Abstract:
It is known that Vazha-Pshavela’s artistic language is given a
special color by the dialect speech of the poet. The Pshav-Khevsuri
dialect is the cornerstone of Vazha’s work to create the corresponding
ideological-emotional world. It’s perfect repetition in a foreign
language environment is probably theoretically not allowed. But
there is a great temptation to share this first-created magnificence
of the Creator’s nature with the readers of other languages and make
them feel it. This strong desire encouraged us and decided to translate
Vazha’s best poem “Aluda Ketelauri” into Hebrew.
Modern Hebrew is a completely new linguistic phenomenon that
dates back only a few decades. The formation of dialectal features
in this language begins in our time, signs of Angular speech peculiarities
are now appearing in the center of modern Israel, in the
north and south, therefore, we have set the Hebrew of the Bible as
the only way to convey the specific speech of the Georgian author
in the translation. The New Hebrew poetry itself, it can be said, was
in the background for many years, especially in the early stages of
its formation. Even in the modern period, Jewish authors are often
nourished by biblical vocabulary and phraseology; they often resort
to different ways of expression, say, artistic repetition, alliteration or
paronomasia, which are so abundant in the texts of the Bible.
We also tried to load the translation with biblical vocabulary. We
considered that the archaized language, to a certain extent, would serve as a functional equivalent of the author’s Pshav-khevsuri dialect.
In some cases, we even borrowed directly from the architectonics
of a famous passage of a specific biblical creation (“Ecclesiastes”).
According to many researchers, Vazha’s work is saturated with
biblical motifs. The heavy breath of “Ruach Elohim” is also strongly
felt. We think this fact also justifies our choice.
