Yuriy Fedkovych’s Translation Activities in Terms of the XIX Century History of Translation in Bukovyna

Abstract

The first Bukovynian translators during the Austrian period were L. A. Staufe-Simiginowicz (1832–1897), who compiled two poetic translation anthologies, “Romanische Poeten” (1865) and “Kleinrussische Lieder” (1888), and J. G. Obrist (1843–1901), who in 1870 published a small brochure entitled “Taras Grigoriewicz Szewczenko: Ein kleinrussischer Dichter”, which was destined to become a milestone in the history of German–Ukrainian literary relations. The popularization of Shevchenko’s poetry was further advanced by K. E. Franzos (1848–1904) in his “cultural essays” “Die Kleinrussen und ihr Sänger” and “Taras Schewtschenko”, as well as by the translators V. Umlauff von Frankwell (1836–1887) and S. Szpoynarowskyj (1858–1909). The most outstanding Bukovynian poet and master of translation was Yuriy Fedkovych (1834–1888). In 1862, he published translations of seven Ukrainian folk songs in the weekly “Sonntagsblatt der Bukowina” and later turned to the poetry of German classics and Romantics. In the early 1860s, appeared his free adaptations of such German poems as Goethe’s “Erlkönig” and “Mignonlied”, Schiller’s “Der Alpenjäger”, “Die Bürgschaft”, and “Die Theilung der Erde”, Uhland’s “Der Sängers Fluch”, and Heine’s “Die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar”, “Du hast Diamanten und Perlen”, and “Belsazar”. Another facet of Fedkovych’s translation activities manifested itself in his interpretations of works of world drama for the Lviv theatre “Ruska Besida” (a free adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy “The Taming of the Shrew” under the title “How the Goats’ Horns Are Straightened”), the comedy “Der versiegelte Bürgermeister” by the German dramatist Ernst Raupach, and Rudolf von Gottschall’s tragedy “Mazepa”. Fedkovych also produced the first Ukrainian translations of Shakespeare’s tragedies “Macbeth” and “Hamlet”, completed in the early 1870s. In these works he remains closer to the originals, yet introduces Hutsul realia and phraseology into his translations.