Popular Voices pp 79–⁠92

Abstract

The article presents the recent findings in rhythmic features of translations made in Russian dolnik (accentual verse with mono- and disyllabic inter-ictic intervals). Although historically this meter was influenced by translations of German dolniks, in Russian tradition it is rooted in ternary meters and avoids binary (iambic/trochaic) cadence. However, in the case of translations, these tendencies of Russian original dolnik could have been altered for the sake of reproducing the source texts’ rhythm. The classic examples are Alexander Blok’s equirhythmic translations from Heine, which are drastically different from the rhythm of Blok’s original dolnik in the proportion of lines with binary rhythm. I investigated the two strategies that prevailed in translations made in dolnik during the 20th century: the equirhythmic method that presumes the usage of dolnik to reproduce the original rhythm, or the non-equirhythmic method that adapted the meter to its rhythmic norms in the target language. Examination of translations from Heine proved that the equirhythmic tradition started by Blok in the early 20th century was quite unstable. In the second half of the century, translators switched to the non-equirhythmic type, abandoning binary lines and showing a strong preference for “pure” dolnik lines with irregular unstressed intervals. While earlier equirhythmic translations clearly demonstrate the possibility of reproducing the rhythm of German dolnik in Russian, this switch to the rhythms of Russian dolnik in the later translations provides strong evidence for the cultural reasons to avoid lines with binary and even ternary rhythm in this meter in Russian poetry. Examples confirmed that even in the free domain of translation, Russian dolnik was a stabilising force and functioned as if it was a new classical meter.

About

Polilova, V. (2025). Translated Verse between Experiment and Tradition (Russian Three-Ictus Dolnik in Translations from Heine). In M. Väina, M. K. Lotman, A. S. Bories, P. Ruiz Fabo, P. Plecháč, & S. Mett (Eds.), Popular Voices: Computational Analysis of Poetry and Song (pp. 79–92). Tartu: ELM Scholarly Press. doi: 10.7592/PP2025.05.polilova

DOI
http://doi.org/10.7592/PP2025.05.polilova

Print ISBN
978-9916-742-77-8

Online ISBN
978-9916-742-78-5

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© Cover design: Anne-Sophie Bories

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