Cover not available
Article published In:
Translation and Interpreting Studies
Vol. 14:3 (2019) ► pp.442–463
Thematic Cluster

Interpreting for Soviet leaders

The memoirs of semi-visible men

| UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Top interpreters are rarely able to discuss publicly negotiations between their bosses-cum-clients. Yet the downfall of Nazi Germany and the USSR allowed some interpreters to speak, in interviews and memoirs, without fear of retribution. In the end, only a few told their story, and some did not always tell it correctly, either because of memory lapses or because of a desire to appear more informed or to distance themselves from the people for whom they had worked. Still, these publications contain material to investigate to what degree, in the service of an all-powerful client, interpreters remained “invisible” or exercised a “special interactional power, […] as a result of his or her bilingual and bicultural expertise” (Mason and Ren 2012: 238). This article presents a case study of Soviet interpreters for Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev and their associates, with memoirs by the interpreters for Hitler and British PMs consulted for cross-correlation.

Keywords: high-level interpreting, semi-visibility, Soviet leadership, Nazi leadership, British leadership
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Semi-visibility
  • Co-interlocution
  • Empowerment
  • Non-neutrality
  • Positioning
  • Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.18023.rog
References
Arteel, Sanne
2013 Ustnye perevodciki politiceskih pravitelej v Rossii: Istoriceskij obzor i sravnenie s drugimi kul’turami. [Interpreting for Russian Political Leaders: A Historical Survey and Comparison with Other Cultures]. MA thesis, Hogeschool Gent.Google Scholar
Baer, Brian James
2014 “Through the Cold War lens: Russian and US interpreters as cultural and political mediators.” In Framing the Interpreter: Towards a Visual Perspective, ed. by Anxo Fernández-Ocampo and Michaela Wolf, 190–99. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 “The translator’s biography and the politics of representation: The case of Soviet Russia.” In The Fictions of Translation, ed. by Judith Woodsworth, 49–66. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bahadir, Şebnem
2010 “The task of the interpreter in the struggle of the Other for empowerment: Mythical utopia or sine qua non of professionalism?” Translation and Interpreting Studies 5 (1): 124–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ben-Ari, Nitsa
2010 “Representations of translators in popular culture.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 5 (2): 220–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berezhkov, Valentin
1993 Kak ia stal perevodchikom Stalina. [How I Became Stalin’s Interpreter]. Moscow: DEM.Google Scholar
Birse, A. H.
1967 Memoirs of an Interpreter. London: Michael Joseph.Google Scholar
Buzadzhi, D. M.
2009 “Perevodchik prozrachnyi i neprozrachnyi.” [A translator, transparent and non-transparent] Mosty: Zhurnal perevodchikov 2 (22): 31–38.Google Scholar
Dollmann, Eugen
1967 The Interpreter: Memoirs. Trans. by J. Maxwell Brownjohn. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Ermolovich, Dmitrii
2005 “Perevodchik v epitsentre mirovoi katastrofy.” [An interpreter in the eye of a world storm] Mosty: Zhurnal perevodchikov 2 (6): 81–91.Google Scholar
Erofeev, Viktor
2004 Khoroshii Stalin. [The Good Stalin] Moscow: Zebra E.Google Scholar
Fernández-Ocampo, Anxo, and Michaela Wolf
(eds) 2014 Framing the Interpreter: Towards a Visual Perspective. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Knight, Kathryn
2001 “The Briton who speaks for Russia.” The Mail on Sunday 23 December: 34–35.Google Scholar
Korchilov, Igor
1997 Translating History: Thirty Years on the Front Lines of Diplomacy with a Top Russian Interpreter. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Lunghi, Hugh
1999 “My century: Broadcast on Monday 1 November 1999.” BBC World Service. [URL]. Last accessed 17 June 2019.
Mason, Ian and Ren, Wen
2012 “Power in face-to-face interpreting events.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 7 (2): 233–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morris, Ruth
2010 “Images of the court interpreter: Professional identity, role definition and self-image.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 5 (1): 20–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Naimushin, B. A.
2017 “Ustnyi perevod na pravitel’stvennom urovne: O luzhakh, v kotorye my sadimsia, i o liudiakh, kotorye inogda nas v nikh neprednamerenno sazhaiut.” [High-level interpreting: Problems that we encounter and people who inadvertently create them for us] Mosty: Zhurnal perevodchikov 1 (53): 63–67.Google Scholar
Palazchenko, Pavel
1997 My Years with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze: The Memoirs of a Soviet Interpreter. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Pöchhacker, Franz
2004 Introducing Interpreting Studies. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “Conference interpreting: Surveying the profession.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 4 (2): 172–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rogiers, Wouter
2013 Jelena Rževskaja: Ustnyj perevod vo vremia vtoroj mirovoj vojny. [Elena Rzhevskaia: Interpreting during WWII]. MA thesis, Hogeschool Gent.Google Scholar
Roland, Ruth A.
1999 Interpreters as Diplomats: A Diplomatic History of the Role of Interpreters in World Politics. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.Google Scholar
Roy, Cynthia B.
2002 “The problem with definitions, descriptions and the role metaphors of interpreters.” In The Interpreting Studies Reader, ed. by Franz Pöchhacker and Miriam Shlesinger, 345–53. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sadikov, A. V.
1981 “Perevod kak vid sotsial’nogo povedeniia.” [Interpreting as a social behavior]. Tetradi perevodchika 181: 3–12.Google Scholar
Salevsky, Heidemarie
2014 “The memoirs of interpreters as a historical source: Reports of Russian and German interpreters concerning 22 June 1941.” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 27 (2): 254–282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Paul
1951 Hitler’s Interpreter. Ed. by R. H. C. Steed. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Solonevich, Tamara
1937 Zapiski sovetskoi perevodchitsy [Memoirs of a Soviet Female Interpreter]. Sofia: Golos Rossii.Google Scholar
Stupnikova, T. S.
1998 «Nichego, krome pravdy…»: Niurnberg – Moskva: Vospominaniia. [Nothing but the Truth: Nuremberg – Moscow: Memoirs]. Moscow: Russkie slovari.Google Scholar
Sukhodrev, Viktor
1999 Iazyk moi – drug moi. (My Tongue Is a Friend of Mine). Moscow: AST-Olimp.Google Scholar
2006 “Na voprosy redaktsii otvechaet Viktor Mikhailovich Sukhodrev.” [Viktor Mikhailovich Sukhodrev answers questions from the editorial board] Mosty: Zhurnal perevodchikov 2 (10): 3–13.Google Scholar
Troianovskii, Oleg
1997 Cherez gody i rasstoianiia. [Across Time and Distance]. Moscow: Vagrius.Google Scholar
Uvarov, V. D.
1981 “Paradoksy rolevogo povedeniia uchastnikov situatsii perevoda.” [Participants in an act of interpreting: Behaviour paradoxes] Tetradi perevodchika 181: 13–15.Google Scholar
Vandysheva, Ol’ga
2001 “S Angliei Putin razgovarivaet golosom Andreia Tsybenko.” [Putin speaks to Britain in Andrei Tsybenko’s voice] Komsomol’skaia pravda 27 February.Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence
1995 The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhdanova, Vladislava
2009 “Unsere Waffe war das Wort…”: Translation in Kriegszeiten. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar