The history of Russian-language translations of "The Lord of the Rings" has many pages. Each of them is very original and has unique advantages and disadvantages that are not inherent in other translations. For example, despite the existing āGuide for the translation of proper names fromā The Lord of the Rings ā, written personally by Tolkien himself, almost every Russian-language version has its own set of names, and they all differ markedly from each other. Each translation brought something new to the Russian-speaking community Tolkienists; therefore, it makes no sense to argue which translation of The Lord of the Rings is the best. Itās better to simply discuss each one that came out.
Z. A. Bobyr
The first translation appeared in the mid-1960s. It was not even a full translation, but a more or less free arrangement. In total, the text was reduced by three times, part of the events is given in the retelling, many heroes and objects changed their essence. So, for example, Sam Gamgee instead of Frodo's servant (as in the original) was his friend, Aragorn from a very definite king turned into a āleaderā or ārulerā, the crown of Gondor became the Sizzling Crown, found its own storyline, and so on.
The fact is that the translation was conceived as a science fiction novel in which five friends, scientists in the interludes, try to explain the properties of the Ring from the point of view of science. The Lord of the Rings storyline goes like their memories.
In the mid-sixties, the translation was distributed in the form of a manuscript, then was supplemented by Umansky translated poems, applications and "The Hobbit". There were two official publications - already in 1990 and 1991, but both of them were greatly reduced, compared to the manuscript, and without interludes.
The proper names in this translation try to be as similar as possible to the original - it is either tracing paper from English spelling (Isildur, Gandalf), or a literal translation of etymologically obvious names (Loudwater - Noisy Stream).
A. A. Gruzberg
Appeared in 1976 also in the form of samizdat. In fact, this is the first complete translation of The Lord of the Rings. It was first distributed in a typewritten form, and then (in the late eighties) appeared on the FidoNet computer network. Then the translation was posted on the network. Later (in the nineties) there were many proposals from various publishers for the release of Gruzbergās translation, but only in 2000 a CD with the translation was edited by Aleksandrova, in 2002 a book edition from the Ekaterinburg U-Factorie appeared (the text for which was also amended - this time A. Zastyrtsa). The latest release was a printed version of the CD. Each of the five translation options is significantly different from the rest.
There are three electronic versions of the translation, bearing the label "Gruzberg", although all of them vary significantly in content and quality. The first to be made public the translation was more or less original, but with a large number of errors, inaccuracies, and unfortunately, it only got worse: the original text of the translation was constantly edited without the knowledge of Gruzberg. Even at the moment in the original edition the text is practically not found.
Muravyov and Kistyakovsky
The first official Russian edition of The Lord of the Rings (1982) was published in this translation. For many years it has become the only one. The trilogy was published in one book with long breaks, a full three-volume set was released only in 1992.
In a dispute over which translation of The Lord of the Rings is better, Kistyamur has an extremely powerful argument in his favor: literature. In this regard, he leaves far behind all the other translations, creating a lively and exciting story, creatively reworking those moments that might seem boring and incomprehensible to the Russian-speaking reader in English.
Because of the same literature, translation suffers: in an effort to adapt Lord of the Rings as much as possible for the conditions of Russian culture, translators can be said to overdo it: hence the literal translation of almost all proper names. That is, those that Tolkien himself would like to change (see his "Guide ..."), and those that should not be touched. The transformation of the elven "rulers" into "princes", Ristania (Rohan), Razdol (Rivendell) and became the subject of eternal jokes Vseslavur (Glorfindel), later - Gorislav.
Perhaps these changes made The Lord of the Rings much clearer for the Russian-speaking reader and brought him more popularity than could be expected, but the translation was far from the original in its style and character. Many Tolkienists first became acquainted with the professorās work on this version, so when asked what translation of The Lord of the Rings is considered the best, they call this version.
Grigoryeva and Grushetsky
First, the second and third parts of the trilogy appeared in this translation. This was in 1984, when āKistyamurā released only the first official part, and the Samizdat āG&Gā was distributed as a continuation to the official translation. Only in 1989 did you have your own translation of the first part. Officially, this version was published three times, each time supplemented by changes and clarifications in the text, translated by the Applications and other bonuses.
The circle of Tolkienists still occupies the source question for this translation. It is known that for the second and third parts it was made on the basis of a certain anonymous manuscript, and the first edition is its literary processing. There is enough information to believe that this anonymous manuscript was Bobryr's first translation. In two texts, a considerable number of sufficiently large identically translated pieces of text are noticed (often with the same abbreviations or invented elements, which cannot be a coincidence). Most of the proper names were borrowed from the translation of Muravyov / Kistyakovsky.
In terms of translation quality, āG&Gā can compete with āKistyamurā. Here, the authors were not so keen on adaptation, so the spirit of the English original was relatively preserved. However, the impression is spoiled by some very unfortunate decisions when translating proper names: still causes a silly smile Old Loch (Old Willow), Kolobrod (instead of the usual Tramp) and Frodo Sumniks (to replace Torbins). However, the main advantage of this version, which brings it to one of the first places in the debate about which translation of The Lord of the Rings is better, is the excellent translations of songs and poems made by Grishpun - one of the best among the existing ones.
V.A. Matorina (V.A.M)
This is a rather rare version of the translation. It was created by Matorina at first exclusively for a close circle of relatives and friends, but was not intended for publication. It came out all the same quite soon - in 1991 (and began to be created in the mid-eighties). True, this happened in Khabarovsk, in the Far East, and then the labor spread among the roleviks, so the translation has a rather specific story. However, it was Matorina who managed to contact many foreign publishers of Tolkien and even received thanks from his son Christopher.
This version was also inspired by the publication of Muravyov and Kistyakovsky, many names are also taken from there. However, in terms of the text itself, the translation is distinguished by literacy and not very developed literature: it affects the fact that Matorina was still not a professional.
A. V. Nemirova
This translation (mid-eighties) also began with the second and third volumes as a continuation to Kistyamur. That is why the names are almost all taken in their version. But besides some new solutions, which, unfortunately, were not very successful (now the Tramp has become a Rod - he has no luck). With stylistics, too, everything is not very perfect: Tolkinskaya was lost, and Kistyamura clearly does not reach the literary level. On the question of which translation of The Lord of the Rings is better, this option may be of interest only to collectors or avid Tolkienists. By the way, it is Nemirova who has the translation of "VK" into Ukrainian.
Kamenkovich and Carrick
This translation was made based on the materials of V.A.M. Initially, Kamenkovich and Matorina agreed to work together, but due to the mismatch of styles, Matorina left this project. The final version was already attended by Kamenkovich and Carrick.
This translation features an extensive and detailed system of comments and footnotes. With their help, the translators wanted to explain the origins of Tolkien's inspiration - some ideas of Catholic Christianity and especially ancient German mythology (it is known that the professor worked for a long time on the study of Beowulf).
The multi-page stories about the connection of Tolkienās works and those layers of culture with which he was interested, with great love, built a system of parallels āThe Silmarillionā, āThe Lord of the Ringsā, unpublished materials on Middle-earth and the philological works of the professor gives the reader a picture unique in scale, unity and connectedness. The undoubted merit of this translation, which allows us to consider it one of the best, is that he was not one of the first to try to adapt to the reader, but introduced him to the cultural environment in which the Lord of the Rings was created. It makes it clear that the trilogy is not a fairy tale for children, but something much more complex and serious in concept. A lot of āadvancedā Tolkienists involved in culture and philology, in the question of which translation of āLord of the Ringsā is better, will vote for the Kamenkovich / Karrick variant.
V.Volkovsky, D.Afinogenov and V.Vosedoy (V.G. Tikhomirov)
A little-known translation. Released in 2000, the style strongly resembles the translation of Muravyov and Kistyakovsky. This "Lord of the Rings" (without even making a discount on the creative costs of the translation process) is objectively of terrible quality. The process of adapting proper nouns leaves a lot of questions (if Torbins is a very obvious version of the English Baggins, then where did the notorious BeBBins come from?). Therefore, in a dispute about whose translation of The Lord of the Rings is better, Volkovsky can be immediately deleted.
L. Yakhnin
Released in 1999, it is a greatly reduced and simplified version in a fabulous style. It is a kind of children's version of The Lord of the Rings (moments like Frodoās finger biting are omitted), but due to the extremely free handling of the original (selective retelling of individual chapters), it can hardly be recommended as a translation of The Lord of the Rings, which is better for the child to offer for reading.
Dubbing movies
Do not ignore the voice acting of films by Peter Jackson, released at the box office at the turn of the XXI century. It is not necessary to talk about which voice acting of The Lord of the Rings is better: there is only one official version of the dubbing from the Mosfilm studio. The rest is amateur translations, polyphonic and one-voice, of course, that they are far from professional in quality. They can only help with the directorial version of the film, which did not go to the movies and for which professional dubbing was not done, so I had to look for an alternative. There is also a funny voice acting "The Lord of the Rings" from Goblin (Dmitry Puchkov). True, the quality and advisability of humor in it remains a big question.