Tatiana Bogrdanova

Nineteenth-Century Translations of Kalmyk (Oirat-Mongolian) Folktales into European Languages

The arrival in the seventeenth century of the Oirat (Western Mongolians) in the Volga steppe marked the beginning of their interaction with the Russian Empire, a part of which they were eventually to become. The Central Asian nomads had brought with them their Buddhist beliefs and literature. Their written works were mostly religious translations from Sanskrit and Tibetan but they also had a lively oral tradition, which would attract the attention of collectors of folklore and scholars.

In the second half of the nineteenth century Kalmyk folktales were translated into Russian (Galsan Gamboev, 1864), German (Bernhard Jülg, 1866, 1868), and English (Rachel Busk, 1873). Of particular interest for the scholar of the day were the stories of the Siddhi-kür (Bewitched Corpse) because of their associations with the Indian Baital Pachisi, or Vetala Panchavimshati. This paper will closely examine the translated texts in terms of strategies and techniques employed by the translators in dealing with the folklore material, as well as look into the wider context in which the translations were embedded and the translators’ personal circumstances and working conditions. Thus it will attempt at filling in the gap in the translation history studies while its focus on the translated texts and the translators will shed light on the cultural interaction in the nineteenth century in the field of folkloristics.

Tatiana Bogrdanova, PhD student, Philosophical faculty, University of Eastern Finland (Joensuu, Finland)     

BIODATA: Tatiana Bogrdanova is currently completing her doctoral dissertation devoted to British Translators of Russian Folktales at the turn of the 20th c. at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Eastern Finland (Joensuu). Her previous degrees are in Philology and Germanic Languages (Moscow state university) and Foreign Languages (Moscow state pedagogical university); she taught English Lexicology, Introduction to Philology and EFL practical courses, as well as directed students’ graduation papers at the Kalmyk state university (Elista, Russia).