Information about the author:
Natalya V. Zakharova
Natalya V. Zakharova, PhD in Philology, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 а, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
Abstract:
The research is devoted to an analysis of the translation and commentary to the Chinese classical text — “Troеslovie” (“San tse jing”), made by N.J. Bichurin and published in 1829. The text dates from the 13th century, the authorship is attributed to Wang Ilin. “San tse jing” was one of the first books to be addressed by Christian missionaries arriving in China. The book attracted them to the saturation of cultural, religious, historical and literary information and external simple language of presentation. Bichurin’s translation became a transplant of the Chinese text of the 13th century into a new socio-cultural discourse and was provided with a deployed, occupying two-thirds of the volume of the book, commentary. The study shows that thanks to the comment of N.J. Bichurin, a large Chinese text created in a written language other than the spoken language becomes available to the Russian reader. N.J. Bichurin, in his desire to convey the meaning of the Chinese original as accurately as possible and transfer all explanations to the commentary, anticipated the approach of Russian sinologists to the translation of Chinese classical texts.