Jansy/Victor: to see/hear the Birch Tree Cliché in Soviet Realistic excess, dig the Red Army Choir’s folksy rendition:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SKC4M0dQ8AE&NR=1
My cynical Polish ex-wife Iwonka (lest we forget) wondered if this clip was filmed in the KATYN Forest, before, during, or after the Massacre? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
Jansy: Nabokov is RIGHT about the ESSENTIAL equivalence of ALL NLs (Natural Languages). Whatever can be imagined & expressed in one NL can be imagined & expressed in any other NL. This axiom essentially DEFINES what an NL is! (Space precludes, as they say! Google Chomsky [cautiously!] and the now-rejected Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.)
When we “translate,” i.e., re-imagine & re-express any text from NL-A to NL-B, there’s NO RULE connecting the LENGTH and ACCURACY of the resulting translation! The B-versions may be shorter or longer than A’s depending on their respective grammatical and lexical structures. You draw the wrong conclusions from the fact that Nabokov’s Onegin “translation” takes 4 volumes. You take this as evidence of some transcendental chasm between PushkinSpeak and English. BUT, what Nabokov gives us is a detailed (super-heroic) historical commentary on Pushkin’s chosen words, phrases, idioms and prosody. Much of this background is, in fact, also essential to the majority of contemporary Russian speakers, separated by time & kultur from 18th century usages. Modern English readers face the same problem with Shakespeare. The fact is that modern editions of Shakespeare with their detailed footnotes and glosses offer “translations” from one NL (Elizabethan English) to another (Modern English).
Truly “deep” and creative bi-fluency is rare enough to be treasured, and REWARDED. Let’s not begrudge a mere $40 for “Verses and Versions” provided Brian Boyd, Stanislav Shvabrin and the VN-Estate get a fair share.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 07/12/2008 17:39, "NABOKV-L" <NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
> Dear Jansy:
>
> "I once read that one could know a Russian writer by his reference to
> sparkling snow and birch-trees. "
>
> Oh, but this is such a classical example of clicheed poshlust!
> Just add some troika sleighs and vodka shots...
>
> Just for fun, I searched now to find a single birch in the urbanite
> Dostoyevsky - and sure enough, in part I of "Brothers Karamazov" Fyodor
> Pavlovich declares "The strength of Russia is in the birch" - but what he
> means are "rozgi", i.e. birch rods used for a popular corporal punishment
> (children as well as adults!).
> These were known also as "birch porridge" ("berezovaya kasha").
> I bet Dostoyevsky had little use for sparkling snow either.
>
> Alpine landscapes in VN are similar to his childhood's landscapes near St
> Petersburg not only because of their snow, but also because both include
> conifer (fir) forest as main part of vegetation (what we call
> landscape-forming species).
> In northern Russia, such vegetation is "zonal" (latitudinal) but in more
> southern areas it is found only as an atitudinal zone ("belt") in the
> mountains, such as Alps and Rockies, roughly starting from 1500-2000 m. But I
> do not think there are any nostalgic birches in this picture.
>
> Victor Fet
>