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* * *
Viktoria Fyodorova came to/arrived in Moscow. She went to see/visited her old friends, strolled about/walked around a city that is now totally foreign to her/a city she no longer knows, visited/saw/went to her mother's grave. The daughter of a movie star of the 30s and 40s and of an American officer (he paid for his love with exile from the "friendly" USSR, and she with prison and exile), and herself a movie star of the 70s, she has come back to Russia/her native land/home after a quarter of a century/25 years/in America.
You've come back from nowhere/You've come back from being a
nonperson for many years absolutely nothing was known about
you/you didn't exist in Russia. How do you feel now?
It feels strange/it's odd/something funny is happening. I call up
someone whom I haven't spoken to/with whom I've had no
contact/whom I haven't talked to/for 25 years, and I hear: "Vika,
hi/hello, how are things/what's up?" Just like I never left/It's as though
I never left. It's as though we've lost our sense of time. Other say, "One
fine day you just weren't there/were gone/just upped and left. You
disappeared, as though you'd never existed." In fact that disappearance
was totally logical/ understandable/legitimate, if you look at the harsh
times/difficult period/when I left Russia. At that time my action was
called/described as/termed betrayal/the act of a traitor though I had no
plans to/did not intend to/emigrate/wasn't at all thinking of emigrating.
I left for three months to see my father for the first time, and I'd been
looking for him for 15 years. I didn't have the slightest desire to
stay/remain there: here I'd left behind my mother, my work which I
loved, I had a film planned with Svetlana Druzhinina... But it
happened/turned out that I met someone/a man, we fell in love, I
married him. He was an American, and it was totally unthinkable/
unrealistic/out of the question/impossible for him to come to the USSR
then/and at that time coming to the USSR for him was totally unreal.
And so I made up my mind/And then I took a decision. For a long
time I kept Soviet citizenship, and only after my mother's murder I said
that I didn't want to be a citizen of this bloodstained country, and sent
back/ returned my passport to the embassy. Now I have American
citizenship. But I'm still Russian at heart/I'm still Russian.
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What did you do all these years?
\ was a housewife. Raised my son. Worked as a model. Acted
for TV and for documentary films. I wrote two books: an
autobiography and a novel about ancient Russian history, which I did
with Robin Moore, an American writer...and now we can't manage
to sell it to a publisher, because historical novels aren't fashionable.
For many years you've been trying to make/shoot a feature film
about your mother and her fate. What could prompt/make/bring
someone to relive the most tragic moments of her life?
No one says that's easy. I still can't talk about some scenes
without crying/tears. But my mother at least deserved to have the
truth about her told/to have her true story told. I'm fed up with/I
can't put up with/I've had it with all those cheap investigations by
journalists, the books in which the events/circumstances of my
mother's life and death are turned inside out/all wrong/upside down,
adorned/blown up with flights of fantasy/wild fabrications/ideas/ total
distortions, stories about some invented diamonds... What's behind
these authors'/writers' reasons/motives/ actions/What moves these
authors/what makes these authors do this/is clear: to make money.
Well, too bad for them/forget about them/tough luck. I'm not going
to run after each of them wailing "what have you invented/ dreamed
up, damn you!" In America there's even more of that stuff, and that
gets hung out in public/thrown about publicly/they trade those kind
of accusations/sling that kind of stuff back and forth/every day. It's a
kind of a weird life style. For me the most important thing is to show
this story the way it really was. And that was the story of a
beautiful/marvelous love with a tragic twist.
But you've come to Moscow with a completely different film project...
You mean/you're talking about my film? Well, that's another
story/that's completely different/that's something else altogether. It's
modern, a Hitchcock style detective film. About how a husband tries
to drive his wife crazy/nuts/mad, to get her out of his life. It takes
place in America, where I live, and the heroine is a Russian who's
married an American. When I came to Moscow in the early 90s I was
offered several roles right away, but I refused: I didn't want to appear
before/be seen by/an audience, which hadn't seen me for such a long
time, in really/frankly bad films. And so I decided to do/shoot/a film
myself. Since I'm not a screenwriter, and my Russian/has gotten a
bit/slightly shaky/isn't what it used to be over/after all these years, I
asked for help from Edik Volodarsky and Andrei Razumovsky, to
finish off/polish my scribbles.
I've heard that/People say/It seems that you never watch your old
films, and that you don't even have videotapes of them. Why?
I don't want to look back to something that still tempts/
lures/attracts me/very strongly. Being an actor is an illness like
alcoholism: it sticks around/you don't get better/doesn't end. When
you understand that the chances for success/self-fulfillment here/in
this area are infinitesimal/small, what's the point of torturing
yourself/ agonizing over it? Here/In that/I'm just like my father/I'm my father's daughter/I'm a chip off the old block My father was an admiral in the American navy, and when he retired, the first thing he did was to burn his uniform. He said, "Why should it gather dust in the closet? I know I'm an admiral, that I did a lot/a great deal/ much/for the country, and I don't need a jacket with epaulets to remember/recall who I am and who I was." Me, too/That's me/I'm that way/I'm just like that, too. Well/in fact, I don't watch my old films. Although... formerly/in the past I'd see myself on the screen and think that all of that was played/terribly/really badly acted all wrong. But now I like myself.
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The tone of this newspaper interview is very colloquial, and should be rendered as such.
:
1) this should not be translated as "motherland" or
"homeland," which sound artificial and affected in English. "Came home"
or "back to Russia" are appropriate renderings.
2) "non-existence" or "nonbeing" do not
work here. "You've come back from nowhere" is idiomatic; "You've come
back from being a nonperson" has a political tinge, as "nonperson" implies
that someone is defined as such by the regime.
3) since the sentence is colloquial in
Russian, the translation can reproduce this tone: "Just like I never left"
or "It's just like I never left."
4) is always tricky for
translation, but here "logical" or "legitimate" will do. It can also be
rendered as "understandable" or "explicable."
5) the idea is that this was impossible, rather
than "unreal," which does not work well here. "Unthinkable" or "out of
the question" would be the most colloquial renderings of this expression.
6) the interpreter should be very careful not to
translate this as "this bloody country," which does not make sense and, if
the word "bloody" is used in the British sense, implies a sarcastic or iro
nic kind of disapproval, and a figurative meaning of the word, which is not
what is intended in this statement (e.g. "the house was in a state of total
disorder; it was a bloody mess"). Also, since Viktoria Fyodorova has lived
for years in America, she is obviously not speaking British English.
7) "but I'm a Russian person" is meaningless in
English, and the idea here is one of apposition "I have American
citizenship on the one hand, but on the other I'm still Russian." "I'm
Russian at heart" provides a contrast to the "American citizenship."
12-1 462 177
8) this is a good example of how small, "four-
letter" English verbs can effectively render the meaning of the Russian:
"make" or "bring someone to" are just as good renditions as "prompt,"
which may not immediately come to mind as a translation for .
9) ... here should not be translated as "force"
or "strength," since that is not really what is meant. The idea is that the
speaker "is fed up with" or, colloquially, "I've had it with" all these
journalists.
10) "are turned upside down" or "inside
out" are idiomatic renderings of this expression. Or, simply "are all
wrong" conveys the idea.
11) , "the motives for these
authors'/writers' actions" will do, but "What's behind these authors'
actions" emphasizes the idea of a hidden motive.
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12) Fyodorova doesn't
want to overemphasize this she says , so "a bit" or "slightly"
shaky would be appropriate. "Isn't what it used to be" is also mild and
vague enough for this context.
13) ... "It is said that" should be avoided, as it sounds stilted,
particularly in a colloquial context. "I've heard that" or "It seems that"
would be good choices.
14) the idiomatic expressions in English are
"I'm my father's daughter" or "a chip off the old block." If neither comes
to mind, "I'm just like my father" is fine. " " doesn't need
anything more than "here."
15) "me, too," or "that's me, too," are fine and much shorter
than "I'm just like that, too."
