad. Particularly, Gogol’s literary legacy is praised for his exceptional ability to deploy humor as a means of expression and the way to convey the message. In this respect, the short story The Overcoat written during the St. Petersburg period of Gogol’s activity is a very important work which balances between tragic and humorous elements and presents a brilliant specimen of satire. In this work, Gogol builds up the powerful criticism of the contemporary Russian society with its social hierarchy,
The vast interpretations and multiple meanings that lie within Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita cannot be limited or reduced to just a singular point or explanation. It would be ludicrous for one to simply classify Bulgakov’s work as just a religious, ethical, social or political tract because the enforcement of only one of these points of view would hinder the reader’s insight into the depth of the entire novel. However, it is possible to be able to grasp the many themes and meanings of The Master and Margarita by the examination of one of the novel’s central characters, this character is found in both narratives of the novel and his name is Woland or, as he is also known, the devil. Woland is the most important character in the novel because he entices the people of Moscow, whether they want to or not and whether they are conscious of it or not, to rebel against the order of which they are accustomed too and to gain a new found sense of liberation. Colin Wright, in his work Mikhail Bulgakov: Life and Interpretations, writes, “And here we find the key to the whole book for, as we have seen, it is the individual non-conformists who are Bulgakov’s heroes, those who rebel – whether against God or man” (270). It is understandable that Bulgakov, having written this work in an oppressive surrounding that limited what he could and could not write, creates a hero who is in fact a rebel and other characters that are rebellious against those who stifle artistic freedom. In Vladimir Tumanov’s essay, Diabolus ex Machina: Bulgakov’s Modernist Devil, the author writes, “In this respect the modernist qualities of Bulgakov’s novel acquire a new dimension because Master i Margarita becomes a kind of artistic devil, fulfilli...
More so than that of most other comparably illustrious writers, a number of Vladimir Nabokov’s works beckon near polarizing discrepancies in interpretation and actual author intent amidst literary circles. In a letter to the editor of The New Yorker, he concedes to constructing systems “wherein a second (main) story is woven into, or placed behind, the superficial semitransparent one” (Dolinin). In practice, such an architectural premise is complicated further by his inclination to dabble in the metaphysical and occasionally, in the metafictional. Nabokov’s inclusion of meticulous description and word choice coupled with his reliance on unreliable narrators—in “Signs and Symbols,” “The Vane Sisters,” and “Details of a Sunset”-- permits him to explore the boundaries surrounding objective versus subjective realities, creating conscientiously woven narratives multi-layered and possibly cryptic in meaning.