Literature has always been the pride of Georgia. The ancestors of our country never failed to amaze people by creating masterpieces such as The Knight In The Panther’s Skin, The Life of Kartli, The Right Hand of The Grand Master, etc… Despite the brilliance of Georgian writings, translation from foreign languages can be considered as our Achilles’ heel. Even in today’s world, full of advanced technologies and bilingual generation, we come across inaccuracies and errors in that aspect.
Georgia has a history of poor-quality translations and up until the 1870s, foreign writings were nearly impossible to read. Then, a famous translator, writer, and public figure Ivane Machabeli published a translation of Shakespeare’s King Lear. People were amazed by the quality of the Georgian version because nothing they’ve read before could compare to Machabeli’s translation. All of this wouldn’t happen without the help of Ilia Chavchavadze, who read the translation and helped Machabeli publish it.
Despite the fact that Machabeli’s translations are brilliant and still of use in the modern world, there are times when the old writings have to give a way to the new ones, not because they age, but so that people can be introduced to the new dimensions of the writing itself and get a better understanding of it in general. Despite this, not many people have thought of actually re-translating a writing. Not until Lela Samniashvili, a poet, translator and a teacher in GZAAT decided to make an alternative translation for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. As reviews suggest, her translation is one of the best translations of this writing.
Although Ilia practically revolutionized the translation in Georgia by introducing Ivane Machabeli to the world, he never hid his criticism towards other translators. One of such precedents was when he wrote an essay discussing the translation of “Mad Woman” by Prince Revaz Shalva-dze Eristavi, where he stated some of the reasons why he thought the publication was horrible. He started by calling Kozlov, the author of the poem, talentless, and that the writing was not worthy of publishing in the first place. He continued with criticizing Eristavi’s word choice and the way he interpreted the poem.
In some cases, the actual translation is not the target problem. Sometimes we come across situations where the translation makes sense, but its idea is completely different from what the author wrote. One of these examples could be a translation of Shakespeare’s sonnets by Revaz Tabukashvili, where the translation is understandable and good to read, but there are a lot of differences between the actual plot and the one that Tabukashvili had presented to us. Many writings are translated in a similar way, where the author modifies the original text and re-writes his own version of it.
A good example of the recent inaccuracies in translation is “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. The main reason why the transcription earned negative feedback was that the translator adjusted the title. Again, this is the case where the translator made some reformations of the original content.
I interviewed one of the teachers, Levan Ghambashidze on that matter and questioned him regarding this new translation of Orwell’s work. Levan thinks modifying the title is not a major problem as long as the translator manages to explain the reason for such action.
“If we lived in a country where there are many translations, and each writing has various versions of itself, the updated title wouldn’t be so eye-catching,” he says. “The root problem is that people are used to hearing the original title and it’s hard to adapt to changes, but new readers could find the new translation even more acceptable than the one before.” Levan adds.
From Levans point of view, there’s no issue in having two versions of one book because then it’s up to the reader to choose which one he/she wants to read.
It might not look like it, but translation is a very important part of our development as not only an intellectual society but also for our personal growth. There are some citizens of our country that are not skilled enough to read a foreign book, but they strive to enlighten themselves with knowledge. Everyone should have access to their preferred books and inaccuracies in translation shouldn’t serve as the obstacle concerning that matter. Hopefully, our generation will manage to carry on Ivane Machabeli’s legacy and create remarkable translations.
Edited by Mariam Khaduri
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