‘COMPARABLE TO DEVOURING ONE'S OWN BRAINS’
AKHMATOVA, Anna Andreevna, translator.
Голоса поэтов. Стихи зарубежных поэтов в переводе Анны Ахматовой. [Golosa poetov. Stikhi zarubezhnykh poetov v perevode Anny Akhmatovoi; ‘Poets’ voices. Verses of foreign poets translated by Anna Akhmatova’].
Moscow, “Progress”, 1965.
Small 8vo, pp. 175; a fine copy in the original printed wrappers; small bookplate (‘O. Bisonta’) to verso of half-title.
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Голоса поэтов. Стихи зарубежных поэтов в переводе Анны Ахматовой. [Golosa poetov. Stikhi zarubezhnykh poetov v perevode Anny Akhmatovoi; ‘Poets’ voices. Verses of foreign poets translated by Anna Akhmatova’].
First edition of Akhmatova’s translations of a selection of pieces by Polish, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Yugoslavian, Romanian, Norwegian, and Indian poets.
Among them are pieces by the Polish poets Julian Tuwim, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska (called ‘the Polish Sappho’), the Czech poets Jiří Wolker (who died at the age of twenty-four) and Vítězslav Nezval, and the Bulgarian poets Pencho Petkov Slaveykov and Elisaveta Bagryana. The preface, by Akhmatova’s (1889–1966) friend and fellow poet-translator Arseny Tarkovsky (1907–1989), presents a reflection on the poet as translator and praise for Akhmatova’s sensitive translation: ‘The nature of translated poetry, like any other art, is difficult to define. The poet-translator has been likened to a musician interpreting the composer’s work, to an actor playing a role, to a portrait painter … Having read this collection of translations by Anna Akhmatova, we may not find new definitions for poetry in translation, this literary genre dear to the reader. But it will become clear to us that a true translator of poetry is first and foremost a poet’ (p. 11, trans.).
Akhmatova published six volumes of translations during her lifetime but, despite her success, she complained that for a poet translating was ‘comparable to devouring one’s own brains’.
