Abisalova, Raisa N.
Izvestia SOIGSI. 2020. IIS 36 (75).

Abstract:
One of the significant problems of world art culture is the problem of the interconnection and
mutual influence of literature. It is even more relevant in Russia, which is positioned as a multinational
state. Therefore, the role of intercultural dialogue between Russian and Ossetian literature, which arose
at the end of the 19th century, only increased in the following decades. The work of the outstanding
Russian poet, prose writer, translator, journalist, teacher and artist Sergei Mitrofanovich Gorodetsky,
who entered the Russian literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries as part of the Silver Age
culture, seems to be tangible in the development of this dialogue. This era was the pride of Russian
literature, giving the world A. Blok, A. Akhmatov, S. Yesenin, I. Bunin, V. Bryusov, N. Gumilyov,
K. Balmont, O. Mandelstam, V. Mayakovsky, M. Voloshin and many others. S. Gorodetsky»s
heritage is striking in its genre diversity — poetry, prose, dramaturgy, opera libretto, journalism,
criticism, literary articles, and translations. His long work developed under the influence of Russian
folklore, symbolism, neo-romanticism, neo-mythology, he formulated the tasks of acmeism. The
proposed work is dedicated to the Ossetian literary connections of Gorodetsky, which are practically
not reflected either in his biographies or in his studies of his creations. In 1919, the journalistic fate
brought the poet to the Caucasus. His acquaintance with Ossetia began with the Nart epic, with the
translation in 1920 of the Nart legend of Atsamaz and Agunda. In 1928, he turned to the Ossetian
Daredzan epic and the work of the Ossetian playwright E. Britaev, creating the libretto of the opera
Amran, staged in the Bolshoi Theater. In the 30s, a new period in the Ossetian literary relations of
Gorodetsky began with his acquaintance with the poet Khariton Pliev. The beginning of their creative
friendship was the translation of the poem by Kh. Pliev «Ænækhuyssæg ækhsæv», written on the
death of Kirov. Gorodetsky, an experienced translator, made considerable efforts in the search for the
adequacy of imagery, artistic features, and expressiveness of Ossetian poetic speech. The knowledge
acquired in the mid-1920s, when he visited Ossetia as a correspondent for the Izvestia newspaper, got
acquainted with its ethnography, culture, epos, rites and customs, and met with the people of Ossetia,
helped him a lot. Then Gorodetsky turned to the image of the outstanding Ossetian poet Kosta
Khetagurov, whose love, due to the common ideological orientation of their work, attitude to the
people, to folklore, remained unchanged until the end of his life. The article considers the translations
of Gorodetsky poems by Khariton (Hado) Pliev dedicated to Kosta. They are distinguished by the
high quality of translation, deep penetration into the specifics of Ossetian poetic speech, the artistic
thinking of national poets, their spiritual and moral values. Gorodetsky»s poem «Kosta Khetagurov»,
written in 1939 for the poet»s anniversary and read by him at the celebrations in Vladikavkaz (then
Ordzhonikidze), is also analyzed. A few decades later, this poem was translated into Ossetian by the
poet Haji-Murat Dzutstsati.

Keywords: S. M. Gorodetsky, the turn of the century, «Silver Age», poetry, the Caucasus, Ossetia, translation, Kh. Pliev, K. Khetagurov

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