Sõeludes dekadentsi. Gabriele D’Annunzio tõlge ja retseptsioon XX sajandi alguse eesti kultuuris

Abstract

The article examines the Estonian translations and reception of the Italian decadent writer, poet, and playwright Gabriele D’Annunzio during the period 1906–1915, encompassing a total of 13 published translations. These include a series of short stories featured in Estonian newspapers and magazines, along with two separate books: the novel Süütu (“The Innocent”, 1913) and a collection of D’Annunzio’s short stories titled Mäss (“Revolt”, 1915). The latter initiatives were associated with the modernist movement Young Estonia (Noor-Eesti), with Young Estonian poet and language reformer Villem Grünthal Ridala emerging as the most prolific Estonian translator of D’Annunzio. An analysis of the newspaper and book translations reveals a consis­tent pattern of omitting or significantly manipulating the overtly explicit or morbid erotic passages found in the original works, for instance when D’Annunzio evokes forbidden sexual relations (such as incest) or associates feminine fertility and reproductive function with disease and bodily decomposition. Reviews of the translations also conveyed a somewhat negative attitude towards the content of D’Annunzio’s works, and even the Young Estonians expressed admiration for his style rather than the decadent motifs and poetics. Ridala’s translations set themselves apart from other newspaper translations by striving to closely reproduce D’Annunzio’s style, boldly leveraging it to advance Young Estonia’s project of renewing the Estonian literary language. This is especially pronounced in the translation of “The Innocent”, which not only outraged critics hostile to Young Estonia’s agenda, but also raised doubts among the movement’s own members. The analysis of the Estonian translations and reception of D’Annunzio at the beginning of the 20th century thus underscores a series of ambivalences in Young Estonia’s attitudes towards the motifs and poetics of European decadence, on the one hand, and the renewal of the Estonian language and literary style through translation, on the other.

Keywords

• literary studies
• gabriele d’annunzio
• young estonia
• decadence
• naturalism
• translation