Antons Austriņš as a translator of Dmitry Merezhkovsky

• Main Author: Gordin A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University 2013-01-01
• Series: Слово.ру: балтийский акцент
• Subjects: literary translation; modernism; symbolism; latvian literature
• Online Access: https://journals.kantiana.ru/eng/slovo/1372/3914/

The transaltions of D. Merezhkovsky’s works into the Latvian langauge by A. Austriņš help analyse the receptions of Russian symbolism in the Latvian culture of the 19th-20th centuries. The author suggests that A. Austriņš’s decision to translate D. Merezhkovsky texts was affected by the historical background of the 1910s – the formation of national ideas in the regions of the Russian empire, the search for peoples’ self-identity, and the 1905 revolution as a major historical event. Austriņš’s translations are comparable to the reception of Merezhkovsky in the national cultural environment and demonstrate the reflection on the works of the Russian author.