Biography of Milan Dvorzhak

Views: Photo: Prague Express with a famous Czech translator Milan Dvorzhak, I met on the eve of a little -known professional holiday - the day of the translator, arrived on September 30. We did not guess the day of our meeting. Fate ordered us. How she ordered many in the life of my interlocutor. Milan Dvorzhak was born in the family of a diplomat in the year. The child brought him to the Soviet Union, where he learned the Russian language, and at the summer the same fate deprived his vision, partly predetermining his life path.

What kind of works were included in the collection? A very good thing. I don’t even know if anyone translated him before me. Then some of those that were inspired by his presence in Vladikavkaz, then - moving to Tbilisi, autobiographical stories, others rather cruel, because he, as a doctor, had to see everything. This is the time when he was actually in the White Army.

Then some types of feuilletons, when he lived in Moscow in a communal apartment: all the time some drunken scandals. The lack of a normal apartment, which in the Master and Margarita says how it annoyed, angry, did not allow him to work. Interest in Bulgakov, in my opinion, does not disappear. And in general, recently there has been a return to the classics, not only the beginning of the 20th century, but also the 19th century, and publishers order new translations even what has been translated 50 years ago.

In my opinion, they do this because readers have interest. This applies not only to Russian classics, but in general the world. We can never convey all percent. When our great poet Joseph Gora made his translation “Eugene Onegin”, he simultaneously wrote a novel in which there is a scene of an emigrant from Russia. This emigrant says to the Czech translator: “You know if Pushkin says“ ah, legs, legs!

That is, this situation was brought to his absurdity. And somewhere I agree with this emigrant.

But it is necessary, given all the imperfection of what we are doing, just try to come as close as possible as possible, I will not say to perfection, I do not like it at all when they say: “I speak the tongue in perfection.” Who speaks the tongue in perfect, even his relatives? Well, Pushkin, well - Tolstoy ... But we can’t be afraid to translate, otherwise we will not bring to our readers the valuable that is in other literature.

And the Czech reader really needs translation. I didn’t invent this phrase, but one smart person said about it in an interview that such great literature as Russian, English, French, authors can write everything for themselves, and Czechs are small people, there are not always enough great creators, so we, as small peoples, need more than large. We must humbly stand in front of the tongue, dutifully admit that I am not perfect, I can not everything, but if I try ...

- In addition to prose, you translate poetry. For example, the songs of Vladimir Vysotsky ...-In the years, he learned some songs of Vladimir Vysotsky and simply sang them for the Rusists on the feasts. They listened to this, they liked it, but I could not dare to thoroughly take up the translation of his songs. And only when Vysotsky died in July, I thought: well, you sing for three or four people, this will not go further.

And yet I wanted wider circles to get acquainted with his poetry. Here, Russian was taught without fail, but, of course, a simple graduate did not speak such a language in such a language. Therefore, in September, I began to translate. Immediately there was a good response to this, and therefore I have been engaged in Vysotsky’s work for more than years, given, realizing, knowing that I can’t convey to all interest what is in his text.

How does it sound in CHOSK? After all, Czech is so soft, lingering ... - It just seems. Nine out of ten Czechs will tell you that it is Russian - soft, with a tendency to extend vowels. Such an impression arises about a non -native language. Tender than a sheep. There is no between the Slavs tenderly a little man: a beer is blowing from good mugs, and everything is in a diminutive: “beer” why did you need a new translation of the “dog heart” if you themselves say that the Czechs know him well?

Indeed, when for the first time, in the years, I was offered to make a new Czech translation of Eugene Onegin, I was scared. And then I remembered the translation of the same mountain, which in itself is very good, and nevertheless ... I remembered that when, even at the summer, I read his translation of Tatyana’s letter, I did not like how he translated the final lines.

There was a Czech school at the embassy only until the 4th grade, then I had to go to Russian. They said there: we will not put the first half of the year for him, and from the second half of the year he will become our normal student. So I had to learn the language. Then, three and a half years, I studied at a Russian school. Of course, I knew Tatyana’s letter in the original. And the Czechs had a translation of the mountain in the literature textbook.

Tatyana writes: “I finish! It is terrible to count, of course, you still need to keep in mind that we translate something that are already, years old, and respect it.When my translation “Onegin” has already been released, one of my friends, an expert on Russian literature of the 19th century, said: “You know, I was afraid that when I pick it up, Vysotsky would sound behind Pushkin’s poems, but it turned out not at all!

Now he translated a series of Kornwil's novels about the Civil War in the United States. I loved to translate non-fiction, biographies, historical, factual things. But now they began to release them less. Recently I came to one publishing house, I say, I translated the biography of Goering, Goebbels. Give me something artistic now. Well, they gave me a book by the British author of Winnie and Wulf.

Wulf is Hitler, Winnie is Vinifred Wagner, who was known as a big fan of Hitler. There were separate rumors that there was a love novel between them, and this author, Andrew Norman Wilson, simply decided that it would be so in his novel. It turned out a good book. In general, I laughed that I was tired of Goering and Goebbels, so Hitler was given me. Do you think it happens that the translation is really better than the original?

I personally believe that as a translator, I should not try to make my translation more beautiful, improve, improve the author. I always say: the author is my master. I try to best convey what he wrote, but I will never agree to add what is not in the original. On the one hand, there is an artistic translation, which is given enough time. And on the other hand, a translation that should be done right there, immediately, and my goal is to bring the meaning.

The Russian says: “oral translation”, “written translation”, but different words are used in other languages. In English, Translator is the one who translates in writing, and the one who translates orally, right there, in place-Interpreter, that is, it is like an interpreter. I have to explain, but it is not necessary to convey the whole word to word. How did he attract you?

Somewhere at the age of years, I could no longer read. He graduated from high school, entered an economic university, but then lost his motivation. I began to think, who would I work? The blind could become a masseur or telephone operator in those years. But one friend of my mother invited me to enter the university for a translator. They call me on television. In the years, when the synchronous translation began to be used for the first time, I translated Gorbachev.

Friends and colleagues called me the "voice of Moscow." He spoke very quickly. Until that time, during the years of Brezhnev, it was easy to translate. The Secretary General read the approved Politburo text. Then this was done like this: TASS released the Russian text two hours before the start of the speech, conveyed it to fraternal information agencies, and translated it. In the year I was first called on television.

In those days there was just a conflict between China and Vietnam, and there were fears that Brezhnev could say something that was not in the text. I'm standing, trembling. And my colleague Tanya Dobrynina, an experienced translator, for a generation older than me, says: “You do not worry. You just need to understand that the “Sisisizhitsky” is “socialist”, and “boobs” are “systematically”.

But then it turned out that he was saying exactly in the text, and they let me go. For the first time I translated synchronously at Andropov’s funeral in the year. Next year will be 30 years since I have been working on television. Those speeches that were made from the mausoleum were not sent in advance. Then there was Chernenko, and when Gorbachev became the Secretary General, it turned out that he always says not what is in the text.

Then they began to invite synchronous translators, and since then television has already used to work with them. Although the Russian translation itself became not very relevant at one time.