Reconsidering Nahdawi Translation: bringing Pushkin to Palestine

Abstract

Translation occupies a central position in any narrative of the Arabic literary renaissance, or nahdah, of the nineteenth century. The vast majority of these translations, however, have been discounted as less than literary because of the freedoms that they took in altering the source texts as they translated. Consequently, few scholars have looked closely at the translations that figure so prominently in the development of literary language, genres and style during this dynamic period. Turning critical attention to the practices of nahdawi translators highlights the agency of the translator in actively shaping the cultural discourse of the nahdah. In this article, I take the work of Khalil Baydas (1872–1949) as representative of the free translation practices characteristic of the nahdah. A prominent Palestinian journalist and translator, Baydas translated many works of Russian literature into Arabic, always making clear that he altered the stories as he translated them. A close reading of his 1898 translation of Alexander Pushkin’s novella The Captain’s Daughter sheds light on the complexity of Baydas’ translation practice. Shifting the focus to the deliberate choices that he makes in altering the text illuminates the different layers of information and context that are contained within the translation.

Keywords:

• nahdah
• translation
• Palestine
• Arabic
• Russian
• Pushkin
• Baydas

Notes

1. All English translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

2. More recent works that discuss Baydas’ life and work, such as Abu Hanna (2005) and Salih (2005) depend exclusively on this earlier volume for their information.

3. This was not his only translation to be published in 1899; Baydas also published translations of a handful of religious texts from Russian in that same year, including a book of the lives of the saints entitled Tarikh al-aqmar al-thalatha (The History of the Three Great Hierarchs: [Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrisostom]) (1899b) and some textbooks in various subjects for primary students. Unfortunately, it is not clear exactly when Baydas entered or graduated from the IOPS School in Nazareth.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Spencer Scoville

Spencer Scoville has a PhD in Arabic Literature from the University of Michigan. He is an assistant professor of Arabic at Brigham Young University. His research interests include nahdawi literature, Russian-Arab cultural relations, and modern Arabic prose fiction. In addition to his scholarly work, he has published a number of translations of Arabic fiction.