Donald Rayfield is Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary, University of

London. He has been at the forefront of Georgian studies for many years and has published

widely on Georgia, authoring several major studies on its literature and history, and translating

works by Galaktion Tabidze, Otar Chiladze, Akaki Tsereteli and, most recently, Mikheil

Javakhishvili. Slovo meets him to find out about the past, present and (speculative) future of this

rich but much underrepresented literature in the Anglophone world

Karetnyk, B

Rayfield, D

English

UCL Discovery

SLOVO, VOL. 27, NO. 1 (SPRING 2015), 2–8.           DOI: 10.14324/111.0954-6839.029  © School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 2014.    Interview with scholar, translator and lexicographer Donald Rayfield  PROFESSOR  DONALD  RAYFIELD  IN  CONVERSATION  WITH  SLOVO’S  EXECUTIVE  EDITOR BRYAN KARETNYK Queen Mary University of London (Department of Russian) and UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies  Donald Rayfield is Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary, University of London. He has been at the forefront of Georgian studies for many years and has published widely on Georgia, authoring several major studies on its literature and history, and translating works  by  Galaktion  Tabidze,  Otar  Chiladze,  Akaki  Tsereteli  and,  most  recently,  Mikheil Javakhishvili. Slovo meets him to find out about the past, present and (speculative) future of this rich but much underrepresented literature in the Anglophone world.  BRYAN KARETNYK: How did you come to Georgia and Georgian literature? DONALD  RAYFIELD:  By  accident…  Early  in  my  career  I  was  most  interested  in twentieth-century  Russian  poets,  and  in  particular  Mandelshtam,  Pasternak  and Zabolotsky,  who  all  had  close  contacts  with  Georgians  and  Georgian  poetry,  for whom  Georgia  was  a  refuge  at  times  of  oppression.  I  meant  to  study  their correspondence in the Literary Museum in Tbilisi. When I got there in 1973, I was constantly frustrated—the key was lost, the director was out, and so on—until one of the girls working there took pity on me and told me that, as a British spy, I was not going to be allowed to see anything. I switched to the university Georgian language department, where there was less KGB, and was lucky enough to become like Dr Johnson’s woman who preached in church, or a dog that walked on its hind legs—a Briton who learnt to speak Georgian, not particularly well, but miraculous none the same.  That  led  to  involvement  with  Georgia’s  dissidents  (the  future  president [Zviad]  Gamsakhurdia),  poetry  and,  after  thirty  years’  complaining  about  the absence of a decent dictionary, to lexicography. BK: Yes, on that point, I’d imagine compiling any dictionary, let alone a bilingual one, to be an uncommonly daunting task. How exactly did you come to undertake it? What was it like?   INTERVIEW WITH DONALD RAYFIELD  © School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 2014.    3 DR: First of all, I knew the people in Georgia best able to help: Shukia Apridonidze who had taught me Georgian thirty-five years before and had become the presenter of a TV programme on writing correct Georgian; the linguist Ariane Chanturia, the son of a Scottish mother and Georgian father, then in his eighties, but still perfectly bilingual; a computer expert, Levan Chkhaidze, who had been employed by the Red Army to calculate the casualties of World War III and whose skills were ideal for calculating all the occurrences of Georgian words in the press that were not to be found in the dictionaries; Laurence Broers, a brilliant student who could charm his way into any milieu, from warlords and drug-dealers to bishops and peasants, in search  of  colloquial  jargons;  Rusiko  Amerijibi-Mullen,  a  woman  who  had  been married to a Texan long enough to overcome the taboo Georgian women observe about not revealing the language they use when no men are present. Secondly, the Arts  Funding  councils  in  2001  were  for  the  first  time  biased  in  favour  of lexicography. Thirdly, Leverhulme were willing to award me three years’ freedom from other duties to get the project underway. The work is unimaginably extensive, but quite therapeutic, like basket-weaving: I understood why the Oxford English Dictionary was compiled largely with the help of the inhabitants of Broadmoor. BK: Was your longstanding background in Russian in any way key to accessing Georgian language and literature? DR: In a way, yes, because the Georgian intelligentsia in Tsarist and Soviet times was interconnected,  even  intermarried,  with  Russia,  and  in  Tbilisi  then  (if  not  now) educated Georgians were bilingual in Russian. But it could be a barrier: if you spoke bad  Georgian,  you  were  answered  in  serviceable  Russian,  whereas  learners  who knew no Russian made faster progress. As for literature, Russian has only slightly influenced  Georgian,  which  is  too  rooted  in  its  own  medieval  writing,  its  own poetics and in its own folklore to be very susceptible to Russian novels, lyrics or drama. BK: Fascinating. In that case, where does Georgia’s literary heritage situate itself? What  are  its  historical  influences?  Can  we  speak  of  a  ‘national  character’  in Georgian literature?   INTERVIEW WITH DONALD RAYFIELD  © School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 2014.    4 DR:  Like  all  nations  whose  past  (in  Georgia’s  case,  twelfth  century)  was  more glorious than its present, history is the main concern of Georgian writers, and they (rightly)  see  their  old  predicaments  constantly  repeated  —  choosing  between  a western or an eastern tyranny, defending Christian heritage from Islam, maintaining courtly  values  against  commercial  ones.  The  national  character  is  expressed  by recreating heroes or lyrical personas in the image of suicidal folk-heroes, Christian martyrs, or desperate defenders of national independence. There still is an Oriental, specifically  Persian  influence  in  depictions  of  hyperbolic  love  (all  those  Persian prototypes  of  Romeos  and  Juliets:  Leila  and  Majnun,  Vis  and  Ramin)  and  in  a fondness for virtuoso games with rhyme and metre. In the last two decades, English and American influences on the novel and on drama have become noticeable, but the national character remains constant. BK:  So  did  outside  influences  become  more  prevalent  during  the  twentieth century?  I’m  thinking  specifically  in  terms  of  the  effects  of  Soviet  era  on  the literature. Did it reorient itself in any significant way? DR:  Soviet  influence  was  lighter  than  you’d  expect,  largely  because  of  the  state planning involved: Georgians were assigned the role of historical novelists, as they had so much history to digest; literature of socialist construction was written, but all of  it  is  forgettable.  Stalin’s  support  of  the  historical  novelist  Konstantine Gamsakhurdia allowed some extraordinarily un-Soviet prose to be written. Georgia benefited less from the post-Stalin thaws, and it is not until the late 1960s that the Georgian leadership became nationalist enough to allow real independent novels. The Soviet pattern of ‘taking in each other’s washing’, whereby national novelists who behaved properly were enriched by having translations of their works for a vast Russian  readership,  benefited  Georgians:  Russians  then  appreciated  the  greater freedom of thinking conceded to Georgians, and the Russian censor never bothered to  read  a  translated  work,  assuming  that  the  Georgian  censor  had  done  his  job properly. BK: How trusting of him… Did any particularly subversive material manage to fall through the cracks?   INTERVIEW WITH DONALD RAYFIELD  © School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 2014.    5 DR:  It  did,  because  Georgian  leaders,  even  if  nominally  Communist,  allowed themselves the pleasure of dropping spanners in the Soviet works: thus Lavrenti Beria  in  the  1930s  befriended  the  only  true  Fascist  in  Georgia,  the  novelist  Gamsakhurdia  [Konstantine  Gamsakhurdia,  father  of  former  president  Zviad Gamsakhurdia—Slovo] and let him publish a novel which caricatured Beria himself as an incestuous rapist. Or the Georgian censor would be so stupid as to fail to see the  implications  of,  say,  Otar  Chiladze’s  novel  about  the  conquest  of  Colchis  by Jason and the Argonauts as an allegory of the conquest of Transcaucasia by Russians and Soviets; once passed by the Georgian censor, the Russian censor would pass a work without even bothering to read it. Cinema, in which Georgians excelled and which  Party  bosses,  too  tired  to  read,  loved,  was  particularly  free:  hence  the Christian symbolism of Invocation and the startling political radicalism of Repentance (even though it had to be re-shot because Shevardnadze had the boy-actor shot for attempting a hijack). BK: Turning our attention now to the adventures of Georgian literature further abroad…  Does  the  translation  of  Georgian  literature  into  English  really  begin with Marjory Wardrop, as is commonly assumed? Do we in fact know whether Wardrop,  as  Vladimir  Nabokov  wondered  in  his  review  of  her  translation [‘Crystal and Ruby’, New Republic, 25 November 1940], worked—at least in part—from Russian? DR:  There  were  a  few  samples  of  Georgian  before  Marjory  Wardrop,  largely  of ecclesiastical  history.  The  Wardrops  were  in  fact  geniuses:  although  they  knew Russian,  they  worked  exclusively  from  Georgian—the  English  translation  of Rustaveli preceded the first full Russian version. Sadly, very little work followed the Wardrops’, except for scholarly versions of the Georgian chronicles. In Moscow a lot of modern Georgian literature was published in English, but these were translations from  a  Russian  version,  done  by  British  communists  who  had  forgotten  their English. BK:  In  your  experience,  does  Georgian  lend  itself  well  to  being  rendered  into English?   INTERVIEW WITH DONALD RAYFIELD  © School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 2014.    6 DR: No worse than any other major literary language in the Christian tradition: we are not dealing with, say, Japanese or Amerindian languages and cultures, where so many concepts as well as word relationships are alien. BK: In addition to your numerous critically acclaimed works on Russian history, literature  and  culture,  you  have  also  written  a  history  of  Georgian  literature, edited a Georgian–English bilingual dictionary and translated several volumes of Georgian  poetry  and  prose.  What  are  the  main  challenges  in  translating  from Georgian?  In  your  experience,  are  they  any  different  from  translating,  say, Russian literature? DR:  The  main  challenges  in  my  view  are  the  lack  of  resources:  really  good dictionaries  for  the  use  of  non-native  speakers;  the  limitations  of  Google.ge;  the paucity of predecessors. The language is, of course, exceptionally rich—it has an unbroken literary tradition of 1,600 years, and many varied dialects and jargons are still alive, especially in the work of novelists. Older Georgian writers often like the obscurity of punning rhymes, and many works exist in manuscripts that have been copied by careless scribes, so that major texts puzzle Georgian critics themselves. But the language itself, with its syntax, like ours, modelled on New Testament Greek, is not insurmountable. BK: How do you view the state of Georgian literature today, both at home and abroad? Have foreign publishers become more supportive, given recent initiatives such as Dalkey Archive’s Georgian Literature Series? DR: Saakashvili’s main achievement was to bring about enough prosperity to make reading, writing and publishing all commercially viable again, after near-death of culture in the 1990s. The theatre and cinema have also recovered. Abroad, Georgian has had less success: Georgian poets are invited to festivals, largely as performers (as are  their  dancers,  singers  and  film  actors).  Their  drama  encounters  resistance, although some of the best satire in the world is now being performed in Tbilisi. It is very hard to get publications of Georgian fiction reviewed, let alone marketed. I have personal experience of failure to interest critics and readers with two novels by Otar Chiladze that I still regard as important and interesting. Dalkey Archive has done a lot, but I fear sales have yet to take off. The Georgian Ministry of Culture, like   INTERVIEW WITH DONALD RAYFIELD  © School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 2014.    7 many East European ministries, runs a subsidy programme which covers the cost of translation, but the takers are few. BK: I suppose, then, the problem is twofold: on the one hand, the reticence of major publishers to take on books that might be seen as risky or unconventional and, on the other, a lack of advocates for the literature. How do you envisage the future of Georgian literature in the English-speaking world? DR: One problem is the lack of translators: Georgians themselves dare to make their own  translations,  but  these,  however  qualified  the  translator,  will  never  be  of acceptable quality, even with pro-active editors; there is an urgent need for more translators, and the best hope for the future will be the bilingual products of mixed marriages. BK: Thank you so much for this fascinating insight into the literature and your own history with it over the years. To conclude, perhaps we might ask you: what, for you, are the pearls of Georgian literature, translated or untranslated? DR:  The  pearls  are  largely  in  verse:  two  eighteenth-century  poets,  Davit Guramishvili and Besik Gabashvili are known only in Russian translation. Vazha Pshavela, writing in the 1880s to 1910s, is one of the most original poets on earth, especially  in  his  longer  poems  which  seamlessly  merge  folk  heroic  poetry  with Euripides and Shakespeare. The poets of the 1920 and 1930s—Galaktion and Titsian Tabidze  in  particular—are  little  known  in  English  (again,  under  the  Soviets  they were competently translated into Russian). As for prose, Georgians tend to suffer from the lack of editors and from the old Russian habit of paying authors by the line: most good twentieth-century novels would benefit from cuts. Kvachi Kvachantiradze, which I translated for Dalkey Archive, seems to me the best of all Georgian novels — a rogue novel combining Bel Ami and Till Eugenspiegel. There is much from the pre-Russian era: the seventeenth-century Rusudaniani, with its tragic frame story of a forlorn queen, consoled by a series of stories; the early-nineteenth-century Tristam Shandy-like  Alms-Gathering  by  Crown  Prince  Ioane,  which  is  a  mixture  of encyclopaedia  and  free-association  novel-writing.  One  day,  perhaps,  a  poet translator will find a way of rendering The Knight in the Panther’s Skin. Wardrop’s   INTERVIEW WITH DONALD RAYFIELD  © School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 2014.    8 prose version is fine, but the constant play of rhyme and assonance that a verse version would give is missing. London–Otford, March 2015   Biography Born  in  1942  and  educated  at  Dulwich  College  and  the  University  of  Cambridge,  Donald Rayfield first visited Georgia in 1973. He has translated a number of Russian and Georgian poets,  playwrights  and  prose  writers,  his  most  recent  translation  being  Mikheil  Javakhisvili’s classic  novel  Kvachi  Kvachantiradze.  He  has  also  authored  several  major  works  on  Georgia, including  Edge  of  Empires  and  The  Literature  of  Georgia:  A  History,  and  edited  A  Comprehensive Georgian–English Dictionary. In addition to his work in Georgian studies, he has written widely in the field of comparative literature and is the author of a biography of Anton Chekhov and the study Stalin and His Hangmen, both of which have been translated into other languages, including Russian. Rayfield now continues his research, living in Kent, where he cultivates a passion for horticulture, especially exotic trees.             This	 ﾠwork	 ﾠis	 ﾠlicensed	 ﾠunder	 ﾠthe	 ﾠCreative	 ﾠCommons	 ﾠAttribution-ﾭ‐Non-ﾭ‐commercial-ﾭ‐Share-ﾭ‐alike	 ﾠ2.0	 ﾠUK:	 ﾠEngland	 ﾠ&	 ﾠWales	 ﾠLicense.	 ﾠThis	 ﾠlicense	 ﾠallows	 ﾠfor	 ﾠredistribution	 ﾠand	 ﾠalteration,	 ﾠcommercial	 ﾠand	 ﾠnon-ﾭ‐commercial,	 ﾠas	 ﾠlong	 ﾠas	 ﾠcredit	 ﾠis	 ﾠgiven	 ﾠto	 ﾠthe	 ﾠauthor.	 ﾠTo	 ﾠview	 ﾠa	 ﾠfull	 ﾠcopy	 ﾠof	 ﾠthis	 ﾠlicense,	 ﾠvisit:	 ﾠhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/	 ﾠor	 ﾠsend	 ﾠa	 ﾠletter	 ﾠto	 ﾠCreative	 ﾠCommons,	 ﾠ444	 ﾠCastro	 ﾠStreet,	 ﾠSuite	 ﾠ900,	 ﾠMountain	 ﾠView.	 ﾠ	 ﾠ

Interview with scholar, translator and lexicographer Donald Rayfield

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

UCL Discovery