25 January 2018: SCIT hosts Yuri Lebedev, translator and member of St. Petersburg Branch of Union of Writers

On 25 January SCIT hosted Yuri Lebedev, translator and a member of the St. Petersburg Branch of Union of Writers. The meeting was dedicated to the 75^th anniversary of the Breach of the Leningrad Siege. At the meeting Yury Lebedev told the students about the German memoir literature and about the Leningrad Siege, dwelled on the Defense of Leningrad. The guest actively engaged the students in conversation and asked their opinion about many issues related to the war.

The participants discussed the tricks of the work of military interpreters and translators. Mr. Lebedev spoke about the difficulties of simultaneous interpreters’ work and recounted some events from his own experience. Talking about the subtleties of literary translation he said: “Nobody will ever become a good translator without the perfect knowledge of the mother tongue”.

Irina Alexeeva asked the guest to tell about his engagement in the work of the International Centre “Reconciliation” where he is a chair. The Centre established good connections between Russia and Germany which helped to open a military cemetery of German soldiers in Sologubovka, in the vicinity of St. Petersburg.

The writer also shared his impressions about working on the books Into Eternity and Jokes of Military Interpreter. An important milestone in his career became the translation of Arno Surminski’s novel Vaterland ohne Väter (Fatherland without Fathers).

After the talk the students asked many questions about the fates of military translators and discussed the dilemma of heroism and self-sacrifice of Leningrad citizens.

“There was heroism, but tragedy was also there”, – concluded Mr. Lebedev

http://mr7.ru/articles/175760/