Belarusian Translation: Milestones in history, current status.

Chapter I. The Theoretical Basis of the Research

At that time some features of translation of West Russian language appeared, which later developed into properly Belarusian. This process is characterized not only and not so much by the formation of a separate literary language – it remained “Russian” till modern times by title and by its basic laws. So, there is a base to talk about the distinctive edition of existing codification and normativity by reacting with live speech of local areas, about its own sources of borrowings, not only lexical ones. At the same time we shouldn’t forget that in the XIX century " on pages of Russian anthologies some examples of folk poetry of Serbs, Slovaks, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Bulgarians appeared. This poetry very seldom was accompanied by explanations of incomprehensible words and phrases.

The participation of people of Belarusian origin in translation in the XVII – XIX centuries into Polish and Russian language is also noteworthy. For example, Plakida Jankowski was the first translator of Shakespeare into Polish, as well as the first translator of Shakespeare in Belarus.

The great interest for the research in translation theory have a lot of facts, when the works of local folklore after varying polishing became the works of Polish literature. It occurred also in Russian language, but not at the same size.

Belarusian translation appeared, when Belarusian language got the codification and the status - when the need in explanation from it or into it appeared, because it already had its own differentiation in the relation to other languages, including close ones. There is a reason to talk about the Belarusian translated works of Vincent Dunin-Marcinkiewicz, Albert Obukhovich, Yanka Luchyna. [11, p.108]

The development of Belarusian translation started to be stimulated in the XX century. And the real development and the significant results of Belarusian translation was seen only in the 1930s, when a lot of translated works from different languages ​ ​ of the world and the creative work of the Belarusia translators became the significant factor of the development of national literature and language. The good example of this development was the translation of the novel “Quiet Flows the Don” by Mikhail Sholokhov. It was translated by Uladzimir Hadyka.

Belarusian translation achieved the highest standard in 1980s. But then, as it was earlier and later, it had its own specific character because of the situation of bilingualism.

Each person has individual abilities and will to contacts, as well as their special needs in them and their different results. Something like that is typical for literature - they form a connection, perceiving and mastering values on their owns.

We should say that world literature and modern works of foreign authors have been distributing and operating only in Russian language for ages. There were few Belarusian translations. It had a very bad impact on national literature. The real state of things illustrates the demand for Belarusian-translated works in the network of public libraries. Due to the lack of formal and comprehensive information, however, we have to deal with our own calculations and observations. And it turns out is this: during the 1980-85 years Belarusian translations in compare with Russian ones were ordered in a ratio between 1: 100. Comments, as you can see, are not needed. In the late 80s and early 90s there were very good prospects - the series of " Treasures of the world literature" and several anthologies and Belarusian textbook on foreign literature for schools were published, teaching foreign literature system for both secondary and higher education was partly translated into Belarusian. Meanwhile, the increase of the circulation of the translation of the Belarusian books did not appeared. The policy on the total commercialization of the publishing business made ​ ​ the situation worse. The number of Belarusian translation decreased. Perceiving translation as an important means of identification of literature, we must evaluate the author's translation - a specific kind of creative self-realization. Talented author's translation is always an event, it is a manifestation of generosity of the translator, his hard work, and it’s always a new value.