For decades, in the absence of inspired translations, it was nearly impossible to convince Anglophone readers of Alexander Pushkin’s genius. One could make all the claims one wanted, but there was simply no way to prove them. Slowly but surely, the case for Pushkin improved. The poet’s defenders can now muster hard evidence, including Stanley Mitchell’s sparkling recreation of Eugene Onegin (2008). But how much worse the situation has been for Pushkin’s brilliant contemporaries. Konstantin Batyushkov (1787-1855), Pyotr Vyazemsky (1792-1878), and Yevgeny Baratynsky (1800-1844) remain virtually unknown outside Russia. One hopes that Peter France’s sensitive and graceful translations of Baratynsky, whom he compares to Giacomo Leopardi in both spirit and stature, will finally win Pushkin’s most original and accomplished peer an appreciative readership in the Anglophone world.
 | Peter FrancePeter France was born in Northern Ireland of Welsh parents and has lived at various places in England, France and Canada. He is now based in Edinburgh, where he was professor of French from 1980 to 2000. A Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he has written many studies of French, Russian and comparative literature, and is the editor of the New Oxford Companion to Literature in French and of the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation and general editor of the five-volume Oxford History of Literary Translation in English. He has translated French and Russian prose texts as well as several volumes of Russian poetry – Blok and Pasternak (both with Jon Stallworthy), Batyushkov, Baratynsky, Lermontov, Mayakovsky, Mandelstam, and in particular Gennady Aygi, including Selected Poems 1954-1994 (Angel/NorthWestern), Child-and-Rose (New Directions), Field-Russia (New Directions), Winter Revels (Rumor Press), and a book edited by Aygi, the Anthology of Chuvash Poetry. |