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Jul 10, 2018 (posted viaProZ.com): Finishing up the second of five theological articles for a larger book of collected articles coming out in 2019, German to English. ...more »
German to English: excerpt from article on Bonhoeffer's theology of prayer by Bethge General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Religion
Source text - German Bonhoeffers Sprache in diesem Gebet verrät den Beter, der sich jahrzehntelang ohne Verkürzung dem ganzen Psalter ausgesetzt hat, Hymnen und Klagen, Schreien und erst recht seinen Gebotsmeditationen. Dieser Beter hat tatsächlich gelernt, biblisch zu beten; d.h. alle Bezüge der Existenz zu bedenken; sich und andere an das Kreuz heranzubeten; wie Israel der Heiligung des Namen Gottes Anfang, Mitte und Ende des Gebets zu überlassen--und dies erst recht dort, wo Gottes Verborgenheit so hoffnungslos erscheint. Das Morgengebet zeigt einen Beter, der trinitarisch zu beten versteht. "Vater-Sohn-und Heiliger Geist" repetieren hier jedoch nicht ein fälliges Glaubenssoll. Die so struktierte Anrede spricht vielmehr den Angerufenen in der ganzen Fülle seines für-mich-und-für-uns-Daseins an, dies aber in der jeweils ausführlichen Konzentration auf die jeweilige Rolle der drei "Personen". Das macht, daß der Angerufene, der eine Gott, den Anrufenden schon in diesem Dialog anspricht. Das macht, daß Befreiung aus der eindimensionalen Zelle hinein in neue Mehrdimensionalität bereits im Mitbeten dieses Gebets einfach passiert. Es zeigt einen Beter, dessen solide Dogmatik nicht ohne den gleichzeitigen Akt von Nachfolge und Ethik gedacht ist; nicht ohne unmittelbare Hinwendung zum Nächsten; nicht ohne die jeweiligen Felder der Verantwortung: "Vor dir denke ich an all die Meinen...laß mich so leben, wie ich es vor dir und den Menschen verantworten kann."
Dieser Text läßt sich nachbeten, ohne daß man alsbald an Formeln stößt, die zum Klischee gerinnen. Kein falscher Ton. Knappe, einfache Sätze. Kein Aufdrücker wie "gerade heute", "immer wieder", welche in Wahrheit die Sprache schwächen. Verben und Substantive regieren. Adjektive finden sich nur selten. Biblische Begrifflichkeit sättigt die Sätze und gesunde Lehre der Väter dazu. Der Text mißbraucht das Gebet nicht zur Belehrung des Benutzers. Ohne Seitenblick und ohne Ablenkung gibt sich dieser Sprecher dem Akt der Anrede hin. Er unterbricht sich nicht mit Zwischenreflexionen--von denen der Verfasser Bonhoeffer wohl etwas verstünde! Von sich selbst spricht er natürlich und tut das ohne Selbstdarstellung oder Selbstmitleid. Einsamkeit, Gefangensein, Verzweiflung, und auch Süchte sind gegenwärtig; aber sie werden nicht zu einem eigenen süchtigen Thema gemacht. Der Vergebende wird angerufen. Am Ende steht das Lob seines Namens.
Wer Gebete formulieren, wer Liturgien entwerfen muß, sei es mit dem Sprachmaterial von heute, sei es mit dem Wortschatz der Väter, der ermißt die Kraft des Eintauchens in Schrift und Tradition in diesem Gebet; der weiß zu schätzen, was die größte Kunst dieses Textes ausmacht: ihm mit einfacher und substanzgefüllter Sprache Dauerhaftigkeit zu geben.
Translation - English Bonhoeffer’s language in this prayer reveals a pray-er who has exposed himself repeatedly over decades to the entire Psalter, with all its hymns, laments, cries, and above all its meditations on God’s commandments. This pray-er has indeed learned to pray biblically, that is, to consider all the things life gives to us, and to pray ourselves and others right up to the cross, and, like Israel, to give over the beginning, middle, and end of one’s prayer to sanctification by God’s name—and this all the more in those places where there appears to be the least hope for God's protection. The morning prayer shows a pray-er who understands how to pray trinitarianly. “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” are not, however, repeated here as a debt owed to the believer. The address, structured in this way, speaks more to the addressee in the complete fullness of his for-me-and-for-us existence, but does this with detailed concentration on the respective roll of each of the three persons. This makes it so that the addressee, the one God, is already addressing the pray-er in dialog. This makes it so that liberation from the confinement of the prison cell into a new multi-dimensionality is already taking place, simply in the praying-along of this prayer. It reveals a pray-er whose solid systematic theology is not considered valid apart from the simultaneous act of discipleship and ethics, not apart from direct and loving devotion to one's neighbor, and not without the concomitant areas of responsibility: “Before you, I consider all that is mine…let me live in such a way that I can answer to you and to the people.”
This text can be prayed without bumping up against formulas that have become clichés. No false tone. Tight, simple sentences. No wordy expressions that weaken the language. Verbs and nouns rule. Adjectives are seldom used. Biblical concepts saturate the sentences along with healthy teachings of the church fathers. The text refuses to misuse prayer as a way for the pray-er to teach something. Without looking to the side and without diversion, the speaker abandons himself to the act of addressing God. He does not interrupt himself with stray reflections—which the author Bonhoeffer certainly knew how to do! He speaks naturally out of who he is and does so without putting himself into his words or feeling sorry for himself. Loneliness, imprisonment, doubt, and even obsessions are present, but they are not made into an obsessive theme of their own. The one who forgives is called upon. His name is praised at the end.
Whoever composes prayers and designs liturgies, whether using contemporary language materials or the language of the church fathers, will understand the power of immersing oneself in the writing style and tradition found in this prayer and will know to treasure the most beautiful thing this text gives us: it offers a certain spiritual stability through simple and substantive language.
Russian to English: excerpt from Georgii Vladimov's A General and His Army General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Russian Поведал он про то, чего все же ждал генерал от своих нещепетильных соседей, что переполнило уже налитую до краев кровавую чашу Сибежского плацдарма. В довершение всей авантюры попытались ее исправить новой авантюрой—воздушным десантом, и столь массированным, какого еще не видывала история войн. Общего числа пленный, естественно, не знал, но свою воздушно-десантную бригаду назвал пятой, из чего генерал мог заключить без большой ошибки, что пять их, поди, и было задействовано—число, предпочитаемое дураками... К могучему замаху еще добилась такая идея десанта ночного, ‘под покровом темноты’—будто немцам составило бы тяжкий труд рассеять этот покров прожекторами, осветительными ракетами, висячими бомбами-лампионами! И отсюда пошли все беды. Выбросить пять бригад решено было за одну ночь, в крайнем случаи за две, не имея аэродромов ближе чем за двести километров от Днепра, не имея и самолетов в достатке. Это какой-нибудь сорокаместный ЛИ-2 или же буксировщик планеров должен был за ночь несколько рейсов совершить, несколько взлетов, посадок... Так спешили, что задачу десантником ставили за час до взлета, а обдумывали ее на лету. Так спешили, что в экипажи набрали пилотов, не имевших опыта ночных вылетов; выдержать нужную малую высоту они и не старались, от огня зениток и ночных истребителей уходили повыше и увеличивали скорость, и людей разбрасывали по огромной и неизведанной площади. Падали в воды Днепра—и тонули многие, не сумев еще в воздухе освободиться от стропов. Падали, ослепленные прожекторами, на немецкие боевые порядки, падали навстречу трассам зенитного огня, на многажды пробитых, на сгорающих куполах парашютов. Самых удачливых относило благодетельным ветром к своему левому берегу, и ужо свои наверняка заподозривали дезертирство из боя, которое и впрямь не так сложно для десантника, наученного управлять падением и сносом. Те же, кто приземлялись все-таки в заданном месте, должны были его обозначить кострами и ракетами, но вскоре и немцы из противодесантных отрядов стали разжигать костры и пускать свои ракеты. Иной же связи не было: из опасения, как бы радисты не попали в лапы врага с секретными радиоданными, решили их не сообщать до приземления, и эти коды и позывные летели отдельно, в других самолетах, и на земле не суждено им было воссоединиться с бесполезными рациями, которые оставалось только разбить да выбросить.
Это и рассказывал десантник-радист, еще не вполне исчерпавший умом всю меру изумления головотяпством.
--У нас же вся кодировка была под ключ, а голосом—так у меня микрофона нету, не велели с собой брать,--говорил он с непрошедшим, неизжитым отчаянием.—Ну, что... ну, я могу открытым текстом: сюда, мол, не сбрасывайте людей, тут засады кругом... Но кто же мне поверит, когда я радиоданных не имею, кодов не знаю, своих позывных? У комбата все, а где он, комбат?
“Действительно,--подхватил майор Светлооков, --кто же тебе поверит. Ты же всего наблюдать не мог. Или кто-то потом рассказал тебе?” (Генерал 198-9)
Translation - English He informed him of that which the general was still waiting for his not overly scrupulous neighbors to tell him, that the bloody cup of the Sibezh incident was already filled to the brim. To make up for this whole escapade, they were trying to correct the mistake by entering into another, similar fiasco—an airborne descent, one more massive than any ever performed in the history of wars. The captive did not, of course, know the total number of men involved, but he referred to his airborne brigade as the fifth, from which the general could conclude without a gross error that there were probably five active brigades—the number assigned to fools… To top off this threatening gesture of might, they added the idea of a nighttime descent, “under the cover of darkness,”—as if if would constitute a great effort for the Germans to disperse this cover with searchlights, flares, suspended lamp-bombs! And this is where all the misfortune stemmed from. It was decided to drop five brigades in one night, and in an extreme case, in two, although there was no airport nearer than two hundred kilometers before the Dnepr, and they didn’t have enough airplanes. So some kind of LI-2 or towplanes for gliders were supposed to complete several flights each in the course of a single night, several liftoffs, several landings… They were in such a hurry that they only informed the parachutists of the mission an hour before they were supposed to leave, and the details were worked out on the fly. They were in such a hurry that they included in these crews pilots with no experience in night flights, and who did not even try to maintain the necessary minimum altitude; fearing the fire of the anti-aircraft guns and of the nighttime fighters, they flew higher and increased their speed, and threw out the men over an enormous, unknown area. They were falling into the Dnepr—and many drowned, not having freed themselves of their shroud lines in the air. They were falling, blinded by the searchlights, onto the German battle formations, falling right into the lines of anti-aircraft gunfire, onto the burning cupolas of parachutes. The luckiest ones were carried on a beneficent breeze to the left shore, and later their own people will probably suspect them of deserting in battle, which isn’t very difficult for a parachutist trained to control his descent and ascent anyway. Those who for all these obstacles approached the ground in the predetermined place were supposed to designate it using flares and fires, but Germans in anti-parachute units very quickly began to light their own fires and shoot up flares. No other means of communication was available: out of caution, because radiomen might end up in the enemy’s clutches with secret radio information, it had been decided to not inform anyone until they were on the ground, whereby all these codes and call signs were flown on separate flights. And on the ground, they were not fated to come together with their useless portable radio transmitters, which were only good to destroy and throw away.
The parachutist-radioman, who himself had not yet completely exhausted the full measure of his amazement at the bungled operation, told him all this.
All of the codes were with us, under lock and key, but we had no voice—I didn’t have a microphone, they never told us to take them,--he said with despair that had not run its course.—So, what…well, I can say openly: people should not be just thrown down here, there are ambushes all around…But who will believe me, since I don’t have the radio signals, I don’t know the codes, or even my own code-name? The battalion commander had it all, but where is the battalion commander?
“Indeed,” major Svetlookov seized upon this,--who would believe you? You couldn’t have observed everything. Or maybe someone just told you all this?
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PhD - University of Southern California
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Years of experience: 31. Registered at ProZ.com: Jan 2016. Became a member: Jul 2018.
My academic background is in literature, culture, history and theology; my professional experience includes academic, administrative, and editing work in fields including linguistics, history, literature, childcare, pedagogy, medical texts, ethnography, and social sciences. My first love was German. My second was Russian. I have spent over three years abroad in Germany, Russia, and Ukraine. I got a Bachelor's of Philosophy in German and Russian, an M.A. in Russian, a Ph.D in Russian, and an M.A. in Theology.I love words and language and I am an excellent writer and translator. As an editor and translator, I have extensive knowledge of grammar, good style, and attention to detail. As a writing consultant, I am good at helping others to say what they want to say and to say it well. My hobbies are reading, knitting, board games, and travel (abroad and to U.S. National Parks and historical sites). I live in Los Angeles, CA with my husband and three teenagers (I also have two adult children).
Keywords: Russian to English, German to English, theological, theology, religion, theologie, humanities, social sciences, literature, literary
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