Keywords: poetic word, Turkmen literature, kinds of translations, human values.
Each nation has its own history, which is connected with spiritual and moral culture coming from ancestors. Turkmen poetry has always reflected the life of the ancient Turkmen land. In this land, the place of the poetic word is great, and the cities are heavily invested. It is said that «a poet is greater than just being a poet» and this appreciation of the creative work and the role of poets in life also applies to Turkmen poets.
Magtymguly Pyragy's creativity is widely recognized throughout the world as the prime example of the spiritual values of the Turkmen people. His worldview and philosophy, which are focused on nationalism and human values, have been of interest to the scientists of our country and the world, as well as the general public, for almost three centuries.
Magtymguly's works have a special place in introducing Turkmenistan and its national outlook to the world. That is why the translation of the poet's works into world languages is of great importance. Until now, the works of the great Turkmen thinker have been translated into dozens of languages. A tradition of translating the poet's works into some world languages has been formed, following the original principles.
The literary heritage of Magtymguly Pyragy, the great thinker-poet of the East, has been world-famous for many centuries, and his creativity, which raises issues related to universal human life, has attracted the attention of famous scientists. The poet's works have been translated into world languages and published again and again.
Magtymguly's poems have been translated into several languages of the world. Translation is an art. To be a master of this art, a translator must have a good knowledge of the source language, the target language, and the content of the work being translated. The quality of the translation depends on the translator's understanding of the concept of the translator's skill. The original must be translated mechanically, not literally, but literally. Thus, the translator is not required to mechanically translate each sentence word by word, but to recreate the original text in its fullness and richness with the means of his mother tongue, the translation should give the reader a complete and accurate understanding of the original text and its author.
Let's take as an example the translation of Magtymguly's poem «Turkmen» into English:
In between the Amu-Darya and the Caspian Sea,
The wind of Turkmen expands from the desert.
The bud of a flower — the blackness of my eye
From the dark mountains comes the flood of Turkmen
In the second line of this poem, the translator used the words of literary translation. The translator adapts the meaning to the norms of the native language in terms of stylistic content using the substitution method. The translator did not translate the last line of the poem verbatim, but managed to give a close to the original.
The peoples belonging to the translated languages recognized the profound creativity of the poet and honored him along with their famous poets and writers. In Russia, Magtymguly was seen on a par with L. Tolstoy, and in England with W. Shakespeare.
The first edition of Magymguli's poetic works, i.e. his three poems with a brief biography, was published in 1842 by the Polish scholar and writer Aleksandr Hodzko-Borejko. Wenger's scholar German Wamberi met the manuscript of Magtymguly's works in Budapest, and his translation of 31 poems into German was published in Leipzig in 1879. In 1911, a collection of short poems of Magtymguly was prepared by N. P. Ostraumnov and published in Tashkent in the Arabic alphabet.
In 1872, two poems of F. A. Bakulin Magtymguly were translated into Russian. The works of Russian poets A. Tarkovsky, M. Tarlovsky, Y. Gordiyenko are worthy of mention in the translation of the poet's poems into Russian. Academician A. N. Samoylovich and professor I. N. Berezin have a great work in studying his creativity.
When these translators, whose mother tongue is Russian, translated Magtymguly's works from the Turkmen language into Russian, they had to use mostly preliminary line-by-line translated materials. To some extent, this caused difficulties in achieving the equality of the content world of the original with the translation, and as a result, the differences of the translated text from the original were increasing. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the translation of individual works of Magtymguly into Russian was very successful with the dedication and talent of the mentioned translators.
The experience gained in translation of Pyragy's deeply meaningful works into world languages shows that there are a number of urgent problems that require a solution in this field.
First of all, it is necessary to use effective methods and effects in order to express the poet's outlook and national identity as fully as possible in the translation. For this, one should follow the principle of translating the meanings of the words into Thai based on the vocabulary of Pyragy's works, depending on the context.
The problem of translating old and obsolete words in the works of Magtymguly has a great impact on the content of his works being equal to the original in other languages. It is necessary to prepare and publish their own dictionary in the form of a book in order to make the methods of using these words more effective.
The translation of Pyragy's poems tests the norms of poetic composition in other languages. There is a need to create a principled tradition in this regard in translations of the poet's works in a specific foreign language.
Achieving perfection in the translation of the works of Magtymguly, the most prominent representative of Turkmen literature, into world languages will serve as a basis for translating our other literary works into foreign languages.
During the period of Independence, Magtymgulu's works were republished and are being republished based on manuscripts found not only among the people of his Motherland, but also abroad and studied by scientists.
Abdyrahman Duyeji translated the great sage's divan of poets into Persian and published it under the title of «Magtymguly Pyragy's Biography and Selected Poems». The 285-page book was provided with a foreword by the translator. In the foreword, Magtymguly Pyragy's thoughts and attitudes towards the poets' divan are described. First of all, the book presents the original Turkmen version of Magtymguly poems in the old Turkmen script — Arabic script, followed by the Persian translation of the poem written in the Persian alphabet. This book contains 53 poems of Magtymguly with Persian translation.
References:
- K. M. Kuliev. «Makhtumkuli» — Magaryph, 1987
- «Folk novels about Makhtumkuli « — TDNG, 1959
- Makhtumkuli’s lyrics world and world languages — TDNG, 2014
