The reception of post-Soviet Russian fiction through the peritexts of Finnish translations

ABSTRACT

This article is based on research addressing the reception of post-Soviet Russian fiction in the twenty-first century (2000–2023) through Finnish translations and the notions of Russia and Russian literature mediated through them. The investigation of translated fiction draws on imagology, i.e. the study of images and cross-national perceptions in literary representations. Focusing on the peritexts, a subcategory of paratexts coined by Genette (1987/1997), the article investigates book cover texts and publishers’ descriptions of the translated works to find out how the translations are received and introduced to readers of the target culture. The translations comprise 101 books, first translated during 2000–2023. The peritexts were retrieved directly from the printed books or using the search service Finna.fi and publisher websites. The analysis was conducted with help of a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis tool, designed to support inductive, data-driven qualitative analysis. As a result of the analysis, three thematic groups emerging from the peritexts were identified: 1) the portrayal of the (Soviet) Russian past and post-Soviet society as grim, insane and tragic, 2) the emphasis on realism and truthfulness of the image of Russia conveyed by the translations, and 3) praise of the authors’ literary skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Translation paratexts
• peritexts
• literary translation
• imagology
• post-Soviet fiction

1. Introduction

This article is based on a research project addressing the reception of post-Soviet Russian fiction in the twenty-first century (2000–2023) through Finnish translations and the notions of Russia and Russian literature mediated through the translations. Interest in this research subject arises from the conception that in Finland, there has been a tendency to look to translations of Russian literature for finding answers to what it means to be Russian and to have a Russian mentality (Jänis & Pesonen, 2007a, p. 189; see also Huttunen et al., 2024, p. 67). As suggested by Jänis and Pesonen (2007a) in their review of Finnish translations of Russian literature from the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century, Finland’s relations with Russia as a state have vacillated throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century and the cycle of political relations has had a substantial impact on translation. The period beginning from 2000 has not yet been studied comprehensively.¹ Since the beginning of the twenty-first century Russia has gone through significant political and societal transformations with Vladimir Putin’s assumption of power. It is interesting to analyze what the Finnish translations and their peritexts tell us about the notions of and expectations towards post-Soviet Russian fiction. The rationale of this research object stems from the idea that translations fill gaps in the target culture, i.e. ‘something is “missing” in the target culture which should have been there and which, luckily, already exists elsewhere’ (Toury, 1995/2012, p. 27). In order to study ‘the confluence of national images and translation’ (O’Sullivan, 2016, p. 89), I focus on translation peritexts, i.e. on various textual material inside the translated book, a subcategory of paratexts. The concept of paratext was coined by Genette (1987/1997), who saw it as a threshold or vestibule, a kind of intermediary space where the reader decides: to enter or to turn away; but also, as a frame that guides how to read the book (p. 2). For the purposes of this investigation, I will analyze book cover texts, bibliographical descriptions and publishers’ descriptions. First, I will describe the theoretical framework for peritextual analysis of translated literature and give a short historical background of literary translation from Russian in Finland.

My approach to the investigation of translated fiction draws on imagology, i.e. the study of images and cross-national perceptions in literary representations. Recently, translation scholars have made use of imagology as a ‘lens’ through which translations and translating can be approached (Doorslaer, 2022; Flynn et al., 2016, p. 8; Gentile et al., 2021, p. 1). As Peter Flynn and others (2016) argue, while the translation process enables the crossing of linguistic and cultural boundaries, it also reflects and reveals expectations and pre-perceptions related to another culture (p. 8). These expectations and pre-perceptions can be seen as reflecting culturally deep structures related to the translations of the other culture. Luc van Doorslaer (2022) notes that imagological research can apply macro-, meso – and microlevel approaches to materials offered by translations (pp. 117–118). While the macrolevel addresses the selection processes related to which works will be translated, the mesolevel deals with the reception and especially paratexts of translation. The microlevel, then, focuses on the textual representations of national images. My investigation employs the mesolevel as I analyze the peritexts of translated works to investigate how the translations are received and introduced to readers of the target culture.

Paratextual elements, such as a translator’s preface or afterword, have been a topic of interest for researchers since the 1970s and 1980s. The first studies in English to explicitly refer to Genette’s concept of paratexts were published in 1996, when the articles on paratexts by Theo Hermans and Urpo Kovala appeared (Batchelor, 2018, pp. 25–26; see also Pleijel & Podlevskikh Carlström, 2022, p. 9). When Genette’s original work was translated into English in 1997, translation scholars became increasingly interested in paratexts and their significance (Batchelor, 2018, p. 25). According to Genette (1987/1997), a paratext is always characterized by the author’s agency and responsibility (p. 3). However, Genette’s formulation excludes book reviews, and most notably paratextual elements of translated works. Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar (2011) criticizes Genette’s definition because it overlooked the importance of translation paratexts and considered translations as paratexts of the source text (pp. 113–114). The definition of the term paratext has been revisited to stress its functional role in relation to translations (Pleijel & Podlevskikh Carlström, 2022, p. 14). Alvstad (2012, p. 79) sees the paratexts of translated works as ‘a process of translation in a broad sense’ as they are formulated to adapt the source text to correspond to ‘the needs and expectations of the target system.’ Batchelor (2018) extends the use of the term to signify a text that is ‘a consciously crafted threshold’ for another text ‘which has the potential to influence the way(s) in which the text is received’ (p. 142). As Pleijel and Podlevskikh Carlström (2022) point out, Batchelor’s definition widens the scope of what may count as a paratext beyond texts that are characterized by the author’s agency and responsibility: ‘[A]ll the different kinds of ‘texts’ …  – front and back covers, footnotes, introductions, literary reviews – may be termed ‘paratextual’’ (p. 14). Paratexts can be divided into peritexts and epitexts, the former signifying book cover texts, titles, prefaces, etc., and the latter referring to book reviews, interviews and other texts published about the book (Genette, 1987/1997; Pleijel & Podlevskikh Carlström, 2022). In this article I will focus on peritexts, particularly book cover texts, descriptions found in digital bibliographical data and publishers’ websites.

First, I briefly introduce how the scope of translations from Russian has varied during the twentieth century in Finland. The share of translations from Russian of all translated fiction has been very small throughout the twentieth century.² The only exception to this are the post-war years 1945 and 1946 when about 20 percent of all translated fiction was translated from Russian, mostly due to the many pro-Soviet left-wing publishers’ active translation and publishing (Pesonen, 2003, p. 80). However, the boom was short-lived and until the beginning of the 1950s the interest in publishing translations of Soviet literature diminished again (Pesonen, 2003, p. 80). After Stalin’s death in 1953, a new interest towards Russian literature emerged in Finland, and especially two works which had gained international fame for their critical portrayal of Soviet society, Vladimir Dudintsev’s Ne khlebom edinym (trans. 1957, Not by Bread Alone) and Boris Pasternak’s Doktor Zhivago (trans. 1958, Doctor Zhivago), became best-sellers in Finland (Jänis & Pesonen, 2007a, p. 201). However, a notable change in translation activities occurred between the late 1960s and late 1980s when, in contrast to most other Western countries, very few Russian dissident or émigré writers’ works were published in Finland. Jänis and Pesonen (2007a, p. 203) note that the reason behind this was ‘the undisputable fact’ of Finlandization.³ One example of this phenomenon was the introduction of a special series called ‘Soviet literature’ by major publishing houses in Finland, the aim of which was to introduce to Finnish readers contemporary Soviet literature. The series was active between 1975–1986, and over 80 works appeared in it. As Jänis and Pesonen (2007b) note, in retrospect the series has gained a bad reputation because of its ideological bias: no works by contemporary dissident or émigré writers were published in it (p. 466). After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, new translations of Russian literature were scarce; even the translation of Russian classics, which had been translated quite steadily through previous decades, came to a halt, and only reprints of existing translations appeared (Pesonen, 2003, p. 86). However, a number of texts of late-Soviet and post-Soviet literature were translated into Finnish in anthologies (Virtanen, 2006). A notable example of an entirely new phenomenon in the field of translated literature from Russian in the 1990s were the anthologies of Russian women’s writing, compiled in collaboration by literary scholars and translators (Rosenholm, 2024).

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, another new phenomenon appeared in the field of Finnish translations of Russian fiction, namely, popular crime fiction published as series. Individual detective novels had appeared in the 1990s, but the successful series by Boris Akunin and Alexandra Marinina were a novelty in the Finnish literary market in the category of translated fiction from Russian (Virtanen, 2006). Akunin and Marinina were among the most translated authors in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The trend of translating popular fiction continued in the 2010s, when the fantasy novel series by Sergei Lukyanenko and dystopic novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky entered the Finnish literary market. The translating of post-Soviet Russian highbrow prose also slightly revived after the 1990s. In the following section I will map the range of Finnish translations of post-Soviet fiction translated after the 1990s and introduce the research material.

2. Materials and methods

Digitized archives and bibliographical data have made the information on translated works, their peritexts and other related texts easily accessible and retrievable for researchers (see Parente-Čapková, 2021). Also, for this study the data on Finnish translations of post-Soviet Russian fiction published in 2000–2023 was retrieved from the digital search service Finna.fi. According to the data, the number of works of fiction, including classics, post-Soviet prose fiction, anthologies and collections of poetry translated from Russian into Finnish and published during 2000–2023 is ca. 280, including reprints and re-translations. The number of new translations of prose fiction, the originals of which were written during the post-Soviet period, that is, after 1991, is 101.⁴ This means that on average about four books of new Finnish translations of post-Soviet Russophone fiction were published per year during the researched period; however, the number of new translations per year fluctuated from ten (2015) to one (2022).⁵ The relatively high number of new translations in 2015 can be explained by the nomination of Russia as the theme country of that year’s biggest book fair in Helsinki.⁶ The naming of Russia as the theme country of the Helsinki Book Fair coincided with the illegal occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. However, as the main organizers of the event stressed, literature was deemed as an important space for cross-cultural dialogue despite political tensions, which was considered the most important message of the event (Gustafsson, 2015). The low number of translations in 2022 is arguably connected with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 and the on-going war, which has influenced Russian writers and perceptions of Russian literature in many ways. Since the invasion, numerous writers have had to leave the country having expressed their opposition to the war and the regime’s promotion of imperialist expansion (see, e.g. Guarro, 2023). Furthermore, as Putin has used Russian classics to promote his imperialist and colonizing agendas and aims, the need to decolonize Russian classic literature, that is, to critically study any imperialist thoughts, ideas and images found in it, has been expressed by scholars and journalists (e.g. Batuman, 2023; Holmila, 2022; Noubel, 2022). In Finland, as a result of the war, the country’s geopolitical status changed: Finland decided to seek NATO membership and became a full member of the organization in April 2023.⁷ At the same time, Finnish readers’ interest towards contemporary fiction and non-fiction literature dealing with Russia, Russian and Soviet society and history has increased, as indicated by reviews in media and recent sales of translated books on these topics (Kirjakauppaliitto, 2023; Kulttuuriykkönen, 2023).⁸

The translations, the peritexts of which are discussed in this study, comprise 101 books, which were first translated during 2000–2023. The peritexts were retrieved directly from the printed books, or, in the case the printed book was not available, from the search service Finna.fi, or the publisher websites. The topics of the translated works can be roughly divided into three main categories: life-stories set in Russian and Soviet history (34 translated works, 34%), stories related to post-Soviet Russia (48 works, 48%), and fantasy and dystopic novels (14 works, 14%). Five works (5%) were described as dealing with post-Soviet society in Ukraine (Kurkov, 2006 and 2023), Azerbaijan (Ailisli, 2015), Moldova (Lortšenkov, 2013) and Estonia (Ivanov, 2018).

The top authors in the light of the number of works translated in 2000–2023 are Liudmila Ulitskaia (9 works), Alexandra Marinina (8), Boris Akunin (7), Sergei Lukianenko (6), Svetlana Alexievich (4), Victor Pelevin (4) and Mikhail Shishkin (4). Authors from whom more than one work was published in Finnish are Elena Chizhova, Daria Dontsova, Victor Erofeev, Anatolii Gordienko, Evgenii Grishkovets, Anatolii Kriukov, Andrei Kurkov, Valeriia Narbikova, Roman Senchin, Vladimir Sorokin and Evgenii Vodolazkin. The authors of translated works are among the most popular and awarded Russian-language authors today (Akunin, Dontsova, Glukhovskii, Lukianenko, Marinina; Alexievich, Chizhova, Pelevin, Shishkin, Ulitskaia). At the same time, other prominent authors in Russia such as Dmitrii Bykov, Liudmila Petrushevskaia, Tatiana Tolstaia or Zakhar Prilepin have not been translated into Finnish.⁹ Additionally, few book-length translations of younger authors’ texts exist, rare examples being Irina Denezhkina and Natalia Kliuchareva, from whom one work each has been translated. Although the Finnish publishers seem to choose to publish authors who have already gained international acclaim, been translated into major European languages, received major awards, and/or are widely popular, less well-known and more challenging works have also been translated. One example is Valeriia Narbikova, whose works have been translated into Finnish thanks to the translator Arja Pikkupeura.

In my investigation of the peritexts of these translated works, I am interested in finding out how the works are described and characterized, or promoted to readers through peritexts. For the purposes of this article I have restricted my analysis to include only textual material of the book covers, thus, book cover images are not included. My approach to the analysis is descriptive, so the quantitative data I refer to is meant to serve this descriptive, qualitative analysis. The analysis was conducted with the help of the computer-assisted qualitative data analysis tool ATLAS.ti to organize and thematize the contents of the peritexts. The peritexts of each work (altogether 101) were uploaded to the tool as individual documents and titled according to the author’s and the work’s name (e.g. ‘Akunin. Erikoistehtävä’). After that I explored the contents of each peritext and created suitable thematic codes. The length of the peritexts varied from a couple of sentences to several text paragraphs.

On the basis of my analysis of the peritexts, I identified topics and themes which helped me group peritexts with similar topics and compare them with each other, as well as to establish more general combining themes. ATLAS.ti is a suitable tool for qualitative research as it particularly supports data-driven analysis (Laajalahti & Herkama, 2018). The process of the analysis using this tool is reflective and supports the researcher’s intuitive and inductive approach to investigation (Laajalahti & Herkama, 2018). In what follows, I will present the main thematic groups emerging from the peritextual descriptions of the translated works.

3. Results of the analysis of the peritexts

As a result of the analysis, I identified three thematic groups that were highlighted in the peritexts: 1) the description of (Soviet) Russian past and post-Soviet society in gloomy tones; 2) the emphasis on realism and verisimilitude of the narration and 3) the praise of the writerly skills of the authors.

3.1. (Soviet) Russian past and post-Soviet society as tragic and chaotic

A notable and the most frequent peritextual characterization introduces the translated works as depicting (Soviet) Russian past and post-Soviet society as tragic and chaotic. Dozens of peritexts foreground the violent and traumatizing events addressed in the translated works, such as war experiences (e.g. Aleksijevitš, 2017; Babtšenko, 2010; Gordijenko, 2003 and 2006; Šiškin, 2012; Tšižova, 2020),¹⁰ discrimination and political repression (e.g. Gallego, 2006; Jahina, 2016; Kotšergin, 2016; Stepanova, 2019; Ulitskaja, 2014; Vodolazkin, 2018), ethnic conflicts (Ailisli, 2015; Aipin, 2013), ecological catastrophes (Aleksijevitš, 2000; Sentšin, 2019) and the whole Soviet history appearing as ‘transitions from one collective trauma to another’ (Stepanova, 2019).¹¹

In particular, post-Soviet Russian society comes up in the peritexts as suffering from various social problems. Irina Denezhkina’s novel Daj mne (1998, translated into Finnish ‘Give Me!’, 2004) is presented through the emphasis on young people’s miserable state in post-Soviet Russia: ‘The short stories in her debut collection depict the everyday life of Russian urban youth, often revolving around problems of substance abuse or awakening sexuality’ (Denežkina, 2004). The image of youth as a ‘lost generation’, and of post-Soviet Russian society as a violent and dangerous place is emphasized on the book cover of the autobiographical novel by DJ Stalingrad (pseudonym of Piotr Silaev):

[The book] tells the story of a lost generation, young people who grew up in the suburbs after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The suburbs are seen as insane places where bloody confrontations take place. Gangs and authorities are in a constant state of war. In these circumstances, there is no escaping tragic experiences. (DJ Stalingrad, 2012)

The peritextual descriptions of Denezhkina’s and DJ Stalingrad’s works mediate an image of Russian urban youth as ‘lost’, susceptible to ‘substance abuse’, ‘bloody confrontations’ and ‘tragic events’, indicating an insecure and violent society. Yet a further example emerging from the description of Ruben Gallego’s collection of short stories Beloe na chernom (2003, translated into Finnish: ‘White on Black’, 2006) states that ‘[t]he book is a grim and affecting, forthright account of a disabled boy’s survival in Soviet-era prison-like orphanages’ (Gallego, 2006). The misery and deteriorating state of Russian society emerges even as a normal state of affairs, as in the book cover text of Roman Senchin’s Ieltyshevy (2009, translated into Finnish: ‘The Ieltyshevs, a Family in Decline’, 2015): ‘Nikolai Mikhailovich Ieltyshev is a militiaman at a drunk tank and his wife Valentina Viktorovna is a librarian. The youngest son is in prison and the older one is spending time at home. A fairly ordinary Russian civil servant family’ (Sentšin, 2015).

On the other hand, the sad, insane and grim image of post-Soviet Russia comes up as a continuation of Russian and Soviet history in the peritexts. The Soviet system and its legacies in the post-Soviet Russian society are foregrounded in several peritexts, in which, e.g. the collapse of the Soviet Union has driven society into the hands of ‘high-ranking political commissars and old KGB agents’ (Marinina, 2003) and is dominated by ‘corruption and criminality’ (Konstantinov, 2001). The peritextual description of Evgenii Popov’s novel Master khaos (2002, translated into Finnish ‘Master Chaos’, 2003) states that although ‘systems and states collapse, Russia remains the same’ (Popov, 2003). Post-Soviet Russia is seen as affected by the cultural forms and norms of the Soviet period as in the translations of Pelevin’s Generation P and Victor Erofeyev’s novels translated in the first decade of the twentieth century. The next quotation is from the book cover text of the Finnish translation of Erofeyev’s Mushchiny (1997, translated into Finnish: ‘Men’, 2005): ‘[Erofeyev] exposes the cultural facades and the stinging subconscious of the male-female relationship. [He] takes a particularly interesting look at how the Soviet system has contributed to these cramps in the gender system and the labyrinths of Russianness in general.’ (Jerofejev, 2005) Interestingly Erofeyev’s book Men is catalogued in the Finnish library cataloguing system as ‘Gender studies’, a subcategory of publications in the field of Social Sciences. This suggests that the Finnish convention of reading translations of Russian fiction perceives them as corresponding to the reality of Russian society and mediating transparent information about Russia.

3.2. Emphasis on realism and verisimilitude

The peritexts also frequently bring out that the translated works are based on historical life-stories or events, as in the case of the peritextual description of DJ Stalingrad’s novel Iskhod (2010, translated into Finnish: ‘Exodus’, 2012) quoted above. The book cover text highlights that ‘the story of the lost generation’ of post-Soviet youth living in the ‘insane places’ is accompanied by a dedication ‘to a good friend of the author who was found stabbed to death in front of his home in 2008’ (DJ Stalingrad, 2012). Emphasizing the documentary quality is understandable in the case of translated books that are based on autobiographical experiences of the author, Eduard Kochergin’s autobiographical novel Kreshchennye krestami: Zapiski na kolenkakh (2009, translated into Finnish: ‘Crossed with Crosses: Notes Down on One’s Knees’’, 2016) is an example of a work of this kind: ‘In August 1945, eight-year-old Eduard Kochergin escaped from a detention center (…) for children of the enemies of the people, where he had been sent after the execution of his father and the imprisonment of his mother’ (Kotšergin, 2016). However, it is not as expected that the emphasis on verisimilitude comes up particularly in the peritexts of the translations of detective novels, foregrounding the verisimilitude of the novels’ representations of post-Soviet society. The translation of Andrei Konstantinov’s novel ‘The Deadly Troika’ (2001, exceptionally translated from the Swedish edition Dödlig troika, 1999) is described as a ‘shocking but realistic portrayal of the laws and everyday life of St Petersburg’s underworld and the corruption of the country’s judiciary’ (Konstantinov, 2001). Also, Alexandra Marinina, the most translated author of this genre with her novels featuring Anastasiia Kamenskaia as the protagonist, is praised as portraying a truthful picture of Russia: ‘Social inequality, problems of freedom of expression, the mafia – Russia’s queen of crime fiction truthfully describes the current state of her country’ (Marinina, 2008). In the same way the translation of Polina Dashkova’s work, defined as a thriller, is characterized as ‘engaging yet factual and psychologically believable’ (Dashkova, 2020). The image of post-Soviet society comes up as a rapidly changing, chaotic and even anarchistic space, where criminals, corruption and social inequality are part of the daily lives of Russians.

This image of post-Soviet society in the peritextual descriptions is notably linked with the collapse and falsehood of the Soviet system and society, and the legacies and memories of the Soviet period. The mishaps and falsehood of the Soviet system as well as its collapse are emphasized in the peritexts of the novels of the Belarusian Nobel prize winning author Svetlana Alexievich based on her large interview materials (Aleksijevitš, 2000 and 2018), and of Victor Erofeyev (Jerofejev, 2007 and 2009). Erofeyev’s Entsiklopediia russkoi dushi (1999, translated into Finnish: ‘Encyclopedia of Russian Soul’, 2009) is described as focusing on ‘a paranoid, contradictory and twisted historical and contemporary Russianness’ (Jerofejev, 2009) as well as revealing the moral decay of Soviet society and illuminating the problematic state of contemporary Russia: ‘Underlying the whole Soviet Satyricon is not only horror and madness, but also an inevitable moral choice. The stream of revelations also sheds unique light on the most poignant crises and contradictions of contemporary Russia.’ Alexievich’s Vremia sekond khend (2013, translated into Finnish: ‘The End of Homo Sovieticus: When the Present Became Secondhand’, 2018) is described as a book in which, ‘ordinary Russians tell what life was like when the Soviet Union collapsed and what it is like to live in a Russia born from the ruins of a giant’ (Aleksijevitš, 2018). It is notable that, as different as these authors (Alexievich, Dashkova, Erofeyev, Konstantinov, Marinina) and their works are in terms of writerly style and image, what emerges as common in the peritexts is the description of (post)Soviet society from the viewpoint of moral and material collapse, as well as the emphasis on the truth and information value of the translations.

3.3. ‘Brutal reality’ created by ‘Beautiful prose’

Although the peritexts guiding the readers on how to read the translations draw dramatic and grim pictures of Russia, the authors and their writerly skills are praised in many ways. The realistic and shocking stories are contrasted with skillful and beautiful narration and writerly style. Interestingly, sometimes tragic life experiences and histories could be viewed as ‘funny and tragic’ (Griškovets, 2012), ‘tragicomic and absurd’ (Ulitskaja, 2014) or ‘shocking but beautiful’ at the same time (Aleksijevitš, 2000). The writer and journalist Arkadi Babchenko’s autobiographical stories about his participation in the two Chechen wars is described as ‘translat[ing] the harsh and brutal reality of the military into challenging and sometimes eerily beautiful prose’ (Babtšenko, 2010). In the same way, the novel by Andrei Volos on the Moscow 2002 theater hostage crisis, where over a hundred hostages were killed, is described as ‘a gripping, imaginative tapestry about this dark subject, with no shortage of fantastical elements’ (Volos, 2012). Sergei Lebedev’s spy novel Debiutant (2020, translated into Finnish: ‘Impossible to Trace’, 2021) about unexplained cases of poisonings of Russian individuals, is described as a ‘fierce, genre-bending tale, [in which] Lebedev weaves suspense with hauntingly beautiful prose that traces the historical trajectory of evil from Nazi laboratories, Stalinist plots and wars in Chechnya to present-day Russia’ (Lebedev, 2021). On the other hand, the translations of works about more ordinary and intimate stories are frequently described as ‘warm’, ‘heartfelt’, ‘psychologically accurate’, ‘sharp’, ‘light-hearted’, ‘satirical’, and ‘witty’ (Dashkova, 2020; Kljutšarjova, 2010; Pelevin, 2002; Ulitskaja, 2015 and 2018). References to the tradition of Russian literature and Russian classics come up frequently in connection to Ulitskaya, but also to Erofeyev, Pelevin and Marinina. The peritext to Natalia Kliuchareva’s Rossiia: obshchii vagon (2008, translated into Finnish: ‘In Third Class’, 2010) gives an illustrative example:

The book is … a description of the situation in contemporary Russia, which in its absurdity is reminiscent of the cheerful, carefree chaos of the Russian classics. The National Bolsheviks get their due, as do the alcohol-fueled artists. The satirical edge is undeniable, but the atmosphere is far from metal-cold: the love story covers the whole spectrum of human emotions, and the most disadvantaged and freaks of nature in Russian society are warmly portrayed. Funny and loosely light-hearted, In Third Class is a little diamond in the rough: both firmly rooted in the best traditions of Russian literature and refreshingly original. (Kljutšarjova, 2010)

This description condenses the main recurring characteristics emerging from the peritextual descriptions of the Finnish translations, which taken together form a peculiar, rather mixed, and contradictory image of Russia and Russian literature. On the one hand there is the image of Russia as an absurd and chaotic place with a history of tragic events and life-stories. On the other hand, the translations are presented as eloquent works of literary art that stem from the ‘best traditions of Russian literature’ (Kljutšarjova, 2010).

4. Discussion

The goal of my investigation was to find out how the peritexts of the Finnish translations manifest the reception of post-Soviet Russian fiction by target-culture readers. The topics of the translated works, as a rule, were described as mediating information about tragic life-stories and historical events of Soviet and/or Russian history and about the problematic state of post-Soviet Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The peritextual characterizations often also suggest that the translations offer realistic and truthful descriptions of Russian history and society. This suggestion of reading narrative fiction as transparent mediation of information emerges as a ‘horizon of expectation’ (Jauss, 1970/1989) towards translations of post-Soviet Russian fiction in Finland. The concept, coined by Hans Robert Jauss, describes the dynamic relationship between a literary work and the reader, indicating culture-bound and historically changing norms and expectation towards literary works of a certain author, period, or genre. The expectation of realism when reading translations of post-Soviet Russian fiction, appears so strong in the peritexts that even such genres as thrillers and detective novels are recommended to be read as realistic transparent information about Russian society.

However, the peritexts also praised the authors’ skill and ability to create good literature, which can be seen as a will to enhance the quality of the translations as literary texts, even if the translations were otherwise promoted as conveying authentic information about Russia. However, references to the use of particular literary techniques and devices are a rarity in the peritexts. The very few examples include the description of the translation of Valeriia Narbikova’s book, noting that ‘[t]he author mixes the language of poetry and prose, and her stream-of-consciousness language plays with repetition and the unusual use of everyday expressions’ (Narbikova, 2015). Narbikova’s prose works were published in Finnish thanks to their translator, Arja Pikkupeura, an awarded translator from Russian and the translator of Ulitskaya’s and Pelevin’s works in Finland. Without Pikkupeura’s efforts, Narbikova’s works would probably not have been translated. This case exemplifies how it is not only pre-perceptions, political and cultural trends, but also personal interests and contacts that influence the selection of what is to be translated (Gentile et al., 2021, p. 1). However, cases like this seem more an exception than a rule based on the data offered by the majority of the peritexts.

While fiction is a highly valuable means of reading about diverse worldviews, ideologies and experiences not otherwise accessible to us, recommending a realistic reading mode of translated fiction can also be deemed problematic. Alvstad (2012) notes that ‘the relationship between translated literature and knowledge about a region or its people is complicated’’ and continues that ‘[t]he relationship between reality and fictional space is particularly complicated for translated as opposed to non-translated literature’ (p. 86). While being part of the literary system of the source society and culture, the source texts of post-Soviet fiction are not a direct reflection of reality in the first place. Translation adds yet another layer of selection and interpretation to the textual representation. The peritexts of Finnish translations of post-Soviet Russian fiction highlighting the translated works’ truthful depiction of Russian society can be deemed problematic: First, they fail to consider that source texts do not necessarily aim at transmitting factual, documentary information to readers; second, the preconceptions and expectations towards Russian culture and literature complicate even further the translation and adaptation process of the source text into Finnish.

As a final concluding remark, it is noteworthy that in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 only one new translation from Russian appeared: Neveroiatnye proisshestviia v zhenskoi kamere No 3 (2020, translated into Finnish: ‘Women’s Cell Number 3’, 2022) by Kira Iarmysh. The book cover text describes it as ‘based on the experiences of Alexei Navalny’s spokesperson of contemporary Russian reality’ (Jarmysh, 2022). In 2022 appeared also the re-prints of Alexievich’s Vremia sekond khend and the Ukrainian author Andrei Kurkov’s Russian-language novel Smert´ postoronnego (1996, translated into Finnish: ‘Death and the Penguin’). In 2023 four new translations from Russian appeared: Alexievich’s Tsinkovye mal´chiki (1991, translated into Finnish: ‘Zinc Boys’) about the soldiers’ and their families’ experiences of the war in Afghanistan, in 1979–1989, Oksana Vasyakina’s Rana (2021, translated into Finnish: ‘Wound’), an autofictional novel about same-sex love, feminism and the mother-daughter relationship, Kurkov’s Serye pchely (2018, translated into Finnish: ‘Gray Bees’) about the beginning of the war in East Ukraine, and Olga Trifonova’s Edinstvennaia (2010, translated into Finnish: ‘My Only One’) about Nadezhda Alliluyeva who was Stalin’s wife and died prematurely under suspicious circumstances. In the same year, a re-print of the émigré writer Mikhail Shishkin’s Venerin volos (2005, translated into Finnish: ‘Maiden Hair’) was also published with newly added translator’s comments and his collection of essays, Frieden oder Krieg: Russland und der Westen – Eine Annäherung, was translated into Finnish from the original German version. The front cover text of the essay collection’s translation poses the question: ‘What is wrong with Russia and why?’ (Šiškin, 2023). The success of Shishkin’s collection¹² as well as the translations of new voices of minority (Vasyakina) and opposition (Iarmysh) might signal that the niche for translations of Russophone fiction is changing in the Finnish literary market, but whether the habit of reading realistically is changing remains to be seen.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marja Sorvari

Marja Sorvari is professor of Russian literature and culture at the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu Campus. Her research interests include the translation and reception of Russian literature in Finland, post-Soviet Russophone literature, transnational literature, as well as gender and cultural memory. Her recent publications include the monograph Displacement and (Post)memory in Post-Soviet Women’s Writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and the article “Mediating (Post)memory in Multilingual and Multicultural Writing: The Autobiographical Texts of Katharina Martin-Virolainen and Anna Soudakova” published in the volume The Legacies of Soviet Repression and Displacement. The Multiple and Mobile Lives of Memories edited by Samira Saramo and Ulla Savolainen (Routledge, 2023).

Notes

1 Tiina Virtanen’s MA Thesis (2006) addresses the period after the disintegration of the USSR until 2005. The research project “Texts on the Move: Reception of Women’s Writing in Finland and Russia, 1840–2020” led by Viola Parente-Čapková (University of Turku) also covers the period from 2000–2023 from the viewpoint of translations of literature written by women writers and focuses especially on cultural transmitters and transmission from a transnational perspective (see Parente-Čapková, 2023). Huttunen et al. (2024) deal very briefly with the translations of the 21st century (p. 82).

2 As Jänis and Pesonen (2007a, p. 196) describe, after Finland’s independence from Russia in 1917, the political relations between the countries were poor and the attitude toward Russian literature and culture was negative throughout the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s. In addition, the reception was highly politicized, one example of this being that Soviet contemporary literature was introduced to Finnish readers almost solely ‘by left-wing radical’ journals (Savutie, 1973, p. 423). After the Soviet Union’s victory in 1944, however, political relations between the countries changed, and cultural collaboration increased as part of building peace between the countries.

3 Here Finlandization refers to an excessive pro-Soviet attitude, forms of self-control and self-censorship in Finland between the late 1960s and late 1980s.

4 This number includes the second translation of Svetlana Alexievich’s U voiny ne zhenskoe litso, which was first published in Russian in 1985, and a second, extended edition of which appeared in 2004. The novel was first translated into Finnish in 1988, and the second translation based on the extended 2004 version appeared in 2017.

5 The number of new publications of translated fiction from all languages per year between 2010–2021 was around 300 (Julkaistut uudet nimikkeet, painetut kirjat, http://tilastointi.kustantajat.fi/vuositilasto/painetut-julkaistut-uudet-nimikkeet/2021, accessed 2 August 2022). In the twenty-first century the share of translations from Russian has been around one per cent of all translated fiction, the overwhelming majority of which is translated from English.

6 Each year, the theme aims to highlight the literature, culture and people of a country of interest to Finns through the content of the fair (STT info, 2014, December 1).

7 On the historical background and the process of seeking NATO membership, see Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland%E2%80%93NATO_relations#Membership [accessed 11 July 2023].

8 The Finnish translation of Svetlana Alexievich’s novel Tsinkovye mal´chiki was recommended during the radio programme “Book Tips for the Spring” among the most interesting books because it helps to understand Russia and Russianness (Kulttuuriykkönen, 2023).

9 One collection of Petrushevskaia’s stories was translated in 1988 and two of her fairy tale books appeared in 2003, and one collection of Tolstaia’s short stories was also published in 1989, and one short story in an anthology of Russian prose fiction in 2015.

10 When referring to the translated works I use the Finnish transliteration of the authors’ names in references, e.g., Aleksijevitš. Otherwise, author names widely known to an English-speaking readership are given in their conventional forms, e.g., Alexievich, or according to the modified Library of Congress transliteration style.

11 Translations from the Finnish peritexts into English are mine.

12 The translation was the 5th best-selling book in Finland in February 2023 (Kirjakauppaliitto, 2023), which is rare for a translation of a book by a Russian author.