Translating Ukrainian Poetry into Estonian: Acts of Identity

Defining the context

As described by Klaus Kaindl (2021, p. 3), the field of Translation Studies ‘was founded on a great misconception’ that ignores the translator and their agency. The emergence of descriptive Translation Studies and the ideas by James Holmes ([1972] 1988, p. 72–73) shed light to the human factor, postulating translation sociology and psycho-translation studies as disciplines within the descriptive Translation Studies; however, the personality of translator is still absent from this framework. Antoine Berman (1985) was the first who thought of the individual translator as the central issue in the field. He prefers a biographical approach and chooses to ignore psychological factors (see discussion and overview in Kaindl, 2021, pp. 7–8). Edwin Honig (1985) published a book of interviews with translators of poetry; it is not a scholarly work, yet remarkable in the sense that it presents the translators’ narratives about their development and creativity. Since the 1990s, a clear tendency of ‘humanisation’ and ‘individualisation’ of Translation Studies has appeared, leading to research that concentrates on the role of translator (for instance, often quoted work by Simeoni, 1998). A major collection of articles on Translator Studies has been published recently (Kaindl et al., 2021), where the contributors investigate individual biographies, translators’ archives, sociology of translators and the role of paratexts.

In a programmatic article, Andrew Chesterman (2009, pp. 13–14) defines Translator Studies as the study of translators and interpreters. He recalls the famous map by Holmes (1988) that has been reproduced in many studies, also as a diagram (Toury, 1995, p. 10). According to this map, Translation Studies are subdivided into ‘pure’ and ‘applied’, while ‘pure’ are in turn subdivided into ‘descriptive’ and ‘theoretical’. The map has been commented upon by numerous scholars (see overview in Chesterman, 2009, p. 15). Chesterman (2009, pp. 15–16) argues that the map (or diagram) does not include translators and that if the translator is placed centre stage, the whole picture changes, and rather different research questions are to be posed. He suggests that Translator Studies consists of three directions: cultural (ideology and ethics), cognitive (mental processes and attitudes) and sociological (networks, institutions, status and workplace processes) (Chesterman, 2009, p. 19). In these terms, the current article is concerned with the cultural aspect and not the remaining two, although it is extremely difficult to draw a clear border between them. For instance, personal networks may affect the choice of authors and texts to be translated. The cognitive aspect (the proficiency in the languages in question, that is, Estonian and Ukrainian, the attitudes towards the Ukrainian language and culture and its importance for the Estonian reader) is tightly linked to ideology and ethics. These interconnections will be discussed in Section 4.

Gisèl Sapiro (2013) introduces the topic of translator’s identity and concentrates on the biographical and sociological trajectories of translators on the example of translators from Hebrew into French. Using the concept of habitus by Bourdieux, she proposes that one should look into how the habitus of a translator emerges and develops. For this purpose, the researcher has to ask, how one becomes a translator and how a translator’s habitus is shaped; under which circumstances a translator has acquired various languages, started translating and so on. Questions concerning translator, translations and identity should also be considered (Sapiro, 2013, pp. 60–61). Taking the biographical approach, she identifies the main pathways of how one becomes a translator from Hebrew into French (studies of classical languages that may ultimately lead to studies of Hebrew, studies of Hebrew as a primary goal, immigration to Israel).

In connection with the biographical approach to translator’s identity and personal development, as chosen by Sapiro (2013), it would be instructive to look into what other fields, for instance, sociolinguistics and multilingualism, may suggest. This will be discussed in Section 2.2.

Interdisciplinary connections

It is not unusual in linguistics (and, probably, in humanities in general) that the same set of phenomena is being investigated from different perspectives that use their own metalanguage and seldom interact. An example which illustrates this state of affairs is the study by Meriläinen et al. (2016) on how loan translations are viewed in three fields: contact linguistics, language acquisition studies and Translation Studies.

The disciplines relevant to the cultural and biographical aspects within Translator Studies are language policy, investigation of (multilingual) language (or linguistic) biographies, and studies on multilingualism and language learning (from a sociocultural point of view).

Bringing in language policy may sound too general, yet since Bernard Spolsky’s (2004) seminal research on theory of language policy, it became clear that policy is not necessarily designed and implemented by state and its institutions (top-down) but also by communities, families and individuals (bottom-up). A three-component language policy model, rather influential in language policy research, was suggested by Spolsky (2004): language beliefs (ideology, attitudes), language management (what is being done in order to change/maintain something according to the beliefs and aspirations), and language practices (what language users really do). This model is applicable to states, polities, communities and individuals alike. Later on, Spolsky (2019) added the notion of self-management, defined as ‘the attempts of speakers to modify their own linguistic proficiency and repertoire’.

In other words, the questions asked by Sapiro (2013), that is, how one becomes a translator and how one decides to acquire yet another language, to familiarise oneself with a certain literature, and so on, may be interpreted in the terms of Spolsky’s model: for some reason, a translator becomes interested in another language/culture and decides that the works in this language in general or produced by a particular author deserve to be translated (beliefs), then decides to learn or to improve skills in the language (management, self-management) and, eventually, masters the language and starts translating (practices).

From another perspective, individual multilingualism is not (only) about the acquisition of lexical items, structures and patterns, as viewed in traditional language acquisition studies. Language learning and use is experience-driven, which is both cognitive and social. For example, David Block (2007) revised several classical studies in second language acquisition and re-interpreted their results, rejecting traditional structural explanations of language learning outcomes (‘speakers of language X have difficulties in acquisition of feature Y in language Z’) and suggesting the perspective of learner’s identity instead. Barbara Hennig (2010) describes language learning as a personal endeavour and a way of ‘self-formation’. In a similar way, Jan Blommaert and Backus (2011) explain that ‘to know a language’ may mean different things to different language users, and that people may encounter languages in different ways (in the classroom, in the environment, through reading, on the internet, via popular culture) and that origins of linguistic repertoires are biographical. Therefore, translators should also be considered as language learners and users, builders of their linguistic repertoire and their linguistic biographies.

Language (or linguistic) (auto)biographies research is a discipline that investigates narratives on one’s journey of encountering, acquiring, learning and using various languages. Rita Franceschini, one of the major contributors to the field, presents an account of its development since the 1990s and until now (Franceschini, 2022). A detailed overview of language biographies research lies outside the scope of the present study. What is relevant here, is the idea that linguistic biographies may be considered in a narrow sense as narratives on an individual’s linguistic experience, and, in a wider sense, a data collection instrument that allows to obtain information not available via ‘unidirectional questionnaires’ (respectively, ‘research ON linguistic biographies’ and ‘research WITH linguistic biographies’, emphasis in the original, Franceschini, 2022). The importance of bidirectional communication should be stressed because in order to be able to understand the narratives and not to miss details important for qualitative research, a scholar needs a possibility of dialogue. The biographical approach in Translators Studies relies, in fact, on linguistic biographies because translators are multilinguals, they have learned, formally or informally, another language or languages, and dealing with language is their profession.

Schematically, these relations are demonstrated in Graph 1.OPEN IN VIEWER

In sum, the ideas and concepts from sociolinguistics and multilingualism research, such as self-management, language learning as a tool of self-formation, language learner’s/user’s identity, and linguistic biographical point of view add to the understanding and development of Translator Studies. A study on individual translators and their cultural and linguistic journey may be considered as a special case of language policy (self-management), language learning and identity, and linguistic biographical research.

Becoming a translator from Ukrainian

The ways of becoming a translator in general and a translator between Estonian and Ukrainian (in either direction) in particular had both similarities and differences for all three participants. MK stated that she had been thinking about some questions of the interview long before the interview took place. She has been translating from German, Italian and English and received several awards both for her original writing and translations. In general, she believes that translating poetry is inspiring and gives new ideas about one’s own work. Like other Estonians, she, of course, was aware of Ukraine because of the common past within the Russian Empire/USSR but knew nothing about Ukrainian literature in particular. She described it, somewhat exaggerating, as follows:

‘Before 2013, I was a usual Western fool’.

This is an overstatement because, as mentioned, the inhabitants of the former Soviet block are usually aware about other peoples with a similar history; however, this judgement provides a contrast between ‘then’ and ‘now’, when she became familiar with Ukrainian literature. In fact, she had been aware of the names of Taras Shevchenko and some other classics, and had read works by Oksana Zabuzhko and Yuri Andrukhovich in English translations. An impulse for further acquaintance with Ukraine and its culture came from a personal invitation in 2019 by the lecturer of Estonian at the University of Lviv, Riina Roasto, who herself translated later prose by Serhiy Zhadan. MK gave a lecture on Estonian poetry and got acquainted with young translators and poets with whose help she later developed her own network.

The story of IK is different because his mother was born in Ukraine, and he used to go there in summer as a child. The home language was Russian but during the summer visits he would learn to speak Ukrainian; unfortunately, after the death of the grandparents the trips to Ukraine stopped, and only a passive proficiency remained. This experience is nostalgically described in the Ukrainian-language poem ‘UA’ (Kotjuh 2022, p. 115). Later IK established himself as a bilingual poet and translator between Russian and Estonian. After a long pause he renewed contacts with Ukraine, visiting Crimea on the invitation of a local teacher of Estonian (there was a long-established Estonian minority, and Estonia provided a teacher of Estonian as a heritage language between 1991 and 2014). Then, participation in various literary festivals and translation workshops followed. A significant point was a personal acquaintance with the Ukrainian poet Ostap Slyvynski; they became each other’s translators (Slyvynski translated IK’s works through the medium of English, while IK translated from the original). Summarising, IK says:

‘I guess, it is everything together: my heritage and the events, possibly, everything’.

As he describes, somehow he tended to always choose activities connected with Ukraine, and has gradually broadened his Ukrainian network.

IP differs in a variety of ways, as she was born in Ukraine and her first language is Ukrainian. She started as a translator of French and German classical poetry into Ukrainian and her collection of poetry translations Cej svit je odnym tilom (This world is one body) was awarded with the prize Harnoslov in 2019. Her accidental encounter with Estonian and speakers of Estonian at a music festival in 2015 became a catalyst for her further development as a translator. She started learning Estonian and translating from Estonian into Ukrainian, both poetry and prose, and moved to Estonia in 2019 to study at Tallinn University. As she describes, changing the direction of translation and translating into Estonian became a completely different experience that she liked. She became a bidirectional translator in 2022 when suddenly a demand for Ukrainian culture emerged, and she was contacted by Arvo Pärt Centre, concert managers and choir conductors who wanted to play Ukrainian songs, and in order for the public to understand, the lyrics in Estonian were needed.

Multilingualism and language learning

As demonstrated above, the majority of Estonia’s population is highly multilingual. It is a different matter altogether whether people consider themselves as multilinguals because for non-specialists in this field of linguistics a multilingual may mean someone who has a perfect command in all languages in question and/or has mastered these languages in early childhood and identifies with all of them. The topic of proficiency in Ukrainian emerged many times in the interviews with MK and IK. Learning and using other languages was reflected upon by all three participants.

My question about the proficiency in Ukrainian and the ways of learning the language was rather natural for two reasons. First, Estonian translation culture, at least starting from the 20th century, favours translating from the original and not via other ‘big’ languages (Russian during the Soviet occupation and other major European languages before and after that; see Monticelli and Lange (2014) especially on the Soviet era). Second, during the Maidan events, many Estonians wanted to read Ukrainian news from Ukrainian sources, and started reading Ukrainian while leaning on their proficiency in Russian (this may not work for younger generations who do not have compulsory Russian at school). This phenomenon is called mediated receptive bilingualism, and it has been attested that Estonians with some proficiency in Russian are able to understand Ukrainian (however, the proximity between the Ukrainian and Russian is but one factor, see Branets et al., 2020; Branets & Verschik, 2021). MK belongs to the generation that had compulsory Russian at school, IK speaks Russian as his first language. This is the reason why I asked about leaning on Russian while reading Ukrainian.

As the ethnolinguistic profiles of the three translators differ, the answers differed, too. MK had had some experience with Polish (at first, using her command of Russian) and mentioned that she would rather lean on Polish than on Russian while reading Ukrainian:

‘It helped a lot to understand Ukrainian. Kochać [Polish ‘to love’], koštuje [Ukrainian ‘costs’], the names of the months. It was a discovery for me that many Slavic languages do not use the international names of the months’.

MK’s proficiency in Ukrainian is passive, she is able to read with a dictionary and to follow Ukrainian YouTube channels about history (she watches them especially before her trips to Ukraine). For her, it is easier to understand a written text than speech. When visiting Ukraine, she is reluctant to use Russian and speaks ‘some crazy pan-Slavic mixture’, as she renders it.

For IK, Ukrainian is one of his heritage languages (he refers to it as pärandkeel in Estonian, which is the exact equivalent of ‘heritage language’). His Ukrainian is mostly passive and it reminds of the early childhood visits to Ukraine when during the summer: he would feel the similarities between Russian and Ukrainian, yet being unable to say anything, then during the summer the fluency in Ukrainian would increase:

‘After a month you feel that you are in an opposite situation; you are unable to speak Russian, you have the so-called fricative h. Now my dream is to restore the state of that little boy who was able to speak Ukrainian’.

IP is fluent in several languages: the mentioned collection of her poetry translations contained authors in six different languages. However, during the interview she emphasised her special experience with Estonian, not so much because it is quite different from Germanic, Slavic and Romance languages but because she had gained access to Estonian literature that made a great impact on her. The next stage was becoming able to translate from Ukrainian into Estonian as well. In the narrative, IK almost did not mention language learning and the process of becoming multilingual, in contrast to MK and IK.

Creativity, identity and self-formation

All three participants talked about translation and its relations to creativity, identity and their plans. Still, the accents differed across narratives.

MK talked about discovering Ukrainian literature in general and poetry in particular (classics like Ivan Franko and Taras Shevchenko, and the contemporary authors she translated, like Ostap Slyvynski, Halyna Kruk, Artem Polezhaka, Julia Musakovska and Olena Stomina):

‘This world [of Ukrainian literature] is fascinating, I re-read classics: Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, they are complex and deep authors. A whole new world revealed itself to me…’

She did not elaborate on the impact of Ukrainian literature on her identity as translator or on her poetics, but, instead, talked about identity in a more abstract sense: the significance of Ukrainian literature, its place among European literatures and, more precisely, as a Central European literature. This realisation occurred to her only after the Maidan revolution. MK stated that it is not just about solidarity with the victims of aggression but, indeed, Ukrainian literature is manifold and diverse, and deserves more attention. In the Estonian context, she suggested that Ukrainian should be taught more, and an anthology of Ukrainian poetry is urgently needed.

For IK, individual identity as a person, poet and translator is linked to his heritage languages and the linguistic environment: he considers Russian, Estonian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Võru (a South-Estonian variety, see more in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B5ro_language) as equally important for him. He has been active in the discussions on Russian-language literature of Estonia (eestivene kirjandus) and discussed multiple identities and the problems of delimitation of Ukrainian literature, that is, where Ukrainian authors who continue writing in Russian belong. This discussion has been going on in Ukraine for some time, and some authors have shifted to Ukrainian since 2014 or have become bilingual (Averbuch, 2023; Uffelman, 2022). He holds high opinion of several authors who write in Russian, such as Galina/Halyna Rymbu and Andrey Krasnyashchikh, yet believes that this is a complex question that is not for outsiders to solve:

‘It is clear for me but it is not my business to dictate to Ukrainians… If an author lives in Ukraine, it is not enough because they themselves may decide that they belong to a different culture’.

Interestingly, IK illustrates this point by drawing a parallel with the Estonian poets-refugees in Sweden after 1944: Marie Under (1883–1980) continued to write in Estonian only, it was enough for her to be an Estonian poet, while Ilmar Laaban (1921–2000) started writing in Swedish as well.

A lot of time in the interview was dedicated to personal development. IK spoke in favour of combining his own poetry and poetry translations in the same book, because he translates the works of poets whose esthetics and imagery are close to those of himself, suggesting thus a syncretic view on one’s creativity:

‘When my Estonian books appear, I include translations of Ukrainian and Belarusian poets whose works are close to my heart for some reason’.

He described in detail the discovery of such poets as Ostap Slyvinski and similarities between their poetics, their translations of each other’s works. IK strongly believes that an author needs challenges. As his formation as a Russian-language poet occurred under the significant influence of Estonian-language authors in the middle of the 2000s in Tartu, he decided to try writing in Estonian and translating in both directions, and eventually became a successful bilingual poet and translator. After that he turned to his childhood experience with Ukrainian. Now the next challenge is to become active in Ukrainian, Belarusian and Võro:

‘I grew up amidst five languages, it is a unique situation, and I have to pay tribute to them… I have to try to write in all five… I have plans. I want to immerse myself into Ukrainian, Belarusian and Võro poetry’.

IK acknowledges the significant impact of Estonian poetry on his poetic language; as for the influence of Ukrainian poetry, he believed that, eventually, this will happen as well. In his opinion, the importance of Ukrainian literature in general will definitely increase.

IP tells a different story because she is an active user of both languages, Ukrainian and Estonian, unlike the other two respondents. She acknowledges the fact that it is easier for her to translate into Ukrainian, her first language, yet she appreciates the opportunity to translate from Ukrainian into Estonian:

‘I like it a lot, although it is time consuming’.

Estonian poetry holds a special place in her esthetics. Estonian poetry, in her opinion, differs a lot from the classical romantic German and French poetry she has translated: it is not so ornate and rather minimalistic, which she has learned to appreciate:

‘I decided that my translations from Estonian should constitute a separate collection. The Estonian poetry I translated was different… My own poetry, starting from the move to Estonia, has taken a different direction: it is free verse, the intonation is calmer, there is more nature’.

She also mentioned that she discovered Estonian ancient animist (pagan) culture and is now looking for similar traits in Ukrainian culture. Being a musician as well, she wrote a chapter on Ukrainian music for an Estonian school textbook. Her story reveals a harmonic coexistence and mutual reinforcement between Estonian and Ukrainian culture in her personality.

Translation, activism and solidarity

In Estonia, the choice to support Ukraine and Ukrainian culture is quite apparent and unequivocal because of the common experience under the Russian imperial and Soviet dominance. As Anne Lange (2023, p. 94) renders it, ‘[t]ranalsations from Ukrainian at present are activist in the sense that they resist overtly to the political catastrophe in Ukraine like the authors they translate’. Still, the three translators in this study frame it differently.

MK explained that she started taking interest in Ukrainian literature out of solidarity (her first translations appeared in the special issue of the Vikerkaar magazine dedicated to Maidan, 2014, no. 9). But, after having learned more about Ukrainian literature, as described in the Section 4.3., she found that solidarity is not enough:

‘Sometimes they invite Ukrainians to festivals just as a formality but now many realise that it [Ukrainian literature] is serious’.

IK did not use the words ‘solidarity’ or ‘support’ in the interview, he talked more about his work, literature and creativity. Yet he made it clear that Ukrainian as well as Belarusian literature have been marginalised for a long time, and this should be changed.

IP was rather articulate about her position as a translator:

‘I feel like I have a mission. I understand how few we are… There are few Ukrainians who are fluent in Estonian and vice versa, and we convey a certain message’.

She emphasised the importance the similar history and experience:

‘It is so beautiful that we have started communicating with each other as equals. Both Estonia and Ukraine have gained their voice only recently. The common traumatic experience helps us to understand’.

This may imply, among other things, also the culture of translating between Ukrainian and Estonian from the original and not via Russian, as it happened sometimes in the Soviet era, or via English, as it happens now with many translations from lesser used languages.