The Bard of Avon & the Church of Rome
by Brendan D. King
The Bard of Avon in Soviet Russia:
Boris Pasternak and
Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Over the years I have translated several of
Shakespeare’s plays: Hamlet, Romeo and
Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, King Henry
IV (Parts I and II), King Lear, and Macbeth.
The demand for simple and readable translations
is great and seemingly inexhaustible. Every translator flatters himself with the hope that he, more
than others, will succeed in meeting it. I have not
escaped the common fate. Nor are my opinions
on the aims and problems of translating literary
works exceptional. I believe, as do many others,
that closeness to the original is not ensured only
by literal exactness or by similarity of form: the
likeness, as in a portrait, cannot be achieved
without a lively and natural method of expression. As much as the author, the translator must
confine himself to a vocabulary which is natural
to him and to avoid the literary artifice involved
in stylization. Like the original text, the translation must create an impression of life and not of
verbiage.
—Boris Pasternak, “Translating
Shakespeare” (1956)1
Outside of his homeland, Boris Pasternak is
remembered, if at all, as the Nobel Prize
winning author of Doctor Zhivago. In his
native Russia, however, he is far better
known as one of the greatest poets in the
history of the Russian language.
Furthermore, Pasternak’s Russian translations of the plays and sonnets of William
Shakespeare are still considered the best
ever produced.
According to his biographer Lazar
Fleishman, Pasternak’s fascination with the
Bard of Avon dated back to the last days of
the House of Romanov. It was only after the
Bolshevik Revolution, however, that tight-
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ening censorship of the arts forced
Pasternak to make his living through translating verse.
Pasternak’s earliest attempt to translate
Shakespeare into Russian began in 1924,
but was ultimately set aside.2 By the late
1930s, however, Pasternak’s subsequent
experiences with translating English,
German, and Georgian language poets had
left him far better equipped to translate
William Shakespeare. His second attempt
would, like the first, center around the play,
Hamlet, which the renowned Soviet theater
director Vsevolod Meyerhold commissioned him to translate in January 1939. At
the time, Meyerhold intended to stage
Pasternak’s translation at Leningrad’s
Pushkin Theater. Tragically, Joseph Stalin
decided otherwise.3
On June 10, 1939, Vsevolod Meyerhold
was arrested at his apartment by the Soviet
secret police, or NKVD. After, “confessing”
under torture to espionage and treason, the
director was convicted on all charges and
shot in January 1940. By this time, however,
Pasternak had become personally involved
in the project and had no intention of laying Hamlet aside.4 When his translation was
finished, Pasternak discreetly read it aloud
to a group of trusted friends, one of
whom was the acclaimed actor Boris
Livanov. Having long dreamed of playing
Hamlet onstage, Livanov immediately
shared Pasternak’s work with Vladimir
Nemirovich-Danchenko, the sole surviving
founder of the Moscow Art Theatre.
Despite being in his eighties,
Nemirovich-Danchenko informed his
actors that Pasternak had opened his eyes to
a new Shakespeare. He was even more
charmed when he met the translator in person. As a result, Nemirovich-Danchenko
announced that he would personally direct
the production.5 Unfortunately, Stalin
would again decide otherwise.
At a banquet in the spring of 1941, Boris
Livanov informed Stalin of the Moscow Art
Theatre’s plans to stage Pasternak’s translation of Hamlet. Stalin not only showed no
enthusiasm for the production but dismissed Shakespeare’s play as “decadent”. In
consequence, the Moscow Art Theatre
immediately suspended rehearsals.6
Nemirovich-Danchenko did not give
up hope, however. He continued to list the
production as forthcoming. It was only
the German invasion which forced the
Moscow Art Theatre to indefinitely
shelve the project. Having contended for
decades with both Tsarist and Soviet
censors, Nemirovich-Danchenko knew
that “poetry of doubt and skepticism”
would never be allowed on the stages of a
wartime police state. Although he hoped to
restart rehearsals after the war turned
against Germany, Vladimir NemirovichDanchenko died in April 1943. The
Moscow Art Theatre was unable to proceed
without him.7
Pasternak’s translation of Hamlet would
not be staged until the spring of 1954, a
year after Stalin’s death, when it debuted at
Leningrad’s Pushkin Theatre. Although the
performance realized one of Pasternak’s
cherished dreams, he was then busy writing
Doctor Zhivago and was unable to attend.8
Some may wonder why a Soviet-era poet
would identify so deeply with the tale of
Shakespeare’s Danish Prince. The
answer lies within the very culture
which the Communist police state
sought to destroy.
In Russia, it has long been customary for poets and writers to be
seen as the nation’s conscience. This
is the reason why the Soviet secret
police subjected all writers to persecution, censorship, and frivolous
arrest. Even militant Stalinists were
terrified of nighttime knocks on
their apartment doors. The independent minded Pasternak was no
exception. According to Lazar
Fleishman, Pasternak translated
Hamlet under the full awareness that
he would likely not live to finish it.
Sir Laurence Olivier famously
summarized Hamlet as “the tragedy
of a man who could not make up his
mind”. To Pasternak, this interpretation was utterly preposterous. He
later wrote:
Absence of will power did not exist as a
theme in Shakespeare’s time; it
aroused no interest. Nor does
Shakespeare’s portrait of Hamlet,
drawn so clearly and in so much detail,
suggest a neurotic. Hamlet is a prince
of the blood who never, for a moment,
ceases to be conscious of his rights as
heir to the throne; he is the spoiled
darling of an ancient court, and selfassured in the awareness of his natural
gifts. The sum of the qualities with
which he is endowed by Shakespeare
leaves no room for flabbiness: it precludes it. Rather, the opposite is true:
the audience, impressed by his brilliant
prospects, is left to judge the greatness
of his sacrifice in giving them up for a
higher aim.
From the moment of the Ghost’s
appearance, Hamlet gives up his will in
order to “do the will of Him that sent him”.
Hamlet is not a drama of weakness, but of
duty and self-denial. It is immaterial that,
when appearance and reality are shown to
To discover in the distant echoes
What the coming years may hold
in store.
The nocturnal darkness with a
thousand
Binoculars is focused onto me.
Take away this cup, O Abba Father,
Everything is possible to Thee.
I am fond of this Thy stubborn
project,
And to play my part I am content.
But another drama is in progress,
And, this once, O let me be exempt.
Ophelia, John William Waterhouse, 1894.
be at variance—to be indeed separated by an
abyss—the message is conveyed by supernatural means and that the Ghost commands
Hamlet to exact vengeance. What is important is that chance has allotted Hamlet the
role of judge of his own time and servant of
the future. Hamlet is the drama of a high
destiny, of a life devoted and preordained to
a heroic task.9
Boris Pasternak died in his sleep during
the night of May 30–31, 1960.10 At his
request, a Russian Orthodox funeral liturgy,
or Panikhida, was secretly offered for the
repose of his soul.11 Despite the best efforts
of the KGB, almost two thousand mourners
attended his civil funeral in the writer’s
colony of Peredelkino.12
According to eyewitnesses, the Party officials stage-managing the funeral were horrified to hear the assembled mourners recite
from memory a banned Pasternak poem
which compared Shakespeare’s Hamlet to
Soviet reality.13 In a translation by the poet’s
sister Lydia Pasternak Slater, it reads as follows:
The murmurs ebb; onto the stage
I enter.
I am trying, standing at the door,
But the plan of action is determined,
And the end irrevocably sealed.
I am alone; all round me drowns
in falsehood:
Life is not a walk across a field.14
Brendan D. King is a freelance writer, translator,
and researcher. In addition to the St. Austin
Review, his articles have appeared in the
Remnant, the Catholic Family News, and
Angelus Magazine. He lives in St. Cloud, MN.
References
1. Boris Pasternak, I Remember: Sketch for an
Autobiography (Pantheon Books, 1959), p. 125.
2. Lazar Fleishman, Boris Pasternak: The
Poet and his Politics (Harvard University
Press, 1990), p. 136.
3. Ibid., pp. 218–19.
4. Ibid., pp. 219–20.
5. Ibid., pp. 221–22.
6. Ibid., p. 222.
7. Ibid., pp. 222–23.
8. Ibid., pp. 270–71.
9. Pasternak, pp. 130–31.
10. Fleishman, p. 312.
11. Olga Ivinskaya, A Captive of Time: My
Years with Pasternak (Doubleday &
Company, 1978), p. 332.
12. Ibid., pp. 324–29.
13. Ibid., pp. 330–32.
14. Pasternak: Fifty Poems, Chosen and
Translated by Lydia Pasternak Slater
(Barnes & Noble, 1963), p. 57.
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