Alamshani Salah Abdul-Hussein Salman

S. A. Yesenin’s poem translated into Arabic:“Letter to Mother”. Pp. 173–181.

UDC 821.161.1-1.09″19″=811.411.21

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2025.88.3.016

 

Abstract: The history of translation of literary texts from Russian into Arabic is relatively brief, since most Russian literary works continued to be translated into Arabic from English and French until about the 1970s. The present article is devoted to analysis of translations of S. A. Yesenin’s poem Letter to Mother (1924) into Arabic. It considers three translations of the work by such well-known translators in the Arab world as Abdul-Rahman Al-Khamisi, Hasab Al-Sheikh Jaefar, Hayat Sharara. At the same time, it remains obvious that it is absolutely impossible to adequately convey the exact meaning of the poetic work, the beauty of its figurative and metaphorical techniques into another language. In the comparative analysis of translations, special attention is paid to the adequacy of the translation. It is emphasized to what extent a specific translator manages to preserve the atmosphere of Yesenin’s poem, poetic mood, tonality, and emotional tone. We observe the nature of some errors made in translations in conveying the meaning of the poem and the features of its metaphorical and figurative system.

 

Keywords: Sergei Yesenin, “Letter to Mother,” Abdul-Rahman Al-Khamisi, Hasab Al-Sheikh Jaefar, Hayat Sharara, Arabic language, translation.

 

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