Hi, Kevin, In answer to your question, I think he is referring to a dream of a prisoner in "War and Peace" by Tolstoy. Maybe you have the answer to this by...
I think that "cancer ward" is the type of book that can be easly transposed to a more contemporary hospital setting, whit the sole problem of having to think...
Perhaps an abridged version of _The Gulag Archipelago_ could be presented in the same way that HBO did _Band of Brothers._ I don't know if _Cancer Ward_ would...
May I ask for some help with two terms, the meanings of which I have been unable to ascertain. First is "osobist" or "osobiste". Best as I can infer from...
"Osoblogi" means "Special Camp," so I imagine that "Osoblogist" means either one who is imprisoned there, or one who is employed there, depending on how it is...
Hello, I believe that doctormidnight's response : "Osoblogi" means "Special Camp," so I imagine that "Osoblogist" means either one who is imprisoned there, or...
Hi, ... From: "normthecaliph" <norm@...> ... Osobist is an officer of Osobyi Otdel -- a Special Department. A GPU-NKVD-KGB officer within a military...
Thank you, all. Mike, very thorough and informative, much appreciated. I forgot Solzhenitsyn used "gaybisty" rather than "gaybist", the "y" meaning plural I...
"The Revenge of the Special Agent" http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/01/13/006.html For those interested in the possible resurgence of the old...
... That's a bit of stretch. Note that most of the article is a description of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, not the Russian wars in Chechnya. That's because...
... Yes, retrospectively they can be called such. The political departments of NKVD were often called GUGB (Glavnoe Upravlenie Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti,...
If you are going to analyze Solzhenitsyn's words in such detail, please bear in mind that Solzhenitsyn never used the term "gaybist" or "gaybisty" - he wrote...
Michael Scammell
ms474@...
Feb 1, 2005 2:53 pm
678
Is there a reason why other translations haven't been made available/attempted? I mean, if someone butchered any of my works (assume for a moment that I have...
There is indeed a simple reason: publishing costs. To hire a translator and then to publish a new edition of a major work like The Gulag Archipelago would...
Alex Klimoff
klimoff@...
Feb 2, 2005 1:49 am
680
Does anyone have any idea about the relative merits of the French translations of Solzhenitsyn's works? For some of us that might be a viable alternative to...
... **Alex, I had concluded enough from the context that "gaybist" and "gaybisty" had nothing to do with enforced happiness or the brutal infliction of light...
While I personally do not have a good enough grasp of the nuances of French to be able to pass judgment on the esthetic qualities of the French translations of...
Alex Klimoff
klimoff@...
Feb 2, 2005 3:25 am
683
... Well, my wife grew up in the Soviet Union and she was familiar with the term, although she knew it as "ka-gay-bist," as in KGBist. She said "osobist"...
Re the question on the translation of "The Gulag Archipelago," I'm not sure if Alex's estimate of a million dollars is correct, but it certainly would be very...
Michael Scammell
ms474@...
Feb 12, 2005 9:34 pm
685
I was going to ask about this but thought it would be rude to bring it up, but since you mentioned it, I noticed in my editions (they are all 1st editions, is...
This will probably strike many of you as an idiotic question. I have read everything I can of Solzhenitsyn in English so I suppose I've been exposed to the...
MM (or should I say Doctor M?), Thanks very much for your nice comments about the Tolstoy translation. Re Gulag, there were no harsh words between Whitney and...
Michael Scammell
ms474@...
Feb 15, 2005 3:14 pm
690
Dear William, The essence of the problem doesn't even need "a couple of sentences" and can be summed up very briefly indeed: The translation is unfaithful to...
Alex Klimoff
klimoff@...
Feb 15, 2005 10:28 pm
691
Does anyone else find Putin's recent remarks about regretting the fall of the Soviet Union frightening? It's sad to think that in less than 14 years the...
It is neither frightening nor surprising considering the source. I'm reminded of Orlando Figes' book title, "A People's Tragedy" any time Putin opens his...
At first glance it would appear to be frightening. But one also has to look at the context. His explaining about millions of Russians suddenly finding...
Along the same lines, this Op-Ed piece appears in today's New York Times. Steve ... April 28, 2005 *OP-ED COLUMNIST* Mourning Mother Russia * By DAVID ...
