UDC

821.161.1

Authors

Nikolaev Nikolay Ippolitovich
Humanitarian Institute, Severodvinsk Branch of Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov (Severodvinsk, Russia)
Shvetsova Tatyana Vasilyevna
Humanitarian Institute, Severodvinsk Branch of Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov (Severodvinsk, Russia)

Abstract

The authors focus on M. Lermontov’s translation of the poem “Sie liebten sich beide, doch keiner...” by J.W. Heine. The motives underlying deviations from the meaning in Heine’s original have often been studied by literary criticism. No clear explanation has yet been found, however. The authors believe that both Heine’s poem and its translation made by Lermontov are based on “reader’s disappointed expectations”. It is this literary device that creates the inner tension of the Russian and German texts. Still, the nature of “expectation” in the Russian religious and cultural context differs from that which was meant by Heine. Having compared the ideas of eternal life in the texts by Heine and Lermontov’s predecessors – Goethe and Karamzin, – we conclude that Lermontov changed the meaning of the original intentionally and the differences between the Russian translation and Heine’s original are caused by deeply rooted mentality traits.

Keywords

Russian literature, German literature, comparative literature studies, Lermontov, Heine, Karamzin, Goethe, mentality, character

References

1. Goethe J.W. Selected Works. In 2 vols. Vol. 2. Moscow, 1985 (in Russian). 
2. Zhirmunsky V.M. Gete v russkoy literature [Goethe in Russian Literature]. Leningrad, 1982. 
3. Israpova F. Ob epigrafe stikhotvoreniya M.Yu. Lermontova “Oni lyubili drug druga tak dolgo i nezhno…”: Poeticheskiy perevod kak forma osushchestvleniya “poezii poezii” [Epigraph to M.Yu. Lermontov’s Poem “They Were Both in Love ...”: Poetic Translation as a Form of “Poetry of Poetry”]. Poetika zaglaviya [Poetics of the Title]. Tver, 2005. 
4. Lermontov M.Yu. Collected Works. In 6 vols. Vol. 2. Poems. 1832–1841. Moscow, Leningrad, 1954 (in Russian). 
5. Russkaya literatura XVIII veka [Russian Literature of the 18th Century]. Comp. by Makogonenko G.P. Leningrad, 1970.