The Russian writer Korney Chukovsky was not only a talented literary critic, but also a translator. His real name is Nikolai Korneychukov, but he is known to the whole world under his literary pseudonym. To become a master of translation, the writer took many years to engage in self-education and independently learn English.
Instruction manual
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Researchers consider Korney Chukovsky one of the founders of the classical theory of literary translation. He has been professionally engaged in this important and responsible work for several decades. Many of Chukovsky’s theoretical works are devoted to criticism, theory, and the history of the translation of literary texts. Even at the beginning of the last century, the writer addressed serious linguistic issues that were at the center of literary discussions.
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The first attempts to master the art of translation, Chukovsky made in the gymnasium. Mastering the English language helped him a good knowledge of Russian speech and the Ukrainian language, which was native to his mother. In his school years, Kolya Korneichukov diligently studied ancient Greek, Latin, and in his free time he studied French, Italian and English. Passion for languages and fiction became a decisive factor for the future talented translator when choosing a life path.
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Being a beginning writer, Korney Chukovsky already distrusted the classical recommendations from eminent translators, who suggested using the common language forms typical of Russian 19th-century writers in translations. In his transcriptions of books, he sought to use the widest visual means that would not only convey the features of the original, but would also correspond to modern speech standards.
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Having become a professional translator, Korney Chukovsky did a lot for Russian readers to learn about the books of Wilde, Whitman, Kipling. With pleasure, the writer translated Shakespeare, Conan Doyle, O'Henry, Mark Twain. Per Chukovsky owns the works retold for children by Defoe and Greenwood. The writer combined the works of translating books by foreign authors into Russian with the painstaking work of creating a theory of translation of literature.
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One of the most appreciated by critics and professional translators of Chukovsky’s work in the field of translation is High Art. This work became an example of the theory and practice of literary craft, in which an organic combination of critical and linguistic approaches to the problems of translation of literary works was found. In his case, Korney Chukovsky is still considered one of the patriarchs of literary criticism, whose merits are associated with the formation of the principles of translating foreign texts into Russian.
