Olga Ivanova — Russia Today News Agency: «You can’t be a good translator without knowing Latin»

20 April 2021

Author: Press-sluzhba RosNOU

The Union of Translators of Russia, headed by Olga Ivanova, Candidate of Cultural Studies, Associate Professor, Research Director of the Institute of Technologies for Humanities of the Russian New University (RosNOU), is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2021. On this occasion, "Russia Today" News Agency organized an online conference of the President of the Union of Translators of Russia (UTR).

At the conference, Olga Ivanova answered questions about the importance of the UTR for the professional community, noted the positive and negative impact of digital technologies on the translation profession, compared the position of classical dead and modern languages in translation, and, of course, told about the history of the organization and its goals.

Excerpts from an interview with Olga Ivanova to «Russia Today»

On the impact of digital technologies on the translation profession

It is good that digital technologies are available. Due to globalization, the volume of translation activities is growing, translators often have problems, critical situations in their work, and the ability to shift the routine part of it to modern technical devices makes life easier for translators. However, no one cancels the responsibility of a person for the product of labor, and if there are complaints about this product, they will be addressed to the translator, and not to the machine — it is only a tool. I do not believe that artificial intelligence will take over all the translation functions. If this happens, human civilization will cease to exist.

About popular modern languages

Until recently, the languages of the countries of the socialist community were in demand in Russia. Now it is a problem to find a good specialist, for example, in Hungarian or Serbian. The market for translators from the Persian language, which is rare but very popular, also requires a fresh influx of forces — various interesting areas are connected with it.

The situation with the Vietnamese language is worse than 15 years ago. It seems to me that interest in the Japanese language is also falling, although 25 years ago there was a real boom. Today, the number of Japanese students is small.

If you choose a couple of working languages, as it is offered in the university, then I would not choose English as the main one. It is better to choose eastern and rare European languages, including Slavic — Czech, Bulgarian, which is not as simple as it seems, being analytical in its grammatical structure.

About dead languages

It is necessary for translators to learn classical languages. There is no widespread demand for dead languages, but as part of the knowledge system, their study must be revived en masse. The principle of their study is aimed at getting the brain to work. For example, I consider Latin to be a pre-translation discipline. You can't be a good translator without knowing Latin and Greek. Mastering them is the way to the international vocabulary, the way to understanding the word. Let me remind you that before the translation of the Bible from Greek, there was no word "conscience" in Russian. The literary form of the Russian language is in one form or another an arrangement from the Greek.

For many years, the Union of Translators of Russia was the only translation organization. The main task of the UTR since its foundation is the formation of a professional community. It includes those without whom translation is impossible — translators, translation specialists, terminologists, linguists.

Although the Union was registered as an all-Russian public organization only in 1996, the date of its foundation is considered to be 1991, when the Inter-Republican Union of Translators was established and its first congress was held. "All the provisions adopted at the congress were included in the charter, the ideas formed the basis of the Union's activities," – the President noted. She recalled that the organization was founded by an outstanding translator Leonid O. Gurevich: "an amazing person, devoted to the idea; he remained for many years the head of the Union." According to Olga Yuryevna, today the professional organization continues to work within the traditions created by Gurevich, and acquires new, consonant with the time, qualities.

By honoring its teachers — Gurevich, Feldman and many others — the UTR will begin the celebration of the anniversary. "Within the framework of the festive events, a series of meetings dedicated to the Russian translation studies and its representatives will be held. The first meeting was dedicated to Evgeny D. Feldman, a famous translator of English poetry. On May 19, the birthday of the Inter-Republican Union of Translators, an online conference will be held. Then there will be a series of webinars with the participation of foreign colleagues who will talk about their approaches to teaching translation and how translators are trained in their countries," – Olga Ivanova shared her plans for the upcoming celebration.

As part of the events, a Summer Translation School is also planned, to which students and their mentors are traditionally invited. This year, the school's classes will be held as part of the Translation Forum in Nizhny Novgorod.

The culmination of the anniversary will be a scientific and practical conference, which will be held in September 2021 and will be devoted to various issues of translation.