Translation Transformed conference 20-22 Sept 2013
(l to r Richard Demarco, EU Citizen of the Year, Dr Ekaterina Genieva, director of the state Library for Foreign Literature and Evgeny Reznichenko, director of the Institute of Translation)
(l to r Richard Demarco, EU Citizen of the Year, Dr Ekaterina Genieva, director of the state Library for Foreign Literature and Evgeny Reznichenko, director of the Institute of Translation)
A galaxy of Russian literary stars –
editors, authors and translators – descended on the historic spa town of Moffat
in the south of Scotland for our conference on translation 20-22 Sept 2013.
The delegation included Evgeny Reznichenko, director of the Institute of Translation in
Moscow, Dr Ekaterina Genieva director of the Library for Foreign Literature
Moscow, the directors of four Russian
‘literary museums’: Dmitry Bak of the State Literary Museum in Moscow (also a
member of the President’s committee for the arts); Antonina Klyuchareva and
Nadezhda Pereverzava of Tolstoy’s Yasnaya Polyana; Tamara Melnikova of
Lermontov’s ‘Tarkhanhy’ and Svetlana Melnikova of Vladimir-Suzdal, Natalya
Ivanova editor in chief of the literary journal ‘Znamya’, Alexander Livergant
chair and doyen of the Russian Translators Association, Alexei Varlamov
biographer and novelist and a dozen more. The British speakers and contributors
included Robyn Marsak of the Scottish Poetry Library who, through the good
offices of Moffat Book Events is supervising new translations of Lermontov by
contemporary Scottish poets to be published by Carcanet early in 2014; Dr Peter
France formerly of Edinburgh University, Dr Oliver Ready, Research Fellow of St
Anthony’s College Oxford and director of Russkiy Mir programme, Alan Riach
professor of Scottish Literature University of Glasgow, Dr Tom Hubbard, poet,
Dr Irina Kirillova, University of Cambridge and Richard Demarco EU Citizen of
the Year 2013. The conference was opened
by Cabinet Secretary of State for Culture and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop
MSP. Chair of Moffat Book Events
Professor Andrew Wheatcroft made a speech of welcome and I was the conference
moderator.
Among many highlights of the conference
were presentations by Alan Riach, reading his inspired translations from the
Gaelic into Scots, Chris Brookmyre on
hilariously alarming exchanges with inept translators of his
best-selling crime novels, Alexei Varlamov on his literary inspiration (based
on a Soviet childhood), Natalya Ivanova on contemporary Russian fiction and three remarkable students of translation from Glasgow - the list could go on.
The Russian delegation made flying visits
on either side of the conference to Scottish literary destinations from their
base at the elegant 18th century John Adams- designed Moffat House hotel,
including to the Robert Burns Centre in Alloway, and the Prince of Wales’s Dumfries House in Ayrshire;
and to Abbotsford, the magnificent newly
-renovated Borders home of Sir Walter
Scott, to Kelvingrove in Glasgow and to Edinburgh. Preparations were also made for a series of
continuations during 2014 to mark the UK Year of Russian Culture and language,
including an exhibition of photographs of Moffat people and places by Maria
Buylova with interviews by Head of Exhibitions at the Library for Foreign
Literature Tatyana Feoktistova to be opened in Moscow on Oct 22 2014, a
conference on Lermontov in Moffat 26-28 Sept 2014 and a Russian strand in
Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival and at other Scottish literary festivals .
An exhibition of the series of paintings by Richard Demarco of Scotland’s rural
roads ‘The Road to Meikle Seggie’ will open in Moscow June 2014.
2014 is the bicentenary of the birth of
Lermontov, whose Learmont ancestors came from Scotland. Artefacts and garments
made from a bolt of Lermontov tartan were ordered from Moffat Mill, an outlet
of the pan-British firm Edinburgh Woollen Mill for this year of celebration, to
be sold at Lermontov museums and events in Russia and elsewhere. Other Moffat products such as Moffat Toffee
and Uncle Roy’s condiments, local cheese and smoked fish , pottery and other
crafts will be in the exhibition which is intended to show Moffat as a
microcosm of rural Scotland today.
.svg.png)
