On 1 April 2016 SCIT held a videoconference with DG INTE, European Parliament. The objective of the conference was to practice students’ retour. SCIT trainers acted as speakers and European experts assessed the accuracy and delivery of students’ performances. The range of topics varied from the role of flowers in human life to doping in sport. All students coped with the challenge and received useful feedback from the European colleagues.
On 30 March, Herzen University hosted Natalya Sokolovskaya, writer, translator, and literary editor. She authored several volumes of prose: Slave of Belles Lettres: Days of Work and Leisure, The Standard of Love, View from Mont Blanc, Portraying God; books of poetry: Nature of Light, Unsealed Letters, Angels Forever, and translated poetry from the Georgian language. Natalya Sokolovskaya initiated a series of important literary projects in Russia: she designed and led a joint Russian-Georgian project “Shota Rustaveli’s poem The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” (published by Bilingva, 2007, 2015); authored the project “Olga: Forbidden Diary” dedicated to Olga Berggolts (St. Petersburg, 2010) and the project “I will live till old age, till the day of glory… Boris Kornilov” (St. Petersburg, 2012); she edited the complete war-time diaries of Olga Berggolts (St. Petersburg, 2015).
The Conference Hall of Herzen University was full; the lecture was attended by the students and lecturers from the Institute of Foreign Languages, SCIT students and trainers. For students, such meetings are more than a cultural event, they give a glimpse of what professional life has in store for future linguists and translators. SCIT and Herzen’s IFL are planning similar joint events aimed at educating the youth in the spirit of respect for the native language, profound understanding of our history and culture.
On 21-25 March SCIT held a series of aptitude tests. The examination board consisted of the SCIT trainers, including Boris Pogodin, UN interpreter with 25 years of experience, and Brian Gentle, European Commission representative and experienced EC SCIC interpreter. Only six candidates succeeded in a series of rigorous tests. Regrettably, due to the terrorist attack on Brussels airport Noel Muylle, Honorary Director General of the European Commission and SCIT Honorary president, could not participate in the work of the examination board.
On 22 March SCIT hosted a very successful master class by Birgit Menzel, Professor of Johannes-Gutenberg University, Mainz / Germersheim. A mock conference was organized where Prof. Mezel gave a comprehesive analysis of the re-immigration of Russian Germans (Russlanddeutsche) in Germany. This was a opportunity for the students to practise consecutive and simultaneous interpreting including retour into German and English. In the ensuing conversation Prof. Menzel and the SCIT students discussed the issues related to Germany’s migration policy and the details of teaching interpeting at the Johannes-Gutenberg university.
The SCIT administration and Prof. Menzel discussed the possibility of building up cooperation between the Johannes-Gutenberg university and SCIT and started to prepare the necessary documents.
The day before the SCIT students with German attended a seminar in the Pushkin House, the Institute of Russian Literature, where Prof. Menzel presented her paper, „The War of Translations: reading Dostoyevsky in German and English“.
On 14 and 15 March, the 20th EC SCIC-universities conference New Times, New Needs, New Learning was held in Brussels. The conference was opened by Kristalina Georgieva, EC Vice-President. In her opening remarks she addressed the challenges the EC faces today – the continuing economic crisis, migration, terrorism. She was certain that a committed European Union will cope with these challenges better than countries would do so individually. Carlos Alegria, Acting Director General of DG SCIC, in his speech at the plenary focused on the cooperation between DG SCIC and partner-universities and assured that the partnership will remain a priority despite budgetary constraints. The participants discussed the current situation and trends in the translation industry, the prospects of blended education and DG SCIC initiatives to support the university programmes.
Herzen University and SCIT were represented by Angelique Antonova, SCIT Deputy Director. On the margins of the conference she held a series of meetings with the heads of linguistic services in the European Union, coordinators and leaders of the university programs. European colleagues confirmed their readiness to maintain cooperation between the European linguistic services and Herzen university at a high level. Arrangements were made to develop cooperation in interpreter training with the universities of La Laguna (Spain), ELTE (Budapest), Charles University (Prague).
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Conference materials available at:
On 15-26 February SCIT hosted Mr. Peter McCarey, Chief of Language Services in the World Health Organization (WHO). He held a series of master classes where he acquainted the students with specific aspects of work at WHO. The students translated and jointly edited several texts from the WHO workflow. Mr. McCarey’s master classes coincided with the students’ participation in the veterinary conference and the thematic seminar on medical translation led by Mr. Mikhail Demidov, SCIT graduate. It is the first time that SCIT students have got such intensive training in medical translation and interpreting.
As long as Mr. McCarey is widely involved in literary work and has authored a novel, a volume of poems, a book of essays on language, translation and philosophy and several critical works, he also dared students to translate a poem into English. Sergei Zavjalov’s poem on the war theme was simultaneously simple and complex: the poem’s varying stylistic modes were compensated for by its repetitive structural pattern.
On 8 – 26 February SCIT hosted Jonathan Clements, FAO interpreter. Over three weeks he gave master classes in consecutive and simultaneous retour as well as sight translation to SCIT students. In preparing for the classes the students learned a lot about FAO, its agenda and the specificity of texts and speeches there. The master-classes in retour into English with a native speaker highlighted the students’ problem areas and gaps in their mastery of retour. Moreover, as an experienced interpreter Jonathan shared his secrets on interpreting technique and provided a lot of valuable advice. In addition, students from the Bachelor’s and Master’s programs at the Institute of Foreign Languages could also attend Jonathan’s classes. Our guest was also an active participant in SCIT events concurrent with his visit. He took part in a Welcome Day, attended lectures given by SCIT professors and actively practiced his Russian with the SCIT students.
Jonathan Clements’ master classes took place under the Memorandum of Understanding with FAO. Another aspect of cooperation with FAO is graduate internships. Currently Marina Tkacheva, SCIT graduate 2015, is working with the FAO translator team in Rome. We hope Herzen University will continue and further broaden its cooperation with this organization.
Recently Irina Alexeeva, SCIT Director, gave an interview to Fiodor Kondratovich, Director General of LLC “LingvaKontakt”. The colleagues discussed the topical issues of educating interpreters and translators, Irina Alexeeva spoke about the specificity of the training process at SCIT and the role of foreign languages in today’s world.
From 1 to 8 February 2016 the School hosted Kirill Kasyanov, a senior interpreter from the Russian Interpretation Section at the UN Headquarters in New York who gave a series of master classes. During four days of rigorous work the students practiced their interpreting skills doing actual speeches from the UN meetings. Thanks to our guest’s professionalism every class became a unique experience in professional communication, and his criticism helped the students to understand and try to avoid the most typical mistakes of a simultaneous interpreter. In addition to the English classes, Kirill Kasyanov gave a simultaneous master-class from Spanish into Russian.
On 14 December 2015, as a fringe event of the IV St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum, the St. Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation organized a special event – a round table entitled Translation Feast: Tradition and Modernity. With the Year of Literature in Russia coming to its finale, this event brought together translation scholars and practitioners, including leading literary translators of Western, Oriental, and Slavonic literature. The round table provided an excellent opportunity for the discussion of the place and the role of literary translation in today’s Russian culture, providing a glimpse of the best examples of the art of translation. Theorists discussed the role of literary translation in contemporary Russian culture, and practitioners gave a recital of their latest translations. They definitely succeeded in delivering to their audience the music and imagery of languages as diverse as Arabic, Japanese, Slovenian, Mongolian, Spanish, Czech, Hungarian, Georgian, and Norwegian, among others.
The round table attracted many Herzen University students and faculty, as well as other guests with an interest in literature and foreign cultures. It demonstrated that the best Russian translations extend the geographical reach and lifespan of the masterpieces of world literature. Translations also make understanding possible between distant cultural traditions, and allow for the creation of a favourable environment for the development of Russian culture itself.
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