The Russian Fate of Robert Burns’s Poem “A Man’s a Man for a’That...”

The article first comprehends the history of the Russian translation reception of Robert Bums’s poem “A Man’s a Man for a’That ...”. The materials for the analysis are translations of the poem made by V.D. Kostomarov, T.L. Shchepkina-Kupernik, S.Ya. Marshak, S.A. Orlov, E.V. Vitkovsky, S. Sapozhnikov, and E.D. Feldman. Methodologically, the article relies on fundamental works in the field of historical poetics, comparative study, theory and history of poetic translation, and on works of domestic researchers on understanding Burns’s heritage in Russia. The author notes the responses to Burns’s poem and its Russian translations in the diary of K.I. Chukovsky, in the works of L.S. Rudneva, M.M. Chulaki, A.M. Terekhov, G.E. Fuchs, M.A. Mishin, and others. As a result of a comparative analysis of the translations of “A Man’s a Man for a’That ...”, the author infers that Russian interpreters fail to come close to the understanding of the original due to their orientation towards a softer social context (V.D. Kostomarov, E.V. Vitkovsky), a coarser harsh but noble verse of the original through the use of deliberately lower vocabulary (S. Sapozhnikov). The most famous interpretation of “A Man’s a Man for a’That ...” by S.Ya. Marshak cannot be perceived differently than the original poem based on Burns’s motif, which conveyed the ideological orientation of Burns’s text, some of its features, but lost the key image, the ideal of an honest independent person, to which Burns repeatedly returned in his work. The most successful translation appears to be the one by T.L. Shchepkina-Kupernik: careless in working with the word, she manages to preserve the atmosphere of the original; in particular, she notes dissatisfaction with the daily way of life, ridicules the established foundations of an elitist society, expresses hope for future changes. This translation, preserving the diversity of themes and moods of the original, its simultaneous appeal to momentality and eternity, inevitably loses to the original, being largely deprived of the freedom to use the word, the game of shades and semitones. The example of the poem “A Man’s a Man for a’That ...” shows the entire infinity, the limitlessness of Burns’s universe, the comprehension of which comes through the personal experience of the translators, through their desire to find in the great poet confirmation of their own thoughts, ideas, views on life, society and people.

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