‘Translation joins diverse cultures’

LAHORE: Speakers at a seminar on “Direct Translations from Russian Literature” said that translation was an amalgamation of two different cultures, and considering it an inferior art was misleading and unjust.

The seminar was organised by the Sondhi Translation Society of Government College University, Lahore, as a tribute to translations of Dr Najam-ul-Sehr Butt, the first Pakistani to receive Russia's highest civil award “Medal of Pushkin” this year in November.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Hassan Amir Shah chaired the seminar which was also addressed by Quddus Mirza, an art critic, and Farrukh Sohail Goindi, an eminent writer. The speakers stressed that it was highly unfair to relegate translated work to a less significant level, indeed it was more challenging than the actual creation on account of its intellectual and creative dimensions. They highlighted different aspects of Dr Najam's translations from Russian literature into Urdu, including the biography of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In his opening remarks, GCU Debating Society adviser Siddique Awan said the translation is an amalgamation of divergent cultures, languages and intellectual ethos which creates a new world of meaning and interpretation.

Talking about Dr Najam's translation of “The Master and Margarita”, a novel written by Mikhail Bulgaov, Stockholm University, Sweden Professor Emeritus Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed said it was a classic which every student of political science must read.

“If we relate this great classic to our conditions it would not be difficult to appreciate that similar, if not identical, conditions prevail in Pakistan,” he said.

Like Soviet Union, Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed said, Pakistan was also more threatened from inside by moral bankruptcy of politicians and bureaucrats rather than threats from external forces.

In his keynote address, Dr Najam said that Russian literature was very wide and deep but most of works, he had translated, somehow related to Pakistani society. He said he had found Russian culture nearer to Asia than Western Europe. “Especially, the Russian satire relates to our Punjabi style,” he added.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Hassan Shah hoped that GCU would establish the Sondhi Translation Centre in the near future as more space would be available to the university after the completion of its under-construction new campus at Kala Shah Kaku.

GCU Dean Faculty of Languages Prof Dr Muhammad Iqbal Shahid and Urdu Department distinguished Professor Dr Saadat Saeed said that translation was not merely a word by word transformation of original text to another language rather it was a creation of new literature.Saad-ul-Hassan, a former student of GCU, also presented excerpts from his research thesis “Colonial Bias in the Translation of Heer Waris Shah” at the seminar.