“Our Country Has Become Shakespeare’s Homeland”: The Formation of Soviet Canon of Shakespeare’s Translation in the Disputes of the 1930s

Abstract

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of introducing Shakespeare into the reading canon of the Soviet Russia in 1930s. It also demonstrates the role of the new translations in this process. The authors explore the reasons for placing Shakespeare at the center of the canon: the approval of his work by Karl Marx, the Soviet appropriation of the highest achievements of world culture, the interpretation of Shakespeare as a Realist writer. The need for a new ‘Soviet Shakespeare’ led to the development of a concept of equirhythmic, “accurate” translation, invented by G. Shpet and A. Smirnov, the editors of the Academia publishing house. The implementation of this concept in the 1930s by A. Radlova, M. Lozinsky, and M. Kuzmin was protested by critics, especially K. Chukovsky; their translations were declared formalistic and were banned in later Soviet Union. In the new canon of the post-war ‘Soviet Shakespeare’ “creative” translations prevailed over “accurate” ones.