Napis (Jan 2018)
Problem gatunku Opowiadań kołymskich Warłama Szałamowa a ich edycje w języku polskim
Abstract
The article discusses the translations and the history of publishing of The Kolyma Tales in Poland, from the first underground booklets released in the 1980s which contained merely a dozen or so stories selected from the famous London publication, Колымские рассказы, published by Mikhail Heller in 1978. They were the first presentations of the work. Thus, for translators, it was essential that such important pieces reached the Polish reader as quickly as possible, at least in excerpts. One of the translators, Stefan Wodnik (born Adam Bal), took on the task of rendering a significantly larger selection of the stories accessible, but it was still not the entirety. In the introduction, he carried out an interpretation of Shalamov's work, combined with the justification of his own translational choices, including the necessity to reorganise the order of many of the stories in relation to their London original. It was only the next translator, engineer Juliusz Baczyński, who had not up to then been professionally involved in translating, who rendered the entire London tome. In Poland, it is still considered the full translation of The Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov, although, as we know today, it diverts significantly from the author’s version in its selection and organisation of individual stories. His translation was very highly regarded by, among others, Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, a distinguished writer and prominent expert of gulag literature and the works of Shalamov himself.
