Intertextual markers of the New Testament in the text of F.M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Brothers Karamazov”: the specifics of translation

Context and relevance. The translation of the intertext of literary and artistic discourse, in particular its varieties, such as New Testament intertextual markers, poses a particular difficulty. At the same time, adequate cross-lingual and cross-cultural transmission of these elements is a key condition for preserving the structural levels of the deep text along with religious and philosophical subtexts of the literary work. The necessity to analyze and verify the translation of New Testament intertextual markers is obvious. The theoretical basis of the study were the theory of intertextuality and the translation theory, which contributes to improving the quality of cross-cultural communication in the context of literary translation of culturally specific and religiously marked texts. Goal. To introduce the analysis of a new translation of the novel into the scientific circulation. To identify and compare translation techniques and correlating translation strategies used in the transmission of New Testament intertextual markers in the aspect of diachrony. Hypothesis. The translation techniques used for cross-lingual and cross-cultural transmission of the intertextual markers correlate with the chosen translation strategy, and in some cases translation, regardless of the chosen strategy, is accompanied by a total/partial loss of intertextual links. Methods and materials. The methods include continuous sampling of the New Testament intertextual markers and comparative analysis of translation techniques. The material is the original text of the F.M. Dostoevsky’s novel «Brothers Karamazov» (according to academic edition 1972-1990) and its three translations by C. Garnett, R. Pevear and L. Volokhonsky, Michael R. Katz. Results. A list of identified New Testament intertextual markers (hereinafter referred to as NIM) and relevant New Testament passages in Russian and English has been compiled, as well as a comparative table of NIM and their translations in three versions. The corpus of precedent New Testament texts is determined. The classification of NIM by type and mode of representation is proposed. Translation techniques and correlated translation strategies are identified. The main cause of loss of intertextual links is revealed. An optimized NIM translation strategy has been proposed. Conclusions. The structure of NIM has been shown to correlate with the fact of its preserving/loss during translation. The dominant translation technique of the explicit NIM transmission is to use a canonical analog, while the one of the implicit NIM transmission is a zero transformation, in some cases leading to the loss of NIM in the secondary text. The basic translation strategy throughout the existence of the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" in the British-American environment is domestication with elements of adaptation reflecting the translation and literary trends of the era. In the aspect of the diachrony, there is a progressive increase in the degree of explication of the NIM due to the use of metadiscourse elements (footnotes and comments) by translators that violates the intention of the original literary work’s author. It is recommended to use a concept-oriented strategy based on expert (philological and theological) knowledge in order to identify and adequately transmit intertextual links, and therefore all structural levels of a literary work.