FERNANDO PESSOA TRANSLATED BY A. GELESCUL
The Russian reader was able to get to know Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) the greatest Portuguese lyricist of the 20th century only in 1974, on the eve of the Portuguese anti-fascist revolution, thanks to the anthology "Portuguese Poetry of the Twentieth Century" published by E. G. Golubeva. Unfortunately, not all the translations of this remarkable poet have been fulfilled at the proper level. However, in 1978 were published the "Lyrics" compiled by Ye. V. Vitkovsky, where his poems translated by A. Gelescul were published for the first time, and later were subsequently republished many times. A. Gelescul translated from German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Czech. The only Portuguese poet translated by A. Gelescul, was F. Pessoa. The more talented the poet, the more difficult it is to translate him. About how diligently A. Gelescul approached his work, at least his translation of a small poem by F. Pessoa, entitled "Autopsicografia", i.e. the description of one's own soul, testifies it. Summarizing, we emphasize that, despite certain miscalculations, A. Gelescul's translations are very successful and advantageous. A. Gelescul managed to convey to everyone else the finest shades of thoughts and feelings in F. Pessoa's poetry, while retaining the elegance and melody of the verse, and the amateurs of poetry have the opportunity to form a fairly objective opinion about this remarkable poet.