Abstract:
The objective of this thesis has been to study in some depth the original language and meaning of a contemporary Russian play and to discover its linguistic and cultural parallels and contrasts to English.
The play, which is a modern adaptation of Chekhov's 'Seagull' was written in 1977 while its author lived in the Soviet Union, and published in the West after the author has left the USSR. The work can be of interest to students of Russian and of Linguistics.
Students of Russian find themselves transported form lecture halls echoing the archaic phrases of 19th century masters into presentday Russian society. They have occasion to compare the ephemeral and ever changing phenomenon of colloquial language in both Russian and English.
Furthermore, the thesis given an insight into the problems inherent in translation in general, and in Russian/English translation in particular. After considering the theoretical and practical handicaps, the free vs. literal arguments, the vain search for synonymity and equivalence with which translators since 'Babel' have had to battle, it is little wonder that hands should go up in despair before the task of translating the Heron. But defying the monster of untranslatability the translator, painfully resigned to a mere compromise, must define his stand point on the free/literal continuum.
As this English version of the Heron is primarily designed to be educational, and only then entertaining, the overriding principle guiding the translation work has been closest possible adherence to the source text.
