Poetry of German expressionism in B. Pasternak's reception

Communicative problems of translated text. B. Pasternak addresses to the poetry of German and Austrian expressionists in 1923 while translating four poems by G. Heym and F. Werfel for Modern West magazine (1924) and twenty three poems (by J.R. Becher, J. van Hoddis, F. Werfel, W. Hasenclever, G. Heym, P. Zech, etc.) for the anthology "Young Germany" (1926). Problems of perception and translation of the poetry of the German expressionism by B. Pasternak are caused by objective and subjective factors: language specifics of avant-garde texts, absence of world outlook and aesthetic resemblance with the translated material, rejection of the principles of word-by-word translation then recognized in translation practice. But Pasternak treats foreign culture with respect and follows the common task - to present poetry of the German authors to the new democratic reader. The strategy and methods of translation he chooses depend on the type of the original material and range from loan-translation to creative interpretation of works. Pasternak gives exact, close to literal, translations of poems by J.R. Becher "Broneviki: Ballada" and "Nas Polkovye Marshi", R. Leonhard's "The Dead Libknekht". Insignificant corrections are caused by the transfer of foreign realities or difference of language systems. Emphasis on the visual, the effect of "seeing", "watching" distinguishing the aesthetics of expressionism becomes a key to translation of poems by G. Heym of "Die Damonen der Stadte", "Der Krieg", "Mit den fahrenden Schiffen". "War Ghost" is a creative interpretation of Heym's "Der Krieg" ("War"), translation of communicative type. The reconstruction of the formal organization, transfer of the basic elements, significant units of the source text into the target language system is combined with language and structural changes to restore of perception codes and contexts. From the point of view of the content, Heym's interpretation of war as the purification, renovation of life is opposite to B. Pasternak's attitude, the Russian mentality,the traditions of national culture as a whole. In B. Pasternak's translation the change of the title and word replacements accentuate the infernal nature of the main character and "reduce" the grandeur of the image and enthusiastic pathos of the original. Pasternak reduces the apocalyptic tone and Nietzsche's vitalism that define the sense of Heym's poem. The translation reproduces the conceptual oppositions (life - death, light - darkness). War is the force hostile to life. The semantic changes reveal the polemic of the author and the translator that develops at the level of the created world images, national and cultural contexts.

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