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24/01/2023. Foreign/Own project: history of education and translation
On the 24th of January – on the eve of the Students’ Day, the National Library of Karelia held a program of the Foreign/Own project. It was dedicated to the history of the holiday, education and translation science in Russia. For the participants of the project who study the Karelian language, the educational process is inextricably linked to translation. As the history shows, the development of education and translation science and practice have always been interconnected.
It is widely known that Students’ Day is timed to coincide with the date of the establishment of Moscow State University (MSU). The decree on the establishment of the university was signed by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna on January 23 (January 12, old style) 1755. The idea of its creation belonged to the Adjutant General of the Empress Ivan Shuvalov and the Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov. Subsequently, due to the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, the founding date of Moscow State University moved to January 25. This information, as well as existing students’ signs and rituals, the project participants not only remembered, but also translated into Karelian. As noted by those who worked on the translation, it was not easy to translate non-fiction text and to select analogues of some words in Karelian.
But it turned out that some of the first translators of texts into Russian at the beginning of the 18th century had faced the same problem. As participants learned from the lecture part of the program, the principles of translation, which are still relevant today, had begun to take shape much earlier than Students’ Day and Moscow State University arose. The participants of the program followed the course of the history of translation: slow in the 9th - 17th centuries and impetuous in Peter the Great’s era. During Peter the Great’s time, who personally edited many translations of scientific and technical books, basic approaches that are still used today were formed: do not translate literally, do not obscure the meaning, do not embellish speech. At the same time, the first dictionaries of foreign words, schools of foreign languages appeared, and the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences was established.
The program participants discussed with interest the peculiarities of the translation process and the difficulties that translators face, both today and in the 18th century.
You can read more about the time and process of the formation of translation science in various publications presented in the National Library of Karelia.
