In this study, the authors attempt to establish the degree of influence of the translator's linguistic picture of the world on the perception of a foreign-language
text and the accuracy of its translation on the example of a comparative analysis of poetic translations of Heine’s poem “Wir sassen am Fischerhause” by L.A. Mey and A.A. Fet. The problem of the adequacy of artistic translation appeared at the origins of translation science and does not lose its relevance to this day, which is due to the growing interest of contemporaries in the national pictures of the world, of which national literatures are a part. By the 1940s of the nineteenth century, serious changes had taken place in the history of Russian artistic poetic translation. The free translation dominating in poetic translation was being replaced by the so-called ‘accurate’ translation. This new approach, according to A.A. Fet, emphasizes the need for the translator to preserve the so-called “cultural code” of the original work, which in turn requires a deep understanding of both the source and target cultures. The translator in this case acts not just as a linguist, but also as a cultural mediator capable of conveying the values encoded in the original language. In the course of the study, the authors analyzed the peculiarities of Fet’s and Mey’s translations at different levels: linguistic (linguistic equivalence), rhythmic-intonational, semiotic, cultural-historical, in order to reveal the national specificity of their translations and define the main linguistic means of transmitting the “cultural code” of the original work.
For citation: Zherdeva O.N., Abubakarova E.V. The problem of adequacy of artistic translation: linguocultural aspect (translations of Heinrich Heine's poem “Wir sassen am Fischerhaus” by A.A. Fet and L.A. Mey), Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2025, iss. 3, pp. 56—63.