One might think, at first glance, that translating the correspondence between Lev Tolstoy and Sofia Tolstaya would be a rather similar task to our translation of the latter’s autobiographical memoir My Life, published in 2010. Well, yes… and no.
We started off with the same translation team as before (Arkadi Klioutchanski and myself), under the same editorship (Andrew Donskov), the same publisher (University of Ottawa Press), the same author (Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya), the same geographical settings (notably Moscow and Yasnaya Polyana) and, to a large extent, the same time span in each case (the latter half of the nineteenth century). So what was different?
The first key difference was the introduction of a second author — not just any author, but one who was intimately (in the most literal sense of the word) acquainted with the first author — namely, her husband, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
The second major difference was the reason for writing in each case, together with the writers’ intended audience. Tolstaya wrote her memoirs with the public definitely in mind. In view of the many widespread speculations about her role in her husband’s career and potential future misrepresentations of their relationship, she wanted to set the record straight — from her point of view. Hence in her memoirs she took a special degree of care in her grammar, writing style, identification of people and places, and so forth. It is also worth noting they were written in retrospect, often years after the events described.
On the other hand, her immediate purpose in writing letters to her husband was to make enquiries and convey information pertinent to the moment, as well as to express personal feelings about their relationship with each other and their family (feelings ranging from love and tenderness to frustration and despair); here the letters they wrote during their physical separations were a natural extension of their conversations when they were together. Tolstoy’s reasons for writing were basically the same as his wife’s, although he was probably more conscious than she of how these letters — indeed, of how anything he wrote — might be treated by readers of the future!
But consider the problem this type of writing poses for translators! Just as in their conversations at home, a husband and wife’s personal letters do not reflect the same grammatical standards and logical explanations that they might use in preparing a public talk or a journal article on an unfamiliar subject. This couple, in fact, were so well acquainted both with each other and with the subjects of their correspondence that a single sentence — indeed, a single word or phrase — might easily substitute for a whole paragraph of expository prose. A single term (the name of an illness, for instance) might conjure up a whole series of recent occurrences in the mind of either correspondent. And when it came to mentioning mutual acquaintances, only one of the three components of the traditional Russian name — even a single diminutive (see From the Editor above) — was generally sufficient to remind their spouse as to who was being spoken about, even where multiple referents were theoretically possible. For example, Tolstaya’s sister Tat’jana Andreevna and the couple’s eldest daughter Tat’jana L’vovna might both be identified simply as Tanja even in the same paragraph. Similarly, Serëzha might alternately refer to Tolstoy’s brother Sergej Nikolaevich and their eldest son Sergej L’vovich. In other words, it is not always evident to an outsider who exactly is being referred to by a single component of their name. Apart from that, there were further ambiguities and other apparent gaps in the background to various passages that begged to be filled in, especially for a non-Russian reader in the twenty-first century! Questions like these the Ottawa translators were not always able to decide on their own.
Hence our translation team had to expand to include not only an English literary translator and a classical Russian-language specialist working in Canada, but also a Russia-based scholar with hands-on experience with all the many archival writings associated with the Tolstoys. Liudmila Gladkova, a Senior Researcher and Deputy Director of the Tolstoy Museum in Moscow (the ultimate global repository of all things Tolstoyan) was chosen by our Editor, Andrew Donskov, since, as a member of our Slavic Research Group at the University of Ottawa, she had successfully participated in a number of previous publication projects related to Tolstoy.
The procedure would begin with my draft translation, five letters at a time. The draft would then be emailed to Arkadi, who would review it carefully (on the basis of his familiarity with classical Russian literature) and highlight points for a telephone discussion the following day. Translation questions still not resolved after this consultation would be forwarded to Liudmila in Moscow for her investigation in the Tolstoy Museum archives, and her answers would subsequently be incorporated into the translated text. Only then would it be sent to the Editor for final approval. And all this took place before the customary in-house peer-review procedures, editing and proofreading conducted by the University of Ottawa Press.
In sum, the English translation of a written dialogue between this intimately related Russian literary duo of more than a century ago has proved to be a multi-layered, complex and often daunting task. It has taken the best efforts of an experienced translation team, working under the guidance of an experienced Editor, to render this fascinating dialogue accessible (at least in part) to the vast English-reading segment of the world’s population.
John Woodsworth
with Arkadi Klioutchanski and Liudmila Gladkova
Translators