Sos Bagramyan
The history of Armenian translation of Shakespeare may be divided into three periods: the period before great translator Hovhaness Massehian (what we will call the pre-Massehian period), the time in which Massehian translated Shakespeare (the Massehian period) and the period following Massehian’s death (the post-Massehian period).
Armenians began to translate Shakespeare in the early nineteenth century. These initial attempts came in the form of excerpts from Shakespeare’s play in periodicals and journals. Excerpts from Two Gentlemen of Verona and A Midsummer Night’s Dream appeared in the Armenian publication “Shtemaran” in India . Mkertich Emin also translated parts of Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra , whereas Mesrop Taghiadian translated Brutus’s speech from Julius Cesar . These initial steps at translation were not mere half-hearted attempts to translate Shakespeare’s works, but reveal that Armenians were interested in introducing small parts of the great works of Western literature to an Armenian readership. They also show that Armenians had been reading Shakespeare for quite some time and that, at least in a few intellectual circles, Shakespeare had developed a strong enough bond with an Armenian readership to motivate them to translate pieces of his work for a larger Armenian audience.
The first attempt to translate Shakespeare’s works in their entirety was made by the printer and intellectual Aram Teteyan. Teteyan expressed a strong desire to have Shakespeare’s works known to Armenians, and went on to translate The Comedy of Errors, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet and a part of Hamlet alongside other great works of world literature like A Thousand and One Nights and the comedies of Molier.
Other notable translations of Shakespeare in the pre-Massehian period include Stepanos Malkhassian’s King Lear and Macbeth , but these versions were lacking and problematic as they were translated from the Russian, French and German translations rather than the original English. Gevork Bakhudarian translated The Merchant of Venice as he was translating the works of Schiller. The painter Vartkez Soureniants translated Richard III, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, Julius Cesar and King Lear from the original English, but sadly only parts of the latter three are extant today. It is interesting to note that the first translators of Shakespeare translated a mix of comedies, and histories alongside the tragedies, thinking that both genres would appeal to readers. This is important as Armenians of the twentieth century are almost exclusively familiar with (and interested in) Shakespeare’s tragedies. Perhaps in the wake of the Genocide and the oppression of Soviet rule, Armenians have found more resonance with Shakespeare’s tragic heros as than the characters in his comedies or histories.
Then came the first great (and still regarded the greatest) translator of Shakespeare into Armenian, Hovhaness Massehian (1864-1931). Massehian was an Armenian from Iran who worked as a diplomat and ambassador for the Persian government (an impressive achievement considering he was not of Persian or Muslim decent). His first translation of Shakespeare was Hamlet , of which the Armenian poet laureate Hovhaness Toumanian praised, “Shakespeare has become a criterion by which to determine a nation’s cultural standards. A people who does not translate Shakespeare is illiterate; those who are unable to understand him are intellectually immature, and the language into which Shakespeare cannot be translated is indeed poor…we [Armenians] are in a position to say that we have made a great progress, in that Shakespeare has spoken in Armenian. This [translation of Hamlet ] is a big leap forward, a sudden big leap”(Zarian 12-13).
What Toumanian considered a great leap forward was not only the fact that Hamlet had been translated into Armenian, but that Shakespeare had finally been translated well enough to be worthy of the original English. An old saying about translations goes that they are either unfaithful and beautiful, or faithful and ugly. Massehain’s fits into the third category – faithful and beautiful. He made a dynamic translationaiming to transmit the spirit of Shakespeare’s works (as he understood it) rather than the word for word meaning. Massehian himself had a poet’s temperament, and in his translations one can feel the great sense of empathy the translator had for the characters. His Armenian is eloquent, accessible and as varying in tone and emotion as Shakespeare’s original.
I do not want to suggest that Massehian took too many liberties in his translating Shakespeare. He took great pains to preserve the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare’s verse, no small feat considering the multi-syllabic, compound-word nature of Armenian vocabulary. He also did a wonderful job in preserving the lyricism of Shakespeare’s songs, and the low-mimetic feel of his prose in all of his translations. Massehian’s translations are the complete package in terms of linguistic accessibility and poetic flare, and the emotional impact and dramatic magnitude he delivers in his translations more than compensate for the liberties readers may find in his text (of which Masseehian was conscious and unconscious).
Massehian planned to translate all of Shakespeare’s works into English, but he only reached fourteen. Of the fourteen, twelve have been passed down to us and are still in print today. His translations include Hamlet, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, Julius Cesar, Romeo and Juliet and Coriolanus . Massehian modestly expressed a hope that his translations would only be the first step in translations of Shakespeare that try to live up to the English original. Time has proven, however, that his work is not only the foundation of great Armenian translations of Shakespeare, but also set the standard aspired to by later generations.
The post-Massehian period has been filled with great translators of Shakespeare, most notably novelist Khachik Dashtents ( 1909-1974), who worked during the soviet era. Dashtents (Khachik Tonoevitch Tonoyan) was born in the village of Dashtayan in Sasun, and later took on the pen name of Khachick Dashtents, after the village in which he was born. In many ways, Dashtents picked up where Massehian left off. He translated many of the works Massehian did not have time to get to, and translated a few plays that parallelMassehian’s great work (for instance, King Lear ). Although most consider Massehian unsurpassed, Dashtent’s translations are the best of the soviet period. Dashtents was deeply committed to the translation of Shakespeare’s plays and was prolific in his translation work. He translated nearly all of Shakespeare’s works before his death and left a great legacy for the Armenian people.
Another notable translator of Shakespeare during the soviet period was the famous author Stepan Alajajyan, whose novels concentrated on themes of the diaspora of countries like Syria and its connection with the homeland. He also wrote historical novels in which Armenians bravely fought against foreign invaders, novels which might have had anti-Soviet undertones the censors were unable to detect.
The reason Shakespeare’s fame grew during the soviet years (as opposed to other western authors who were banned in the Soviet Union ) was tied into the soviet theater. Armenian actors like Vahram Papazian (whose portrayed Othello over three thousand times, and whose acting was much acclaimed inside and outside the Soviet Union ) and Russians actors like Innokenty Smoktunovsky were competing with western actors of Shakespeare for international acclaim. The soviets did not want to be outdone by their western counterparts, even when it came to performing works of Western literature. The Soviet Union also considered Shakespeare’s work relatively inoffensive ideologically and permitted it to be read and translated within its borders while its actors competed with those in the west. Thus,the affinity Armenians had with Shakespeare deepened during the soviet era.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, Armenians have slowly began to rediscover Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare studies have slowed down significantly since the death of the great Shakespaere scholar Rouben Zarian, many of the translations noted above are in still print and widely read. Shakespeare is continually performed in Armenian theaters in Yerevan , and this on-line publication of the complete works of Shakespeare in Armenian is a testament to a growing interest in the bard’s work.