The Rebirth of Tagore in Latvia
The first book of Rabindranath Tagore's works translated from Bengali into Latvian by the University of Latvia professor Viktors Ivbulis was among the best sold books four months after being published.
By LIGA MITENBERGA
Viktors Ivbulis' 'Rabindranath Tagore' is the first and the only large book in the Baltic States that includes so many translations of Tagore's works directly from Bengali. It offers the Latvian reader rich material on the Bengali writer: scrupulous analysis of Tagore's life and creative writing, the first complete translation of the novel 'The Home and the World' into Latvian, the plays 'Nature's Revenge' and 'Post Office', a part of Tagore's theoretical essays 'The Beautiful and Literature', his speech of 1917 'The Master's Will be Done', and fifty poems.In fact this is not the first time the Latvian readership has been introduced to the Bengali writer. We have had a very serious interest in India since the mid-19th century stemming from the postulated relatedness of Latvian to Sanskrit. This was actually a reason for contemporaneous intellectuals and the press at that time to consider Indians our brothers. The spiritual attraction towards India inspired Karlis Egle and Rihards Rudzitis the predecessors of Viktors Ivbulis in Latvia to translate Tagore from English and as early as 1928-1939. As nowhere in the world, Tagore's 'Collected Works' were published in Latvia in nine volumes. Viktors Ivbulis himself claims that Tagore was the most translated belles-lettres author into Latvian in 1930s as well as the most widely read poet in the world in early 1920s.
There is no doubt that Tagore's novel 'The Home and the World', which is imbued with extremely sober nationalism, may touch the heart of any nation that has been oppressed. Latvians have suffered under various foreign rulers; our second independence is only nine years old it may be just a coincidence the situation was also very similar when 'The Home and the World' was published in Latvian for the first time, too. However, there is another important aspect why the novel is important today that cannot be overlooked. Namely the fine representation of the relationship between a husband, a wife, and the 'third one'. The doubts, hopes, intentions, sufferings, and actions of Bimala resemble those of any woman; and because of these human qualities the novel is equally important to a European as it is to an Indian. It seems that Bimala's monologues include some part of any woman's confessions and it only remains to admire the amazing self-evidence of Indian woman's emotional experience as presented by the writer. The times of political, economic thus accordingly personal relationship changes in Latvia in many cases have left people without any terms of reference to judge true or false values. Tagore's fine representation of Bimala, Nikhilesh, and Sandip by such unusual literary means as continuous monologues and no direct description whatsoever that actually starts the mechanism of opinion forming already as one reads suggests a new set of values to the reader's mind, thereby also proving the quality of the literary work. For this particular reason not only the idea itself plays the role the form of expression is important, and the comprehensibility and attraction towards the whole setting of the novel are indispensable. Of course, it is just as well to recall that the changing point of view technique was then also very much used in European literature.
White lace
Even though the Balt languages and Sanskrit may have some common roots, the very practical differences between Bengali and Latvian hinder the maximum representation of important details, let alone talking about the impossibility of translating the rich, culture-bound material. Viktors Ivbulis' translation from Bengali proves to be superior to the first Latvian version of 'The Home and the World' in both the rendering of the characteristics of Indian culture into Latvian and in providing fluent and reader-friendly target text. There are even some paradoxical 'findings' comparing his translation and the first Latvian translation of 'The Home and the World'. Even though Ivbulis often has used modern words (in some cases even overdoing this) and has rendered all terms that are related to Indian religion and culture as transliterations which was not a case in the first translation (many terms were explained, not transliterated) the novel in his interpretation is far easier to read than the first translation. The translation from Bengali could be compared to a white, carefully knitted lace, while the translation from English is like a red silk ribbon. The quality of the first lies in the necessity to possess the particular ability to knit and the attention and the patience required to keep the pattern, while the second is nice and a good thing to have, even though practically it has less use and value than the first. Obviously Ivbulis' Indian Studies experience plays a role in his having this ability to represent the details of the country's culture, as do the long years of scrupulous work while the book was being completed (he started working with the first translations in 1972).
In fact, Professor Ivbulis has devoted more than thirty-five years of his academic career to Indian Studies and to the research on that great heir of Indian culture Rabindranath Tagore. The current book is Professor Ivbulis' seventh book on India and the fourth on Tagore, including two works that consist of both critical introductions and translations. The 137-page introduction, that is a monograph in itself, reflects Viktors Ivbulis' writings in other languages, and his teaching experience in several universities in America and Europe. For his life-long work mainly on India, he has been elected corresponding member of Latvian Academy of Sciences.
The distinctive feature of Ivbulis' monograph on Tagore is the fact that the author presents Tagore's creativity from the perspective of Indian-European literary relationship. There is a discussion not only of the merit of Tagore's works, but also a representation and exposition of India's development and its growing importance in the global historical context. Ivbulis also discusses the role of Tagore on the world's political and creative stage from a literary historical perspective (the author is the only person publishing books on literary theory in Latvian at present).
The monograph regarding the formation of Tagore's personality and his creative manifestations is largely theoretical; but it also has a rich factual background. Thus the conclusions and evaluations Ivbulis suggests in the book are highly objective. It should also be noted that because of the particular selection of works for translation, Tagore becomes a stronger and a more masculine personality than he was previously known in Latvia. It also seems that Ivbulis will succeed in proving that Tagore was above all a romanticist and thus close to the documented literary climate in Latvia in 1920-1930s. I am happy to hear that another Ivbulis book, 'Rabindranath Tagore and East-West Cultural Unity', has just been published in Calcutta.
In conclusion, I would like to say that the timing of the publication of the Latvian 'Rabindranath Tagore' has been perfect. The political and economic situation is fairly stable in Latvia; it is time to start thinking about a new system of values. The global significance of Tagore's ideas, the profundity of Ivbulis' work are the reasons for taking public interest unawares. It is also a proof to the quality of contemporaneity of their work. *
Liga Mitenberga, Latvia,
E-mail: strazds@hotmail.com