"Chequhov is a way to meet Russia"
- Selecting a collection of works by Anton Chequhoven, Iker Sancho Intsausti (Lazkao, 1976) has published the book '31 ipuin'. It has translated them directly from Russia, into the first great collection.
She has translated the literature of Anton Chequhoven into Basque, why she?
A group of Russian writers knows all worlds, such as Dostoievski and Tolstoi, although they do not read a book. However, Chequhov is a highly educated writer among literature enthusiasts, but less well known to the general public. For today it has a very good thing: stories are short, easy to read and juicy. It's a nice combination.
Before there are some translations in Basque, but by units.
Yes, loose stories. Xabier Mendiguren Bereziartu performed five or six translations. But it is the first time that a forceful edition has been made, and such an intense collection has been placed for the first time in Basque. I have translated them directly from Russian.
Has that also been of value to you?
In the history of translation, at the time we found ourselves, they began to translate directly from Russian in the 1990s, that is, by knowing translators to Russian. That doesn't mean I put it better in Basque, but that right path is a qualitative leap. Translations are also aging, and past and current translations are different. Qualitatively, this edition is a novelty, because I have translated Chequhov from Russian to Basque for the first time.
He was a prolific writer. How have you chosen what to leave?
I guess it can have a few seven hundred stories. This project has been very nice for me. So far I've participated in translation contests, but I never dared to create and offer a project. This time I wanted to do what I wanted. It's a small world, and Elkar knew me. Chequhov has a good key among literature buffs and story buffs. I have done the project, I offer it, I have received the yes, besides choosing, they have allowed me to work very well, and thank you and I have done everything. Personally, it has also been a nice project.
And what stories do you introduce, depending on what you've decided?
The author has quite defined stages, in the first a few short stories and many, in the second stage he acquires a maturity that would be creation. A sad mood or a humorous sadness is what defines Gauzatu-khov. Even where there's humor, the situations to start falling apart are not, but there's a lot of moral misery. That's the characteristic of his art.
He didn't have a tender life.
I've talked about his biography, compaginating life and work. He had a pretty difficult childhood, his father made debts, and he himself was selling things to pay for them. He finished school and went to Moscow. She studied medicine, and that also permeates her career. Very young man was hit by tuberculosis and from that moment on he is a sick medical writer. On the other hand, he wrote with great social sensitivity. He died 13 years before the revolution, but that environment was already there.
Is, therefore, a collection of ‘31 stories’ a journey throughout your life?
As the stories of the first era are short and many, I have picked up more of them; they are short, lighter and more humorous. It did less of the next two stages, but it did longer, and I've taken less. I've tried to balance it based on your trajectory.
In the stories it critically reflects the society of then and Russia.
Totally. It is a realism, it is not an abstract thing. It didn't slip too far with concrete political movements, but Lenin, for example, had references from Chequhov's stories: Deported in Siberia, he said he read a story in Chequhov and that he could not sleep that night. The story takes place in a mental hospital, but it's Russia. It had a lot of influence on the revolutionaries, but he didn't get in too much. It didn't give him time.
What have you been attracted to?
Many of the realities of the time appear. For the readers here, it is a way to get to know Russia. Because Russia, a hundred years ago and today, although many things have happened and there was the Soviet Union, has not changed so much. But like Russia, us or anywhere. A town or territory with a specific character of centuries cannot change overnight. The old hierarchies are still very strong, the social structures, the types of relationships -- they're the same. In fact, Chequhove provides elements to understand some of the keys of a country that, unfortunately, is now so fashionable.
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