News
20/12/2022. Foreign/Own: Julgröten, Christmas Porridge and Rastavanpudro
Participants of the first and second streams gathered at the final calendar year program of the Foreign/Own project. They learned about many "literary recipes" and discussed the translation of the Christmas Porridge fairy-tale by Sven Nordqvist into Karelian.
The first part of the program was a lecture, and the participants went on a "literary gastronomic journey". From the story of a library employee, the listeners learned that dishes and delicacies can not only acquire different flavour’s in the hands of culinary masters, but also have different semantic content, appearing in the books by literary masters. In the final part of the review of fiction, where one or another dish plays a role in the plot, participants spoke about Christmas treats, traditions and books. One of these books was the Christmas Porridge fairy-tale by a Swedish writer Sven Nordqvist. The participants began to exchange views on the meanings of the fairy-tale and discuss the intricacies of translation in the second part of the program.
This fabulous and colourful story was previously chosen for translation into Karelian. The text in Russian was divided among eleven participants of the language courses, each one translated his/her own fragment. The result of the collective work and editorial support of Tatyana Baranova, teacher of the Karelian language, was a translation of the Swedish Julgröten fairy-tale into Karelian language – Rastavanpudro. It was created especially for the program of the Foreign/Own project.
The participants noted that reading this fairy tale and working on the translation helped create a festive Christmas mood. They recalled both the traditions of celebrating Christmas and personal stories associated with this magical holiday.
Foreign/Own is a literary and linguistic project. The participants in the project study the Karelian language at language courses. Since 2018, the course program is complemented by monthly meetings at the National Library of Karelia within the framework of the Foreign/Own project. The project offers participants an introduction to the biographies and works of foreign writers, works of world literature and a subsequent discussion of the texts.
