Ivan Turgenev’s Letters on Translation

Ivan Turgenev’s surviving correspondence of more than seven thousand published letters which covers over fifty years may serve as yet more convincing evidence of close ties between literary translation and Russian attempts at cultural self-definition in the second half of the nineteenth century. It registers Turgenev’s opinion of various major contemporary literary events and in particular his views on the mechanisms of literary exchanges between Russia and Western Europe via translations. Directly or indirectly his letters reflect the attitudes towards the art of translation and the accepted criteria for evaluating translated literary work in Russia and in Western Europe in the second half of the 19th century. Viewed in a broad cultural context, Turgenev’s letters on translation not only emphasize the efforts of the nineteenth century Russian elite to promote the importance of an all-inclusive cultural model for Russia but also reflect a more nuanced understanding of the European response to Russian literature.