“THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV” IN GERMAN TRANSLATIONS: TRANSLATING THE RUSSIANNESS OF DOSTOYEVSKY’S STYLE

Abstract

: The article investigates the challenges of rendering the peculiarities of Dostoyevsky’s style linked to his philosophy of man and religious attitudes in four German translations of “The Brothers Karamazov”. The category of uncertainty is intrinsic to both Russian mentality and Dostoyevsky’s writing manner. However, the textual markers of uncertainty are perceived by German translators as essentially “foreign” and therefore may hinder the readers’ understanding. The paper reveals various approaches to conveying the desired semantic effect of uncertainty in the translations and points out problematic issues.

Keywords

• Dostoyevsky
• translation
• Russianness
• style
• uncertainty