Translation of romances and opera arias from Anton Chekhov’s play “The Seagull” into Farsi: accuracy, stylistics, scientific commentary

The study is devoted to the analysis of Farsi translations of romances and opera arias from Chekhov’s “The Seagull”, as well as the evaluation of scientific commentary. The main issue of the study: how was the musical intertext from “The Seagull” translated into Farsi and to what extent was its original meaning and emotional impact on the foreign-speaking reader/viewer preserved? The leading research method is a comparative analysis of the original Russian text with its translation into Farsi. The translation analyzes the meanings of words and metaphors, intonation and musicality of the poetic form, rhythm and rhyme (if possible), footnotes with which the translator provided his text, stylistic accuracy (choosing the right style in Persian: spoken or written). The conclusion highlights the most successful translations by K. Fani and S. Stepanyan and provides recommendations for future translators.

1. Komissarov, D.S. (2005), “Chekhov in Iran: A review”, in Literaturnoe nasledstvo. T. 100: Chekhov i mirovaya literature [Literary heritage, vol. 100: Chekhov and world literature], book 3, IMLI RAN, Moscow, Russia, pp. 195–213.

2. Muralov, S.A. (1984), Perevody proizvedenii A.P. Chekhova na persidskii iazyk i ikh rol’ v razvitii sovremennoi persidskoi novellistiki [Translations of A.P. Chekhov’s works into Persian and their role in the development of modern Persian novelistics], Ph.D. Thesis (Philology), Baku, USSR.

3. Orumiekhchikha, Kh. (2019), Dramaticheskaya literatura: analiz perevoda p’es Antona Chekhova v Irane v raznye periody [Dramatic literature: analysis of the translation of Anton Chekhov’s plays in Iran in different periods], Ph.D. Thesis, Universitet Tarbiat Modares, Tegeran, Iran. (Farsi)

4. Ostovar, A.A. (1957), “Chekhov in Persian literature”, in Iranskaya i tyurkskaya filologiya: sbornik statei [Iranian and Turkic philology. Collected articles], Izdatel’stvo SAGU, Tashkent, USSR, pp. 50–56. (Trudy. Filologicheskie nauki; iss. 105, book 12) Rozenfeld, A.Z. (1958), “Chekhov and modern Persian literature”, in Pamyati akademika Ignatiya Yulianovicha Krachkovskogo: sbornik statei [In memory of academician I.Yu. Krachkovsky. Collected of articles], Leningrad, USSR, pp. 73–79.

5. Shojai, M. (2020), “Translation of collocations in literary texts: actual problems (on the example of the play ‘The Seagull’ by A.P. Chekhov)”, in Miry literaturnogo perevoda: cbornik dokladov uchastnikov V Mezhdunarodnogo kongressa perevodchikov khudozhestvennoi literatury (Moskva, 6–9 sentyabrya 2018 g.) [Worlds of literary translation: a collection of reports by participants of the V International Congress of Translators of Fiction (Moscow, September 6–9, 2018)], Institut perevoda, Moscow, Russia, vol. 1, pp. 327–330.

6. Khanjani, L. and Godarzvand, H. (2019), “Analysis of translation problems in translations of the play ‘The Seagull’ by Anton Chekhov”, in Сборник статей Первой национальной научной конференции по литературным исследованиям, Университет Алламе Табатабаи, март 2019 г. [Collection of articles of the First National Scientific Conference on Literary Research, Allame Tabatabai University, March 2019], available at: https://en.civilica.com/doc/902043 (Accessed: 07.01.2025). (Farsi)