Translation and translators in Tomsk literary periodicals at the late 19th century (I.I. Pochekas, P.A. Grabovsky, A.O. Stanislavsky and P.L. Chernevich)

Translations, critical articles about works of foreign writers, reviews of theatrical productions and information about new editions made an integral part of the content in Sibirsky vestnik, Sibirskaya zhizn, Sibirskaya gazeta and their applications since the 1880s. This trend was not found in the periodicals Tobolsk, Novonikolaevsk and Omsk. The paper focuses on four translators of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, who demonstrated constant interest to foreign literary trends: I.I. Pochekas, A.O. Stanislavsky, P.L. Chernevich and P.A. Grabovsky. The translation heritage of I. Severnyy (pseudonym of I.I. Pochekas) forms a more significant part than his original creativity. It includes seven translations from German literature, five translations from French and more than a dozen translations from Polish. Most of his translations were published in Sibirsky vestnik in 1894-1896. His German translations include classic poetry (two from Novalis, three from Heine and one from I.V. Goethe) as well as reverse translations of two M.Yu. Lermontov's poems. He also translated poetry and prose from French, focusing on works with lyrical, mystical and romantic plots. In 1896-1901, a famous Ukrainian poet P.A. Grabovsky (Paul Grab) published in the Tomsk press a number of journalistic essays and poems in the Ukrainian language as well as twelve translations, eleven of which were poetic, with ten marked as "from Little Russian." His translations from I. Ya. Franko, T.G. Shevchenko, O.S. Makovey, A.Ya. Konisky and A. Nemoyevsky were a significant phenomenon in the regional literary life. The first of these translations was published in Sibirsky vestnik in 1896. In its turn, Sibirskaya zhizn published five poems signed by P. Grabovsky. The author turned to social poetry and everyday life of workers and peasants, which reflected the growing politicisation of regional public consciousness. Due to Grabovsky's translations, the Ukrainian poetry in the Tomsk press represented topics of imprisonment, loneliness, and lack of freedom in the form of folklore and lyrics. His personal experience of arrest and exile contributed to the autobiographical character of his translations, emphasised expressiveness and determined his choice of T.G. Shevchenko's romantic lyrics of the Orenburg exile, composed in the style of Ukrainian folk songs. An ethnic Pole A.O. Stanislavsky (1845-1897) epitomizes another type of translator, aimed at enlightening the population and forming educated elite. Stanislavsky came to Tomsk of his own free will. He was a mature person with a rich social, publishing, literary and production experience in Russia and Europe. For the Tomsk periodicals he translated a lot of foreign prose, with over forty translations published from 1890 to 1895. He translated mainly from French (five translations from A. Daudet, six from G. de Maupassant). There are also a number of works, whose author was not indicated. Stanislavsky's preferences included ironical stories, typical entertaining anecdotes, conveying the historical and cultural flavour of Europe of the Franco-Prussian confrontation, and psychological detective stories from the lives of representatives of various social strata. In his critical essays, he rejected newfangled decadent and symbolist trends and was more oriented to realism. Another individual strategy defining the atmosphere of the Tomsk period of the late 19thcentury can be traced in numerous publications by P.L. Chernevich. If A. Stanislavsky, I. Severnyy, P. Grabovsky created predominantly artistic translations, P. Chernevich contributes as a reviewer of modern philosophical ideas and European thought, giving the vector of their perception among the developing university community and local population. His confrontation to decadance is reflected in his apology for a high love feeling and criticism of anti-religious tendencies in European culture. He also paid much attention to creative assimilation and rethinking of F. Nietzsche, who determined the spirit of the late 19th century. On the one hand, the analysed artistic and translation strategies in the Tomsk pre-revolutionary periodicals demonstrate a distinct identity, not determined by political or social themes exclusively. The cycles by migrants Grabovsky and Stanislavsky realise autobiographical motifs, the theme of exile and the Franco-Prussian war, and the preference for native literature as a culture donor. Siberian authors Pochekas and Chernevich are more focused on transferring universal views on contemporary and classical literary, theatrical and philosophical works from various foreign cultures. On the other hand, the translated literature in Tomsk in the last decades of the 19th century has a number of common features related to the recognised genre samples of the romantic era in its various manifestations: from sentimental, elegiac and narrow motives to love themes, both in prose and in poetry.

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