Translation strategies for poems by Tatar poets into Russian and English

This article examines the challenges of translating Tatar poetry into Russian and English, using lyrics by 20th and 21st-century Tatar poets (Derdmend, Musa Jalil, Lenar Shaekh) as its primary material. The study focuses on translating the non-equivalent concept of the Tatar linguaculture moy, and individual strategies for translating poems by Tatar poets into Russian and English. The analysis reveals that translators most frequently employ descriptive translation, with their strategic choices being influenced by both personal preference and linguistic proficiency. The study of poetic texts helps identify key vectors in the perception of Tatar cultural and mental phenomena and clarifies the nature of the translation transformations. It is demonstrated that while translations generally succeed in conveying the original's core meaning, they often fail to articulate the deeper cultural layers associated with specific concepts like mog. Translators of this term must simultaneously account for its diverse meanings - encompassing sadness (melancholy, sorrow), melody (motive), harmony, and song. The study concludes that the associative-semantic field of such culture-bound concepts typically narrows in translation, as the chosen lexemes can only approximate the full semantic content of the Tatar originals. Consequently, translating these unique concepts is impossible without a thorough consideration of their contextual meaning. The examined translations tend to make implicit semantic components of complex concepts explicit, elements that remain latent for native Tatar speakers. While modern translators into Russian often find successful linguistic solutions that preserve the poetic depth of the originals, this is sometimes achieved at the expense of cultural specificity. Furthermore, most English translations are derived from Russian versions, thereby inheriting their translation strategies. Translators typically seek English equivalents for the lexemes already chosen in the Russian intermediary texts. This practice of relay translation is prevalent due to the inaccessibility of the Tatar language for many translators, resulting in a secondary text shaped by the influence of the translated Russian work. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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