Bad Translations: Talking Down to the Narod in Tolstoy’s Fiction

• In Event: Translating Fictions

Abstract

My paper examines a particular type of conversation Tolstoy loves for the revelation of particularly high truths, when an aristocratic seeker protagonist discovers how to live from an episodic character from the narod. In these conversations the seeker always lies, masking his life story and deepest feelings, translating them into the slightly different idiom or rather frame of reference of the narod, but omitting vital things the observer, author, and reader perceive. The goal at first glance seems to be to retain the necessary anthropologist’s incognito so moral exemplar characters will continue to be themselves unselfconsciously and not modify their behavior. But the real reason is to preserve the autonomy, which is the root of the social superiority, of the aristocrat. This is ironic given that the lesson being learned is always some version of the Tolstoyan truth that one must renounce one’s autonomy and merge with the All. Tolstoy’s heroes are always careful to have an escape plan when merging with the common folk or any other group.

Author

• David M.B.L. Herman, U of Virginia