Some of F. Sologub's unpublished translations: ''Short Prose Poems'' by Ch. Baudelaire

F. Sologub's translations are diverse: they are made from different languages and represent different genres. The majority of translations are made from French. F. Sologub turns to creative works of Voltaire, H. de Balzac, A. Renie, G. de Maupassant, T. Gautier, V. Hugo, P. Verlaine, A. Rimbaud, S. Mallarme and others. Sologub also published one translation from Ch. Baudelaire's poetry, a poem in prose ''To Each His Chimera'' (''Chacun sa chimere''). This text is not the only translation. In F. Sologub's archives deposited in the Institute of Russian Literature (the Pushkin House), Russian Academy of Sciences, there are translations of six more poems. All these poems, as well as ''To Each His Chimera'', are from ''Short Prose Poems'' (''Petits Poemes en Prose'') that was also published under title ''Paris Spleen'' (''Le Spleen de Paris''). F. Sologub translated pieces of Ch. Baudelaire's poetry in 1898. Back then he was famous as the author of three books: a book of verse ''Poems, First Book'', novel Bad Dreams, a book of collected stories and poems ''Shadows''. The interest of F. Sologub in Ch. Baudelaire's poetry at that period of time can be explained by two reasons. One of them is the conflict that took place between the author and the editor of ''Severny Vestnik'' magazine. Sologub objected to artificial subdivision of poets into symbolists and decadents. He stated the idea of succession between the two literary schools and addressed himself to translations from Ch. Baudelaire as to the origin of symbolism. The source of translations is noteworthy: it is not ''The Flowers of Evil'' Ch. Baudelaire became famous for, but ''Short Prose Poems'' published posthumously. ''Short Prose Poems'' were innovative both by content and form: lyricism was combined with aphoristic character, cyclization was achieved by fragmentariness. F. Sologub was interested in the poetic form: within this genre - prose poems - he also translated from A. Rimbaud and O. Wilde. The article presents Sologub's translations from Baudelaire's poetry never published before: ''The Foreigner'' (''L'Etranger''), ''The Old Woman's Despair'' (''Le Desespoir de la Vieille''), ''Le confiteor de l'artiste'' (''Le Confiteor de l'Artiste''), ''The Crowd'' (''Les Foules''), ''The Fool and Venus'' (''Le Fou et la Venus''), ''The Dog and the Perfume'' (''Le Chien et le Flacon''). All these poems are completed works and represent one of the aspects of Sologub's translation. The texts are represented according to the rules of modern spelling and punctuation with references to archive sources. In each case we give the title in the original and the date of translation (provided this information is in the archives).

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