University of Virginia Library

Pope in Russian Translations of the Eighteenth Century
by
Leonid M. Arinshtein

Pope was perhaps the first writer of the English Enlightenment to become known to Russian readers. A Russian version of the Essay on Man, published at the University of Moscow as early as 1757, appeared before the first translations of Robinson Crusoe (1762-64), Gulliver's Travels (1772-73), Gay's Fables (1783), or even Paradise Lost (1777). Other dates only underline Pope's priority: Fielding (1766), Richardson (1787), Goldsmith (1786).[1] It is true that towards the end of the eighteenth century in Russia (as perhaps everywhere) the novels of Defoe, Swift, Fielding, and Sterne became more popular than Pope's works. Yet his reputation, especially in the '50's, '60's, and '70's — or in the early stage of Russian assimilation of the English Enlightenment — should not be underestimated.

At least three of Pope's works — An Essay on Man, The Rape of the Lock, and Eloisa to Abelard — were translated into Russian as early as the '40's or early '50's. But for various reasons their publication was delayed. The case of the Essay on Man was the most dramatic. Because some circumstances of this translation were connected with the name of the great scholar and poet M. Lomonosov, it attracted the attention of Russian critics,[2] who have discovered fascinating details of the history of that translation, a full account of which has not heretofore been produced.

Pope's poem, in which philosophical and moral principles are fused with a heliocentric view of the world, first caught the interest of scientists. A distinguished physicist, the Academician Georg-Wilhelm Richmann (a native of Germany), translated the poem into German in 1741 and presented the manuscript to his pupil, F. Ostermann, son of Count A. Ostermann, a prominent courtier and Richmann's patron.[3] This translation was made from a French prose version by Etienne de Silhouette, published in Amsterdam, 1736, and reprinted several times.[4] It should be observed that

the first Russian translations of the Essay were also made from Silhouette's text.

Richmann was an intimate friend of Lomonosov, who found the poem so impressive that during the early '50's he recommended it for translation to one of his best pupils, Nicholai Nikitich Popovsky, then a student at the University of Moscow.[5] Popovsky, who knew several European languages and was a gifted poet, felt quite willing to translate the Essay. Though he worked from Silhouette's prose, he himself wrote in verse. Lomonosov followed closely the progress of Popovsky's work; and in August, 1753, as soon as the first epistle was complete, he forwarded it to I. I. Shouvalov, Curator of the University and a prominent figure at court. In his covering letter Lomonosov wrote with obvious pride, "There is not a single line that I have corrected." At the beginning of 1754 Popovsky finished the whole translation, and Lomonosov presented it at once to Count Razumovsky, President of the Academy of Science. On March 28, Lomonosov informed Shouvalov of this event (Lomonosov, X, 505).

Lomonosov's wish to enlist Shouvalov's support was only too well-grounded. It was not easy in those days to publish a book with progressive scientific or social ideas. Russian culture during the second half of the eighteenth century was mature enough to appreciate and absorb the great flow of Enlightenment ideas from France and England. But on its way to the forward-looking levels of Russian society this flow had to overcome the resistance of the Orthodox Church. Many a work became a source of friction between sympathizers with the Enlightenment and ecclesiastical censors — Paradise Lost and Young's Night Thoughts among them. Even works which passed the censor were sometimes prosecuted after publication. So late as 1887, Russian translations of certain moral and religious works were withdrawn from sale by the Moscow University bookshop, two of the titles being The Pilgrim's Progress and J. Hervey's Meditations.[6]

Although the translation of the Essay took about a year and the printing was to take about half a year, over three years passed before permission for publication was granted. We cannot be sure who put the first obstacles in the book's way, but these were serious enough to keep the manuscript, though quite ready for print, out of sight for two years. It could have lain so even longer had not Shouvalov energetically interfered. On 19 August

1756 he dispatched the manuscript to the Holiest Synod (governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church), asking for permission to publish it.[7] Since ecclesiastical censorship was not required for secular works, the question arises why Shouvalov should have sent the manuscript to the Synod and not directly to the press. We can only suppose that the opposition to publication was so strong that even the favorite of the Empress could not have his own way. The echo of a dispute, obviously unfavorable for the Essay, can be noticed in the letter he addressed to the Synod; for he writes, among other things, that the book is delivered to them "to be given better consideration," and that he "asks for an edict that might permit [the book] to be published after its consideration," etc. (Synodic Papers, folios 1, 2).

The Synod took up the issue immediately. The minutes reveal that the reading began on August 23, when the first epistle of the Essay was discussed; the remaining epistles were discussed on August 27 (folios 3, 4). As a result, the ecclesiastical censors suppressed Popovsky's version, giving the following reasons: "The author of the book draws his ideas neither from Holy Writ nor from the canons of our Orthodox Church, forming all his opinions on the ground of natural ideas only, and in addition accepting the system of Copernicus as well as the doctrine of the plurality of worlds, which is absolutely in discord with Holy Writ . . ." (folio 6). In their verdict the Synod even listed the lines declared to be questionable. On September 19 the manuscript was returned to Shouvalov and the Synod's decision, was conveyed to him viva voce (folio 7).

But Shouvalov did not stop there. As is clear from the Synod's records, he had Archbishop Amvrosy, a man of consequence in the Synod, invited to the royal court,[8] and asked him to alter the "questionable" lines himself. Amvrosy agreed; and on 27 February 1757 the Archbishop reported that he had received the manuscript from Shouvalov and, at the latter's request, had made the necessary corrections, leaving no room — as he put it — for anything that concerned "either the plurality of worlds, or the system of Copernicus, or naturalism."[9] With all the sore points thus removed from Popovsky's version by Amvrosy, the Synod at last gave their imprimatur to the translation. An edict "by Her Majesty the Empress Elizabeth and the Holiest Synod" ruled that the text should be published with the archi-episcopal interpolations (folios 11-12).

Having secured the long-awaited license, Shouvalov wasted no time getting the book out. Printing began even before the official text of the

edict reached the University.[10] In the archives of Moscow University are preserved Shouvalov's orders to the University press, which reveal that the curator personally supervised the printing, seeing to every minor problem — choice of type face, design of engravings and cover, distribution of copies.[11]

The book was already in print when it became clear that the literary merits of the Archbishop's interpolations were slight. Popovsky's version was in syllabic-accentual meter (then new in Russian versification), while Amvrosy slipped now and then into the old syllabic meter. "In the Synodic version," Shouvalov wrote, "a number of verses have not a proper cadence. Therefore, Popovsky should be told to change the order of the words somehow, so as to make good verses without altering their sense" (Documenty, I, 58). To this Popovsky, now a University Professor of Eloquence, retorted, "Without changing the sense it is impossible to give them proper cadence" (I, 62).

Refusing pointblank to emend Amvrosy's lines, Popovsky got permission instead for the interpolations to be printed in a larger type than his own text! In this form the first edition appeared, December, 1757, under the title, "Opyt o Cheloveke Gospodina Pope [Essay on Man by Mr. Pope]. Translated from French by Nicholai Popovsky in 1754."[12] While this edition was still in print, Shouvalov expressed his hope "that the first impression will soon be sold out and the second will perhaps appear in its original form without the corrections" (Documenty, I, 93). The hope was not fated to be realized: three years after the Essay was published, Popovsky died at the age of thirty It is hardly surprising that all subsequent editions (Moscow, 1763 and 1787; Jassy, 1791; Moscow, 1802) appeared with the censorial distortions. Yet Popovsky's original version circulated in spite of the interdiction. One piece of evidence is a copy of the second edition, now in the State Public Library in Leningrad. This copy has a manuscript insert to page 24 (obviously written in the eighteenth century) that contains the verses condemned by the censor.

The edition of 1791 deserves a brief remark. In the days of the Turkish campaign the small Roumanian town of Jassy became the residence of Prince Potemkin, the Russian commander-in-chief and favorite of Catherine II. The translation of Pope was published at Potemkin's field press, an event suggesting that such works as the Essay enjoyed a degree of esteem among the higher echelons of the Russian army.

At nearly the same time another translation of the Essay, also from the French, was made by Ivan Fedorovsky, then a university student. There are indications that this prose version, which has never been printed,[13] was made about 1754-56. By his teachers Fedorovsky was not considered a good translator. A formal report by G. F. Miller to the office of the Academy of Science (17 June 1754) mentions him among undergraduates and masters "who have not sufficient skill in translation."[14] True, Fedorovsky's version is inferior to that of Popovsky both in precision and in literary merit; and this may be why it remained unpublished. While working on his translation, Fedorovsky probably knew nothing about Popovsky's. Perhaps on reading that, he gave up the idea of publication. At any rate, there is no sign that he tried to have his own version printed.

About the turn of the century two other prose translations of the Essay were made, this time directly from the English original. They were by F. Zagorsky (Moscow, 1801; pp. 133) and E. A. Bolhovitinov (Moscow, 1806; pp. 112); the latter included a philosophical commentary. In the course of sixty years, therefore, five versions of the Essay were produced in Russia (the first being in German); and the best of these — Popovsky's — ran into five editions. It is clear that Pope, as author of the Essay, must have been fairly well known. In an essay of 1762 on English poetry, G. G. Domashnev, a nineteen-year-old student who was eventually to become Director of the Academy of Science, discussed Pope immediately after Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. Analyzing the Essay, Domashnev observes that it "shows in the best way the importance and depth of moral admonition so characteristic of the English manner."[15] Epigraphs from the Essay were used on the title-pages of the first four numbers of Karamzin's Moscow Journal (1791), as well as in an article published by another Russian journal, Utrennie Chasy [Morning Hours], I (1788), 33. Works by other authors that seemed close in subject to the Essay were sometimes attributed to Pope. This was the case with a translation from the French of the Essay on Human Life, first published anonymously in London, 1734. In Russia, as well as in some French editions, this appeared as Pope's work, although the author was Paget Thomas Catesby.[16]

The history of other translations of Pope is less dramatic. Even earlier than the Russian version of the Essay on Man, two prose versions of The Rape of the Lock were produced, 1748 and 1749. The first was an anonymous translation from the French of the comtesse de Caylus (Les Cheveux enlevées, Paris, 1728). This was published by the Moscow University press

in 1761, or thirteen years after it was made; and it was reprinted in 1788. The second version, by I. V. Shishkin,[17] has never been published. It has a rather extraordinary foreword, written in 1749, before any Russian translation of Pope was in print: This foreword shows that as early as 1749 Pope was known in Russia, though through French translations. It is also plain that Shishkin did not intend to publish his translation. Indeed, it has so many omissions and inadequacies that one can sympathize with Shishkin's misgivings as to the effect it might have on Pope. The weakness of both this and the 1748 translation may account for the failure of The Rape of the Lock to win more popularity in Russia.[19]

Far more popular were the translations of Eloisa to Abelard, which ran into more editions than the translations of any other work by Pope, including the Essay. The first translation of Eloisa, anonymous and in verse, was made during the 1750's. In his foreword to one of the later editions, the translator said he completed the work in 1755 but it seemed immature, and therefore he was in no hurry to publish it. However, the piece was published without his permission "among some tales." By this he must have referred to a voluminous Russian translation of Mme. de Gomez's Les Cent nouvelles nouvelles [Sto Novyh Novostei, St. Petersburg, 1765], the first volume of which includes a translation of Eloisa [20] close to that of the anonymous writer. The revised form of the anonymous translation was published together with a Russian translation of Charles-Pierre Colardeau's elegy Armide à Renaud under the title Iroida [Elegy] i: Eloiza ko Abelyaru. Iroida ii: Armida ko Rinoldu. In this book no information is supplied as to the author's or translator's name, the language from which the translation was made, the date of publication, or the press. I. N. Medvedeva attributes the translation to D. M. Sokolov on the ground that when it was reprinted

in a periodical, it directly followed a poem signed by Sokolov.[21] In our opinion this argument is not strong: works by one poet can follow those of another in a periodical; besides, this was not a first publication. The translator's name remains undertermined.

The reference to Gomez's book establishes that the edition in question could not have appeared before 1765; and this fact bears on the very difficult problem of deciding whether the translation was made immediately from the English original or from a French version. The Russian text seems about as close to Pope's own language as to the French of A.-A.-J. Feutry (Epître d'Héloïse à Abailard . . . mise en vers par M. Feutry). The latter appeared in 1751; so even if the Russian translation was produced so early as 1755, it could have been based on the French. Medvedeva says it was "undoubtedly made directly from the English" but gives no evidence to support the assertion (see note 21 above). On the other hand, Svodny Katalog Russkoi Knigi XVIII Veka maintains — again without offering reasons — that the anonymous translation was made from the French (II, 447). Offhand, this would seem more likely if only because during the 1750's translations of English works were far more commonly derived from French versions than from the originals. Yet some support for the theory of direct translation appears in a later reprint of the anonymous Russian text, the preface to which contains a reference to the English poem: "It partly follows the English original, partly is fully borrowed from the latter" (Novye Ezhemyesyachnye Sochineniya, III [1786], 79). In the context of the preface, unfortunately, one cannot determine whether "it" refers to the Russian translation or to Feutry's!

As if to complicate the problem further, the anonymous author continued to work on his translation up to the time of its reappearance in the late 1760's; and in the interval a new French version of Eloisa appeared, by Colardeau: Lettre amoureuse d'Héloise à Abailard, traduction libre de l'anglais de M. Pope, 1758. The anonymous author could hardly have overlooked this, since Colardeau also produced his own poem, Armide à Renaud, héroide imitée du Tasso, which was immediately translated into Russian, probably by the same anonymous author (Polyeznoye Uvyesyelyenie, no. 11, January, 1760, pp. 113-119); and, as indicated above, the publication of both works in one volume followed a few years later.

Examining the anonymous translation of Eloisa, one discovers a number of lines that seem close to Colardeau's text. It is likely, therefore, that the author made use of at least two of the possible sources (Pope and Feutry, or Feutry and Colardeau), if not of all three. Such a hypothesis

would account for the parallels between the Russian, the English, and the two French texts, and would also account for other obscurities.

The same anonymous version, slightly revised again, was published in a periodical: Modnoye Yezhemyesyachnoe Izdanie [Fashionable Monthly], I (1779), 83-97; another periodical: Novye Yezhemyesyachnye Sochineniya [New Works, Monthly], III (1786), 78-103; and an almanac: Sobranie Noveishih Pyesen [Collection of New Songs] . . ., Moscow, 1791, I, 152-166.

In the early 1780's a prose translation of Eloisa was made by L. Dmitriev and included in his collection of the letters of Abelard and Héloise.[22]

The next translation was that of Vladislav Ozerov, a well-known poet and playwright.[23] This was the first poetic work of a young man. Ozerov may have believed that Colardeau and not Pope wrote the original poem; at any rate, he never mentioned the name of the author in his foreword. He also knew of the earlier anonymous translation and respected it, for he said, "The maker of that [translation], who is unknown to me, either translated the same epistle but by another author, or made a large number of alterations. I see pictures there that surpass my descriptions, but on the whole it is rational rather than emotional" (p. 3). With this remark he indicates the difference between the rational style characteristic of Pope and Feutry, and the pathetic-sentimental style of Colardeau, which is like his own.

At the turn of the eighteenth century several other versions of Eloisa to Abelard appeared. Among these were an anonymous translation of L.-S. Mercier's imitation of Pope[24] and a translation of lines 1-72 by the great Zhukovsky.[25] It seems that Pope's authorship of Elosia became obvious only in 1816, when V. M. Protopopov published a number of parallel translations of the poem in a single volume. He included translations from the English original as well as from French imitators and translators — Colardeau, Saurin, and Feutry.[26]

Yet another poem by Pope that appeared comparatively early in Russian translation is — unexpectedly — The Temple of Fame, made into good Russian verse by the famous Michail Matveevich Kheraskov and published in 1761 by the Moscow University press. Nearly thirty years later Pavel L'vov produced a version of the same descriptive poem in prose.[27]

During the 1760's and '70's new translations of Pope came to a halt while those made in the 1750's were reprinted. In the '80's a new wave of interest in Pope started. Now it involved his sentimental and religio-meditative poems, such as The Messiah, The Universal Prayer, and some other minor works of this kind. A tentative list of these publications, in chronological order of first editions, is given below.[28]

1. The Messiah. A Sacred Eclogue.

• a. Prose translation from the French. Moskovskoye Yezhemyesyachnoe Izdanie [Moscow Monthly], III (1781), 203-208.
• b. Prose translation from the French. Ot Vsyego po Malyen'ku [Something from Everything], St. Petersburg, 1786, vol. II, pp. 3-7. (A miscellany containing translations from Young, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc., besides poems by Pope: cf. below, no. 4.)
• c. Prose translation from the French. Ipokrena [Hippocrene], VII (1800), 20-26.
• d. Prose translation by L. [Pavel L'vov]. Moskovsky Vestnik [Moscow Herald], I (1809), 399-407.
• e. Prose translation by A. Dourop. Sorevnovatel' Prosvestchenia i Blagotvorenia [Champion of Education and Charity], XIV (1821), 288-293.

2. The Dying Christian to His Soul.

• a. Free translation in verse. Uedinenny Poshehonez [Solitary Poshehonez], March, 1786, pp. 150-152.
• b. Verse translation. Priyatnoye i Poleznoye Preprovozhdenie Vremeni [Pleasant and Useful Pastimes], IX (1796), 297.
• c. Verse translation by Voeykov. Vestnik Evropy [European Herald], XCI (1817), 182.
• d. _____. Novoye Sobranie Obraztsovih Russkih Sochineny [New Collection of Russian Specimens], Part I (St. Petersburg, 1821), p. 41.

3. The Universal Prayer.

• a. Verse translation [by E. I. Kostrov]. Zerkalo Sveta [Mirror of the World], I (1786), 129-132.
• b. _____. E. I. Kostrov. Complete Works (St. Petersburg, 1802), I, 179-182.
• c. Verse translation [?by N. M. Karamzin]. Detskoye Chtenie [Reading for Children], XVIII (1789), 141-144.
• d. Verse translation. Priyatnoye . . . [see 2b above], XX (1798), 189-192.
• e. Prose translation [?from the French]. Ipokrena [cf. 1c above], VII (1800), 17-19.
• f. Verse translation by E. Lyuzenko. Zhurnal dlya Polzy i Udovolstviya [Magazine for Good and Pleasure], II (1805), 5-8.
• g. Prose translation and adaptation by N. N. Mouravyev [composed in 1810]. Nekotorie iz Zabav . . . [Some Entertainments . . .], Pt. I (St. Petersburg, 1828), pp. 140-142.

4. On Silence.

• Prose translation from the French. Ot Vsyego . . . [see 1b above], pp. 7-10.

5. Epitaph. Intended for Sir Isaac Newton.

• a. Verse translation. Zerkalo Sveta [see 3a above], II (1786), 118.
• b. Verse translation by B** [?B. K. Blank]. Chtenie dlya Vkusa, Razuma i Chuvstvovany [Reading for Taste, Reason, and the Feelings], XII (1793), 227.
• c. Prose translation from the French by I. S---ky. In his translation of a French essay, "Inscriptions on Tombs." Minerva, II (1806), 258.
• d. Verse translation by B* [B. K. Blank]. Aglaya, VII (1809), 53.
• e. Verse translation from the French by N. N. Drug Yunoshestva [Friend of Youth], X (1811), 37.

6. Epitaph. On Mr. Gay.

• Prose translation from the French. John Gay, Fables [in Russian translation], Moscow, 1783, I, xvii.

7. Pastorals.

• a. Prose translation by Ivan Sipyagin. Raspuskayustchiisya Zvetok [Opening Flower — an almanac], Moscow, 1787, pp. 166-189.
• b. Translation of Summer, Autumn, and Winter by I. E . . . v [Evreinov]. Priyatnoye i Poleznoye . . . [see 2b above], XII (1796), 145-60.
• c. The Seasons, by Mr. Pope, With brief notes about the life, character, and works of this famous English writer. Prose translation from the English by M. Makarov. Moscow, 1809. 57 pp.
• d. Prose translation by Istomin. Severny Merkury [Northern Mercury], IV (1809), 143-164.

8. Ode on Solitude.

• a. Verse translation by Bbrv [S. S. Bobrov]. Beseduyustchy Grazdanin [Talking Citizen], II (1789), 170-171.
• b. Free translation in verse by M. Kobozev. Damsky Zhurnal [Lady's Magazine], VIII (1824), 168-169.

The turn of the century saw translations of other works by Pope. Two of these were incorporated into the famous Letters of a Russian Traveller, by N. M. Karamzin: a verse translation of Windsor Forest, ll. 171-218, and a prose translation of the Epitaph for One Who Would Not Be Buried in Westminster Abbey. (See the Letters, VI, Moscow, 1801, pp. 191-195 and 357.) At the very beginning of the nineteenth century two more works by Pope were translated: Prologue to Mr. Addison's Tragedy of Cato, a prose translation in Ipokrena, VIII (1801), 91-93; and An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, translated from the French by I. I. Dmitriev.[29] At last, An Essay on Criticism was translated in verse by Prince Sergei Shihmatov and published in 1806.[30] This translation marks the decline of Russian literary interest in Pope. The flow of Romantic poetry, followed by realistic novels, reduced the appeal of the poet of the Enlightenment, who never again rose to an influential position in Russia.

Notes