Literary code in the Swedish translation of the novel “Chevengur” by A. Platonov “Don Quijote i revolutionen” (translated by S. Walmark)

Abstract

The article explores the problem of reception of poetics and content in the case of the Swedish version-translation of Andrey Platonov’s novel “Chevengur” (“Don Quijote i revolutionen”, 1973, translated by Sven Vallmark). The main differences between the reduced Swedish edition of “Chevengur” and the original are revealed and characterized. The conceptual solution of Sven Vallmark is to present Platonov’s novel through the lense of the world famous novel “Don Quixote” by M. de Cervantes. The comparative-typological analysis of the novel about the Russian revolution and the Spanish epic shows essential similarities in the genre “polyphony” of the travel novel and grotesque imagery. The constellation of Hamlet’s and Don Quixote’s codes in “Chevengur” plays an important role. The figurative parallel of “Don Quixote — Hamlet” reflects the internal polemic between the devotion to the revolutionary ideal and, on the other hand, doubt, creating a genre synthesis of utopia and dystopia. In the Swedish translation “Don Quijote i revolutionen” the structural principle of the constellation is kept despite a formal violation of the balance of literary codes: Hamlet’s features are represented by the essential nature of the images of “don quixote in revolution”. The abridgements to the plot and to the figurative system were made by way of “condensation”, while preserving the central ideological and figurative complexes.