ON THE PROBLEM OF VARIABILITY OF UKRAINIAN TRANSLATIONS OF ANTONI MALCZEWSKIʼS “MARIA”

Abstract

The object of translation studies is one of the works of the "Ukrainian school" of Polish romanticism— Antoni Malczewski's poem "Maria", which was published in the original version in Polish in 1824-1825. The plot of the text matirial selected for consideration and its translated Ukrainian versions were based on real events from the history of Poland in the 18th century: the marriage  of the son of the Kiev voivode Potocki with the noblewoman Gertruda Komorowska. It is noteworthy that in his poem Antoni Malczewski did not adhere to detailed historical realities, but interpreted real-life facts in the spirit of Polish romanticism. In particular, he transferred the above-mentioned events from the 18th to the 17th century— the period of Tatar raids on Polish and Ukrainian villages, changed the names of the real prototypes of the main characters, and described their feelings and characters according to the canons of romantic literature. These authorial intentions were traced in the process of translation analysis of the poem "Maria", published in Ukrainian.

The formal approach of different authors to the interpretation of parts of the work, which Antoni Malczewski calls "songs", which we consider to be an allusion to the popular genre of Ukrainian folk art, is analyzed.

The article compares two versions of the Ukrainian translation of the poem "Maria": authorship by Volodymyr Gutsalenko and Stanislav Shevchenko. Both translations are examined for teir correspondence to the original in semantic, syntactic, structural and phonological aspects and with regard to compliance with the basic norms of translation theory. The main principles and methods used by tranlators while working on the translation are determined. In the process of the study, the prospects for the development of domestic translation practice are illustrated, taking into account the latest trends in the formation of translation tactics.

It is concluded that the variability of translations contributes to the development of national culture on the basis of the reproduction of one's own cultural and national codes through the medium of artistic words. Malczewski's poem is ideally suited for such an interpretation given its Ukrainian character.