Search results

1

Anthroponyms and Phytonyms in Latvian Literary Fairy Tales and Their Translation in Lithuanian (Flowers: Fairy Talesby Anna Sakse)

100%

Kvašytė R.

Ad verba liberorum

|

2010

|

vol. 2

|

issue 1

79-91

EN

Lithuanian readers can enjoy the translations of fairy tales by the Latvian authors Kārlis Skalbe, Anna Sakse, Margarita Stāraste, Imants Ziedonis and Juris Zvirgzdiņš. Literary fairy tales and their translations make interesting material for study; also, it is intriguing to consider how texts written for Latvian children are perceived by Lithuanian children.The aim of this study is to find out what language conformities and peculiarities have been taken into consideration in the process of translating Latvian literary fairy tales into Lithuanian. Attention is focused on one of the proper name groups - anthroponyms, as well as appellatives related to them - phytonyms.The study material includes the cycle of fairy tales "Flowers: Fairy Tales" by Anna Sakse and their translation into Lithuanian (translator Renata Zajančkauskaite). The study has been carried out by contrastive analytical, descriptive and interpretation methods. Mainly fairy tales with certain discrepancies between the anthroponyms and phytonyms in the source and target languages were selected for the present analysis.The analysis allows to conclude that the anthroponyms and phytonyms used by the author reflect the cultural environment of various countries of the world. Anna Sakse links anthroponyms with phytonyms either directly (the words can be either actual people's names or personified appellatives) or in a more or less indirect manner. In the translated fairy-tale texts the reader can find the same anthroponyms and/or phytonyms as in the source text, however, one can identify also cases of cultural substitution. Sometimes the choice of a different personal name can be justified by the fact that the gender of the word differs in Latvian and Lithuanian, and therefore a literal transfer is not possible. The cycle contains fairy tales that have been translated into Lithuanian not because their phytonyms match but because of the development of the plot or associations implied.

2

The Great War, Independence, and Latvian Literature

86%

Kalnačs B.

Przegląd Humanistyczny

|

2018

|

vol. 62(4 (463))

9-21

EN

The article focuses on the representation of the year 1918 in Latvian literature. On November 18, the independent Republic of Latvia was proclaimed, and in the years to come international recognition of the state’s sovereignty followed. In retrospect, this event stimulated a number of salutary descriptions and interpretations and certainly provides a milestone in the history of the Latvian nation. It is, however, also important to discuss the proclamation of independence in the context of the Great War that brought a lot of suffering to the inhabitants of Latvia. Therefore, a critical evaluation of the events preceding the year 1918 is certainly worthy of discussion. The article first sketches the historical and geopolitical contexts of the period immediately before and during the Great War as well as the changed situation in its aftermath. This introduction is followed by a discussion of the novel 18 (2014) by the contemporary Latvian author Pauls Bankovskis (b. 1973) that provides a critical retrospective of the events leading to the proclamation of the nation state from a twenty-first century perspective. Bankovskis employs an intertextual approach, engaging with a number of earlier publications dealing with the same topic. Among the authors included are Anna Brigadere, Aleksandrs Grīns, Sergejs Staprāns, Mariss Vētra, and others. The paper contextualizes the contribution of these writers within the larger historical picture of the Great War and the formation of the nation states and speculates on the contemporary relevance of the representation of direct experience, and the use of written sources related to these events.

3

Folkloorist kirjandusse ehk variatsioonid Rainisega lati ja eesti kultuuris

86%

Mihkelev A.

Mäetagused

|

2019

|

vol. 75

141-156

EN

Rainis (Jānis Pliekšāns, 1865–1929) was a very famous Latvian modernist writer of the beginning of the 20th century. His literary works are connected with Estonian culture via different motifs. Rainis’ texts, translated into Estonian, contain indications of double cultural translation, and thus constitute a very interesting case in European culture. The article analyses Rainis’ plays “Uguns un nakts” (Fire and Night, 1905), “Zelta zirgs” (The Golden Steed, 1909), “Pūt, vējiņi!” (Blow, Wind! 1914), and “Jāzeps un viņa brāļi” (Joseph and His Brothers, 1919). According to Latvian and Estonian researchers, Rainis’ play titled “The Golden Steed” drew on Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald’s fairy tale about a princess who slept for seven years. On the other hand, a story about a princess who slept on a glass mountain is well known in Northern Europe. Rainis also used motifs from the Estonian epic “Kalevipoeg” (Kalev’s Son) and the mythological story “Koit ja Hämarik” (Dawn and Dusk). The motif he used in his drama “Blow, Wind!” is the orphan motif from “Kalevipoeg”. Both the slave girl from the latter and Baiba from Rainis’ drama were orphans and had to work hard for their stepfamily. The orphan motif certainly points to several variants of the Cinderella story which have spread all over the world. The myth of Dawn and Dusk is a story by an Estonian writer, Friedrich Robert Faehlmann (1798–1850), which inspired both sculptor August Weizenberg and Rainis in the creation of their characters. The personification of the motifs of sunrise and sunset are repeated several times in Rainis’ play “Blow, Wind!”. There is a situation involving Baiba and Uldis, in which their passion becomes stronger and stronger, while it all ends with a farewell kiss from Baiba and her jumping into the water. Estonian writer Johannes Semper has analysed folk motifs in the “Kalevipoeg” and he sees its parallels with the Finnish epic “Kalevala” in this regard: the motif of the maiden who commits suicide by drowning is repeated several times in the latter. This reminds us of the story of Kullervo, who met a nice maiden on his travels and raped her. Next day it turned out that the girl was Kullervo’s sister, and the maiden drowned herself. According to Semper there were more tragic stories which implicate the epics: the story of Kalevipoeg and Saarepiiga in the epic “Kalevipoeg” and the story of Väinämöinen and Aino in the epic “Kalevala”. All these motifs are well known in Europe and have existed in national literatures for a very long time (cf. Ophelia in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”). Rainis’ drama “Fire and Night” (1905), based on the Latvian epic “Lāčplēsis” (Bear Slayer, 1888), is probably the most significant symbolic work in Latvian literature. The drama demonstrates how literary symbols work in culture where the fundamentally new is created, and it is a process which contains the moment of explosion according to semiotician and literary scholar Yuri Lotman. All these symbols are dynamic, and it depends on the context and on the readers how these literary figures and texts are interpreted. Rainis’ symbols are polysemantic and one and the same symbol can change meanings several times within a play. The drama “Joseph and His Brothers” (1919) is based on a biblical myth and it is a neo-mythological literary work and also a cultural translation and transformation. The Bible functions as a metatext in Rainis’ text and in Latvian culture describing, via auto-communication, the Latvian culture itself. The Estonian translation functions in a similar way in Estonian culture because Latvian and Estonian cultural contexts are similar.

Refine search results

1 Ad verba liberorum

1 Mäetagused

1 Przegląd Humanistyczny

1 Kalnačs B.

1 Kvašytė R.

1 Mihkelev A.

2 2019

1 2010

Anthroponyms and Phytonyms in Latvian Literary Fairy Tales and Their Translation in Lithuanian (Flowers: Fairy Talesby Anna Sakse)

The Great War, Independence, and Latvian Literature

Folkloorist kirjandusse ehk variatsioonid Rainisega lati ja eesti kultuuris