ჰერმენევტიკული პარადიგმა გ. დერჟავინის ოდის „ღმერთი“ ინესა მერაბიშვილის ქართულ თარგმანში. HERMENEUTICAL PARADIGM OF G. DERZHAVIN’S ODE “GOD” IN GEORGIAN TRANSLATION BY INNES MERABISHVILI

Abstract

Hermeneutics is the science of understanding and interpreting text. Interpretation is the drawing of meaning from a text. Since translation is interpretation or the process of interpretation of the original text to the target language, therefore, hermeneutics and translation are directly related, as the main task of translation is not only to transfer linguistic units from one language to another, but also to fully present the ideas or intentions of the original text. The texts of works of art associated with the particular tasks facing the text of this style are of particular interest for hermeneutic interpretation. Artistic communication begins with a creative act, the author’s self-expression, and ends with an understanding of the fictional text. The writer implements his/her idea in a literary text that acts as a mediator in the author’s relationship with the reader. The task of the translator of fiction is to convey the artistic and aesthetic virtues of the original text and to create a full work of fiction in the language of translation. This, on the one hand, requires a full understanding of the author’s idea and the original meaning of the text, and, on the other hand, a certain creativity from the translator, subjectivation of the text. Involvement of one’s own personality and cultural background in the work during the rebirth of the text. When translating a text, the translator goes through two main stages: understanding its meaning and second-generation of the text in the language of the translation. This process becomes even more intense when translating poetic texts. Translation of poetic texts and samples of poetry is a complex creative process, as, here, artistic and expressive means, tropes, symbols, signs, allegories and, most importantly, versification characteristics play a significant dominant role in relation to semantics. Hermeneutics is interested not only in understanding signs and symbols from a sign to a meaning, but also in what is not explicitly explained. It is also important to define the drafting of the idea and to give it a meaning related to language analysis and semantics. Hermeneutics was understood in Christendom as the art of clarification and interpreting the Bible, however, modern science considers hermeneutics to be a field of science with its full value elements: system, theories, methodology, rules, and so on. Hermeneutics has become a powerful practical tool of Christian theoretical thinking, and has rendered invaluable service to the centuries-old tradition of Bible explanation and commenting, it played a major role in theoretical strengthening of medieval Christian theology and the revival of theological thinking, as it included a variety of religious, philosophical, and cultural experiences of working with texts. Hermeneutics of medieval and modern Europe, was mainly represented by its Christian aspect. The secular, scientific form of hermeneutics began to establish in the late XVIII century. In terms of the compatibility of Christian hermeneutics and poetry, the famous masterpiece of Gavrila Derzhavin, the Ode “God”, is very noteworthy. In 1780-1784, Derzhavin composed the Ode “God”, which became one of his most significant works. At this time, he marched against the French materialists of the 18th century. Derzhavin’s Ode has caused a sensation all over the world. It has been translated 15 times into French, eight times into German, several times into Polish. In addition, Derzhavin’s Ode was translated into English, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Latin, Greek, and Japanese. This poem was translated into Georgian by more than ten poets at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Among them were: P. Laradze, I. Bazlidze, D. Dadiani, later – D. Tsitsishvili (the translation of the latter was even published), Mirian and Ioane Princes, Giorgi Avalishvili, Dimitri Magalashvili, Revaz Korchibashi and Al. Chavchavadze. We also obtained the translation of an unknown author, which had been performed from the book of Al. Nikolsky “Fundamentals of Russian Speech”. These translations have been studied and researched by us. However, even in the modern era, the interest in this poem is still actual and, in the 20th, and 21st centuries it became the object of attention of two Georgian translators, Esma Oniani and Inesa Merabishvili. The subject of our research is the version translated by Inesa Merabishvili. The main topic, which is the quintessence of the ode, is the topic of divine adoption. The Almighty Lord, hidden from our consciousness, in one word (the act of creation is meant) created matter, from which he subsequently created the physical world. Praising the intention, omnipotence, and eternity of the heavenly Creator, Gavrila Derzhavin raises the following questions in the Ode “God”: a. Religious-cosmological image of the world, b. The dialectic of the interrelationship of human and divine minds, c. The poet’s position against the spontaneous materialism, which blinks also from the ecclesiastical-religious form of the ode, and d. The idea of the basic contradictions of human existence, the interrelationships and development of the macrocosm and microcosm. The hermeneutical strategy of Inesa Merabishvili’s translation takes into account preserving the original language and the elements of culture in the translated language (Georgian) with regard to the cultural identity of the native language. At first, such a mutually exclusive continuum is realized due to preservation in the text of linguistic and cultural reality of a foreign language, on the one hand, and with their intertextual or extratextual interpretation, which ensures the appropriate degree of comprehension of the text in the translation. In the strategy of hermeneutic translation, Inesa Merabishvili, as a translator, pays special attention to the interpretation of allusions, which are the most valuable source of information about the mentality of cultures. An allusion is a special type of textual implication that connects the meanings of other texts with the system of meanings of a given text, which the translator, in a particular case, brings with great skill to the field of intertextuality. For Inesa Merabishvili, as for a translator, it is important not only to understand the meaning of the text to which her allusion refers, but also to harmoniously incorporate this intertextual meaning into the meaning system of the work she had translated. In terms of hermeneutics, the allusion here acts not as a part but as an extended context of the work as a whole. The translation of Derzhavin’s Ode “God” into Georgian performed by Inesa Merabishvili with great artistic skills is very interesting both in terms of hermeneutic interpretation and interpretation of dominant hints of the translator’s hermeneutical route, which combine all the meanings of a work into one system, as well as en sure transmission of space-time frames, sensory associations, and synesthetic transfers. Within the hermeneutic strategy of this translation, it is particularly interesting to reveal the translator’s linguistic personality through interpretation in the text translation.