Mosskaw / Moskva: Sumarokov's Translations of Fleming's Sonnets (1).

Ober, Kenneth H. ; Wade, Mara R.

Although Michael Henry Heim has pointed out that "translation was ... no more than a sideline for [Aleksandr Petrovich] Sumarokov" (2) (1717-77), and Harold B. Segel has established that Sumarokov has "virtually nothing in common with the baroque," (3) this Russian literary pioneer, whom Segel has called "the first truly modern writer in the history of Russian literature," (4) provided the Russian reading public in 1755 with its first translations of three sonnets by the German Baroque poet Paul Fleming (1609-40)--translations which are significant both for Russian literary history (5) and for the history of the international reception of German Baroque literature. Sumarokov's selection of these three poems--"an die grosse Stadt Mosskaw / als er schiede," "An den Fluss Mosskaw / als er schiede," and "Er redet die Stadt Mosskaw an / Als er ihre verguldeten Thurme von fernen sahe"--was for obvious reasons a natural one; Fleming had three times visited Moscow (1634, 1636 and 1639) with Adam Olearius on the Holstein trade mission sent by Duke Friedrich III, and had written the poems while there, glorifying the Russian capital.

Sumarokov, along with Mikhail Vasil'evich Lomonosov (1711-65) and Vasilii Kirillovich Trediakovskii (1703-69), was instrumental in establishing the norms for the foundation of modern Russian literature. He had learned German (along with French, of course) and had become acquainted with contemporary European literatures at the Corps of Cadets (Sukhoputnyi shliakhetnyi korpus) in St. Petersburg, an academy for the sons of the nobility. He worked at introducing into Russian literature the various poetic and dramatic genres then current in western Europe, and although the sonnet was not one of the fashionable genres of the eighteenth century, Sumarokov tried his hand at it, producing, however, only nine, including the three Fleming translations.

Sumarokov was naturally familiar with the major European literary movements of the preceding century, and particularly with Fleming's poetry; the noted Russian literary historian Mikhail Pavlovich Alekseev specifically points this out in his article on Fleming in the USSR Academy of Sciences' Istoriia nemetskoi literatury v piati tomakh. (6) Sumarokov would have been able to read Fleming's sonnets in one of the many reprints of the German poet's works that had appeared since his death. That he was also familiar with other writers of the Baroque is clear; in his "Epistola II" of 1747 (his two-verse "Epistles"--one on the Russian language, the other on versification--are important works in the history of Russian poetry) he includes the Hollander Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) and the German poet of the late Baroque Johann Christian Gunther (1695-1723) among models worthy of imitation. (7) Incidentally, according to the editor of Sumarokov's Izbrannye proiz-vedeniia, P. N. Berkov, Sumarokov compiled the first Russian biographical lexicon of Russian and foreign writers, although a brief one, for his two "Epistles." (8) Entitled "Primechaniia na upotreblennye v sikh epistolakh stikhotvortsev imena" ("Notes on the names of poets used in these epistles"), this list included the following note on Gunther: "a recent German poet whose carefully composed and polished verses, though far fewer than those of others, merit the highest praise." (9)

Sumarokov's translations of Fleming's sonnets appeared in 1755 in a prestigious publication--Ezhemesiachnye Sochineniia k pol'ze i uveseleniiu sluzhashchie ("Monthly compositions serving to benefit and entertain"), published by the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, the first scholarly literary journal in Russian literary history, which had begun publication that same year, with the purpose of raising the cultural level of the literate public. Since only the aristocracy was literate, the readership would have been limited, and the fact that the journal was printed in 2,000 copies (10) attests its significance, as does the fact that it numbered all three of the giants of early Russian literary history--Sumarokov, Lomonosov, and Trediakovskii--among its contributors.

The translations of the three sonnets were later included in the Polnoe sobranie vsekh sochinenii, v stikhakh i proze ... Aleksandra Petrovicha Sumarokova ("Complete collected works in verse and prose ..."), published in 1782 in Moscow by Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov (1744-1818), a noted critic and publisher; the second edition appeared in 1787. A publisher's note to the translations reads, "This and the following two sonnets were composed by Paul Fleming, a notable German poet who was in Moscow in 1634 and 1636, with the Holstein embassy, and were transposed into Russian verses by Mr. Sumarokov." (11) The Soviet edition of Sumarokov's works, the standard Izbrannye proizvedeniia referred to above, published in the series "Biblioteka poeta, Bol'shaia seriia" (1957), which contains the three translations (pp. 473-74), is the edition used in citing Sumarokov's translations here.

In November 1633 the embassy of Duke Friedrich III (1597-1659) of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf embarked on a six-year journey to Moscow and the Near East in an attempt to secure an overland trade route to Persia, primarily for the importation of silk. The travel account published by Fleming's friend and fellow traveler Adam Olearius, ... Beschreibung / Der Newen ORIENTALISCHEN REJSE, became an instant bestseller, was translated into French, Dutch, and English during the seventeenth century, and provided information about those parts of the world for years to come. (12) Among the members of the entourage was the poet Paul Fleming, the author of these three sonnets about Moscow. To date the Russian translations have received no attention from Germanists. (13) The following investigation treats Fleming's poems as independent literary works and as companion pieces to Olearius's travel description. The literary and cultural value of the poems will thereby be highlighted; it is this combination of factors which prompted Sumarokov's Russian translations.

Patti Fleming was in Moscow three times. (14) These encounters with the Russian capital etched a permanent image of the foreign city on the poet's mind and provided his imagination with the impetus for the three poems on the subject, with promise of more to come. The poet's initial encounter with Moscow was in August 1634, when the entourage first entered the city on the political mission to the czar to obtain permission to cross Russian lands for the trade route to Persia. The Holstein embassy was in Moscow from August 14 until December 24, 1634. Upon receiving the czar's permission for the trade mission, the embassy returned to Reval (Tallinn), whereupon some members of the group, including Olearius, returned to Holstein to consult with Duke Friedrich as to further procedure in the matter, while the rest of the group, including Fleming, remained in Reval. During his stay in Reval Fleming became engaged to Elsabe Niehus (daughter of Heinrich Niehus). Although his beloved eventually married another man during the poet's subsequent long absence, she was the subject of many poems by Fleming, both during his stay in Reval and on his extended journeys. The poet's second visit to Moscow, from March 29 until June 30, 1636, was poetically very productive, and it was this entry into and departure from the Russian capital that inspired the three sonnets under consideration here. Olearius's description of Russia and the Russians is very extensive at this point of the travel report, whereas for both the earlier and the later trips, he devotes only a few pages to these topics. (15) Fleming's third and last sojourn in Moscow extended from January 2 until March 15, 1639, after completion of the trip to Persia. (Enroute to Holstein, the entourage stopped again in Reval, where Fleming learned of Elsabe's marriage and then became engaged to her younger sister Anna.)

Of Fleming's three sonnets about Moscow, (16) the first two sonnets occur as numbers 32 and 44 respectively in his second book of sonnets, "Gluckwunschungen," (17) and the last one occurs as number 26 in his third book of sonnets, "Liebesgedichte." (18) This poem is chronologically the oldest, since it was written on the occasion of Fleming's second entry into Moscow in the spring of 1636. The other two poems both date from his departure from Moscow to Persia in the summer of 1636. Despite the thinly-veiled Petrarchan allusions to his beloved Elsabe in the poem on the occasion of his entry into Moscow, all three poems reflect the lasting image of the Russian city ingrained on his poetic consciousness and the promise of further poetic offerings to the eternal fame of the city, should he survive to compose them. All three poems appeared in the above order in the earliest edition of his works, Prodromus (1641), (19) published after Fleming's death by Adam Olearius. (20) It is significant that Olearius edited and published Fleming's poetry and only later turned to the compilation of his own travel description. After the completion of the travels in 1639 and subsequent to Fleming's death in April 1640, Olearius produced two editions of Fleming's poetry, before his own work first appeared in 1647. (21) Olearius travelled to Reval in 1641 where the poet's literary remains were in the possession of Heinrich Niehus, Fleming's intended father-in-law. The foreword of Prodromus is dated Reval, June 10, 1641; Olearius wrote the foreword to the complete collected works in 1642, although publication was delayed until 1646. (22) In the latter, Olearius discusses the importance of Fleming's poetry, also with regard to the embassy of Duke Friedrich: Inmassen seine von anbegin / am meisten bey denen nach Mosskow und Persien verrichteten Weltkundigen Legationen, welchen Er von Anno 1633. biss 1639. ruhmlich mit beygewohnet / verfertigte Carmina mehr dann uberflussig / und so viel bezeugen / dass fast nichtes auff der Reise sich eussern / begeben oder ihme und andern furkommen mugen / dartiber Er nicht alsobald nach Beschaffenheit der Sachen herrliche Inventiones gehabt / und einem ieden seine Zierlichkeit pro renata gegeben. Wie nun sein Geist nach verrichtcten Feriis nimmer ruhen konhen / Also haben seine Poetisch Labores von Tage zu Tage zugenommen / biss Sie endlich zu einem grossen Convolut erwachsen / und weil Sie zugleich in vieler Hande / entweder von lhme selbst / oder auch da ein Liebhaber dem andern solche einzeln comuniciret, gerathen / ist Er von vielen furnehmen Leuten in Schrifften auch mundlich ersucht / ermahnet und gereitzet worden / Er solchen seinen Partum nicht untergehen lassen / sondern der Posteritat durch offenen Druck consecriren mochte / gleich (oder viel mehr) wie solchs unterschiedliche / so an Ihm / als andere seine Freunde / deswegen ausgelassene annoch vorhandene Missiven bezeugen. Dannenhero Er Ursach genommen / alle seine Labores, so viel Er derselben noch bey sich gehabt / aus dem ersten Concept ins reine zu schrieben / und in eine gewisse Ordnung zu fassen / des gantzlichen Vorsatzes und Willens / dieselben nach abgelegter Persianischer Reise in offenen Druck zu geben / und dadurch / was Er in solchen abgelegenen Orten observiret, auch wie es zuweilen Ihme oder seinen Gefarten ergangen / den Liebhabern der Edlen Poeterey und fernen Reissen mit zutheilen. (23)

Several crucial points emerge from Olearius's comments. Fleming seems to have served as a poetic chronicler of the journey, much as Olearius functioned as the secretary of the legation. Moreover, the journey was a particularly productive period for the poet, and his lyric output during those years was considerable. Fleming's poetry was circulated, either on his own initiative or through friends, and he was encouraged, indeed urged, to publish his poetry. Very little which took place on the journey escaped the poet's notice. His poetic interpretation of events, sights, experiences and observations--through the appropriate rhetorical style and artistic invention--caused them to be reborn as poetry. The poet had intended to edit and publish his own poetry when sudden death overtook him. His stop in Hamburg on the journey from Leyden to Reval, where he was to marry Anna Niehus and become a Stadtphysikus, was presumably to initiate publication of his work. (24) Olearius comments upon Fleming's intent and his own decision to publish the poet's work with the financial support of Heinrich Niehus: Alldieweil Er aber nach seiner vonder beruhmten Universitet Leyden in Holland / wo selbst Er den Gradum Doctoris in Facultate Medica mit grossen Ruhm angenommen Anno 1640 zu Hamburg beschehenen Zuruckkunfft durch den Todt / wiewol fruhzeitig hingerissen / solch sein furgesetztes Ziel nicht erreichen mugen. Damit demnach sothane herrliche monumenta von den Motten nicht verzehret / vielmehr aber dess Autoris, der mit allen Ehren unter die beruhmte Fruchtbringende Gesellschafft der trefflichen Poeten / als Opitii / Werders / Buchners / und dergleichen mit zu rechnen / lobliche Propos ins Werck gesetzet / zugleich auch vieler furnehmer Leute desiderium erfullet wurde / als hat der Ehrenveste / Fur-Achtbare und Wohlfurnahme Herr Heinrich Niehausen / der loblichen Gemeine und Burgerschafft zu Reval Eltester und Handelsmann / seine dem Autori auch in der Gruben zugetragenen Schwieger-vaterliche Affection zu bezeugen / und darneben seiner in dem vergangene 1641. Jahrs ausgelassenen Prodromo gethanen Zusage ein Genugen zu thun / nunmer alle des Sel. D. Flemmingii verhandene Deutsche Poemata, wie sie derselbe ordentlich disponiret / und sothan ganzes Opus dem Durchlfauchtigen / Hochgebohrnen Fursten und Herrn / Herrn Friedrichen ... dediciret, herausgeben wollen.... (25)

Fleming's poetry was considered important for two reasons. First, in absolute terms it was significant on its own merit as the product of one of the German Baroque's finest poets. Heinrich Niehus, not satisfied with a partial edition of Fleming's works, wanted to erect the poet a memorial with a complete edition of his collected poetry. Secondly, Fleming's poetry was viewed as a major contribution to the documentation of the travels to Moscow and Persia. Both reasons figure prominently in Olearius's remarks; in fact, Olearius cites his own edition of Fleming's poetry as one of the works he consulted in the compilation of his travel description. In the "Catalogus Autorum" Olearius lists "Paul: Flemings Teutsche Poemata 80 Lubeck." (26) Important to the present discussion is the inclusion of the three sonnets discussed here in the earliest edition of Fleming's German poetry. Sumarokov naturally followed the published order of appearance in his translation of the poems.

Fleming's three poems about Moscow all reflect the poet's preoccupation with the city. Unlike other seventeenth-century authors, who portrayed Russia and the Russians as barbaric, wild, and uncivilized, (27) Fleming depicted the Slavic world in an entirely positive light. (28) In all three poems he praises the city and, by extension, the czar. Fleming repeatedly stresses the cordial relationship between Russia and Holstein and underscores the exemplary qualities of the city. The fact that he wrote three poems about Moscow in a relatively short time indicates his drive to capture the ephemeral nature of the city in poetry. That he chose the most widely used poetic genre of the Baroque, the sonnet, to articulate the impressions he had gained of the city is also noteworthy. Fleming, an acknowledged master of the sonnet, manipulated the characteristic structure of the form to proceed from the tangible to the intangible qualities of his experiences and impressions in all three sonnets.

Probably due to the lingering Stalinist tabu concerning the acknowledgment of any form of literary indebtedness to foreign sources, there have been very few scholarly studies of Russian translations and translators. The only Soviet attempt at a specific study of Sumarokov's translations of Fleming's sonnets is N. I. Slobodskaia's article "Sonety Paulia Fleminga v perevodakh A. P. Sumarokova" in Nekotorye voprosy russkoi literatury in the series Uchenye zapiski Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo instituta im. A.S. Serafimovicha ("Scholarly notes of the Volgograd State A. S. Serafimovich Pedagogical Institute"), No. 21 (1967), pp. 140-50. Slobodskaia makes an excellent beginning in a general comparison of the originals and the translations, and arrives at two concrete conclusions: that Sumarokov omitted practically all of Fleming's metaphors, and that he altered Fleming's narrative tone. Both assertions may be true to a point, but both require qualification. Otherwise, Slobodskaia's investigation is focused on aspects outside our field of interest; for example, she stresses that Sumarokov's literary world is different from Fleming's, and therefore Sumarokov's "theory of translation" does not exactly fit Fleming's models. We assume this as a given and inevitable premise, since more than a century lies between the originals and the translations. Slobodskaia must be credited with being the first scholar to focus attention on Sumarokov's translations, but she does not subject the translations to any sort of exhaustive line-by-line comparison with the originals. Our purpose, on the other hand, is precisely to scrutinize the translations carefully in order to determine specifically their accuracy and quality and to attempt to establish the reasons underlying their attainments and shortcomings.

Line-by-line comparisons of verse originals and translations, while tedious, form the only concrete basis for firm conclusions concerning the translator's achievements. (Complete parallel texts of the originals and translations are appended.) A careful comparison of Sumarokov's translations--"Velikomu gradu Moskve" ("To the great city of Moscow"), "Moskve-reke" ("To the Moscow River"), and "Moskve" ("To Moscow")--with Fleming's originals ("An die grosse Stadt Mosskaw / als er schiede," "An den Fluss Mosskaw/als er schiede," and "Er redet die Stadt Mosskaw an / Als er ihre verguldeten Thurme von fernen sahe," respectively) at once reveals the mastery of technical precision demonstrated by Sumarokov (an aspect not touched upon by Slobodskaia). He has reproduced exactly Fleming's alexandrine (iambic hexameter) lines; each of Fleming's lines containing twelve syllables has its exact duplicate in Sumarokov's versions, as does each of Fleming's thirteen-syllable lines. Sumarokov's rhyme scheme duplicates that of Fleming in each poem, with the exception that Sumarokov apparently consciously thought of the octave as two quatrains; i.e., where Fleming's rhyme schemes are abbaabba, ccdeed; ahbcabbc, ddefef; and abbaabba, ccdeed respectively, Sumarokov's are abbacddc, eefggf, abbacddc, eefgfg; and abbacddc, eefggf. That is to say that within each quatrain of the octave, Sumarokov carefully parallels Fleming's rhyme scheme, and in each tercet Sumarokov observes precisely Fleming's scheme. This clearly indicates that any slight technical divergences that Sumarokov permitted himself were deliberate and conscious, and were not the result of oversight or limited poetic dexterity. Sumarokov's sonnet model was simply different from Fleming's. As will become evident, Sumarokov's deliberate splitting of the octaves into two quatrains each will also explain apparent liberties with the translation of lines 4 and 5 of "An die grosse Stadt Mosskaw / als er schiede" and "Er redet die Stadt Mosskaw an / Als er ihre verguldeten Thurme von fernen sahe." (Slobodskaia apparently overlooked this fact.)

In the first sonnet, "An die grosse Stadt Mosskaw / als er schiede," Fleming begins with a Baroque commonplace--the praise of a city or other geographical place as a point of departure for poetic reflection. (29) He then immediately proceeds to the personal and cordial relations between the two geographically remote places ("PRinzessin deines Reichs / die Holstein Muhme nennt"). Moscow, and thereby Russia, is acknowledged as an elder female relative who is also presumably senior in many other qualities, thus deserving of the reverence shown her. The royalty of others ("Fursten" and "Kongen") was of no help to them in their missions to Russia; only the personal favour and the true friendship between the two places enabled the embassy from Holstein to gain its goal--free passage to Persia ("den Weg nach Aufgang zu" and "mit uns nach Osten tragen"). The fluidity of the strophe and the natural thematic progression in the two quatrains of the octave are further enhanced by the enjambement after the first hemistich of the third line. Here begins a completely new thought, an entirely new syntactical unit which bursts the confines of the first quatrain. The positive sentiments rush into the first lines of the second quatrain, again underscoring the reciprocal nature of the friendly relations between Holstein and Russia ("wie sehr dein freundlichs Hertz in unsrer Liebe brennt / die Treue wollen wir"). The personal, rather than primarily political, nature of the relations between Holstein and Russia which are stated in the first quatrain are further stressed through the poetic language of the second quatrain. By using metaphors from love poetry--"Hertz," "Liebe," "Treue," "Bildnuss," "keine Zeit zertrennt"--Fleming stresses the special qualities of their relations. The themes of the octave are taken up immediately and varied in the first tercet in which the human, personal favour ("durch welcher Gunst") is intensified by the divine favour ("Dess frommen Himmels-Gunst") enjoyed by the Russian empire. The poet heaps his blessings upon the city, making a topical allusion to the Thirty Years' War in the last line of the first tercet ("Kein Mars und kein Vulkan dir uberlastig seyn"). The absence of war in Russia is yet another sign of divine favour. The general mention of the return from the journey stated in the first octave ("und bey der Wiederkunfft in unsern Landen sagen") becomes more individual with the promise of the poet ("Komm ich mit Glucke wieder") in the last lines of the poem. The final tercet is earnest with its imperative to accept the present sonnet on the condition that, should the poet survive, he will praise the city even more highly in future poetic works. The musicality of the promised poems is anticipated not only by alliteration and assonance but also by choice of vocabulary--"Lieder," "Schall," and "horen." Fleming achieves syntactic, thematic, and geographic equilibrium in the closing line of the sonnet by juxtaposing the Volga with the Rhine. This lends the final line of the poems grace, balance, and, above all, a symmetry characteristic of the entire sonnet.

The last line of the octave--"das Bildnuss ist gemacht /das keine Zeit zertrennt"--provides an emphatic closure to the two tightly interwoven quatrains. (30) The line clearly captures the immutable image of Moscow which the poet and, by implication ("wir"), the other members of the entourage, will take with them to both the East and their home in the West. This eighth line also anticipates the same line of the next sonnet, "An den Fluss Moskaw / als er schiede": "Du solt mir nimmermehr nicht kommen aus dem Sinn." The parallel occurrence and the semantic similarity of these two lines have led the present authors to dismiss Lappenberg's reading of "Bildnuss" as "Bundniss." Although a trade agreement was concluded with the czar during the previous stay in Moscow in 1634, that particular point is not the locus of Fleming's poetic expression here in 1636. (31) Of greater artistic significance is, however, the unchangeable image of the great Russian city, a sentiment which he also incorporated into the next sonnet. This point and this reading of the text highlights Fleming's interest in Moscow as an object of both respiration and poetic expression. Furthermore, it justifies the future poetic interest in these sonnets attested by Sumarokov's translations.

Fleming clearly exploits the structure of the sonnet to create both contrasts ("wir" vs. "Fursten" / "Kongen"; "wagen" vs. "versagt" / "abgeschlagen") and parallels ("mit uns nach Osten" /"in unsren Landen") within the poem. The two quatrains form a single unit, an octave, and are not independent of each another, as is made clear by the enjambement between lines 4 and 5. The metrical features of the octave are otherwise unremarkable, with masculine a rhymes and feminine b rhymes. The unusual rhyme structure (cddeec of the tercets, however, does draw more closely together the thematically independent strophes. (32) The embracing c rhyme further consolidates the tercets. Throughout the sonnet one notes an intensification of the positive sentiment toward the Russian capital which in turn serves as justification for the good wishes for the future which the poet bestows on the city and functions as impetus for future poetic production.

In his translation of the first lines of Fleming's "An die grosse Stadt Mosskaw / als er schiede" ("Velikomu gradu Moskve"), Sumarokov preserves the meaning, but combines and transposes: Fleming's first two lines, "PRinzessin deines Reichs / die Hollstein Muhme nennt" and "Du wahre Freundinn du / dutch welcher Gunst wir wagen /" are scrambled; Fleming's first hemistich ("PRinzessin ...") appears in Sumarokov's second line ("V rossiiskikh gorodakh pod imenem tsaritsy"), while Fleming's second hemistich ("die Hollstein ...") appears in Sumarokov's first line, but combined with the first half of Fleming's second line ("o ty, soiuznitsa Golshtinskiia strany"). Sumarokov markedly increases the solemnity of the lines by elevating Fleming's "PRinzessin" to "tsaritsa" and "Muhme" to "soiuznitsa," already hinting at Sumarokov's instinctive (not consciously pragmatic) toning down of Fleming's Baroque exuberance to Classicistic coolness--alluded to by Slobodskaia in general terms. Fleming's lines "durch welcher Gunst wir wagen / was Fursten ward versagt / und Kongen abgeschlagen/" are omitted--perhaps, one is tempted to say, out of a sense of political delicacy--and the comparatively flavourless and non-specific line "Ty otverzaesh' nam dalekie granitsy" is substituted. Fleming's "Den Weg nach Aufgang zu" apparently puzzled Sumarokov. At first glance, one is tempted to conclude that he did not understand "Aufgang" in the meaning of "East," but in his translation of "An den Fluss Mosskaw" he correctly translates the term. In any case, he covered his uncertainty with his vague "K puti, v kotoryi my teper' ustremleny," whatever direction that may be. In his deliberate separation of Fleming's octave into two quatrains, Sumarokov is forced to do violence to Fleming's lines 4 and 5, "Wir haben nun erkennt / || wie sehr dein freundlichs Hertz in unsrer Liebe brennt." Slobodskaia evidently misunderstood Sumarokov's motivation here, and was unable to offer a satisfactory explanation for his translation of these lines. For this structural reason, Sumarokov has felt impelled, in his line 5, to invent the almost meaningless line "My rek tvoikh struei k pristanishchu techem" which does little more than fill metrical space, to resume his--and Fleming's--line 6: "Die Treue wollen wir mit uns nach Osten tragen" / "I druzhestvo tvoe my vozvestiln Vostoku." To conclude his second quatrain, Sumarokov apparently felt that Fleming's line 7 was stronger than the line actually concluding the German poet's octave; Fleming's "Und bey der Wiederkunfft in unsern Landen sagen" becomes Sumarokov's "Po vozvrashchenii na Zapade rechem." Here Sumarokov's neat juxtaposition of East (Vostok) and West (Zapad) constitutes a genuine improvement over the original. Fleming's line 8, "das Bildnuss ist gemacht / das keine Zeit zertrennt," in turn becomes Sumarokov's rather neutral line 7, "Tvoiu k tvoim druz'iam shchedrotu prevysoku," which has the advantage--from the Russian point of view--of placing the entire emphasis on the virtues of the Russian city. Sumarokov's first line of the first tercet faithfully reflects that of Fleming's "Des frommen Himmels-Gunst die musse dich erfreuen"--"Dai, nebo, chtoby ty byla blagopoluchna"; but he moves Fleming's third line, "Kein Mars und kein Vulcan dir uberlastig seyn" to his second line, while de-personifying it: "Bezbranna, s tishinoi svoeiu nerazluchna." Slobodskaia gives this line as a prime example of Sumarokov's conscious elimination of Fleming's metaphors, an over-simplification at best. It is not clear why Sumarokov eliminates mythological names here they would certainly have been as much a part of the culture of his readers as of Fleming's, and he has no hesitation, for example, in invoking Erato in his translation of "An den Fluss Mosskaw." Fleming's colourless line 10 "Und alles/was du thust /nach Wunsche dir gedeyen" becomes Sumarokov's equally lackluster "Chtob tvoi v spokoistvii blazhennyi zhil narod!" although the Russian attempts a drumroll with the already almost mystical word "narod" followed by an exclamation mark. In the final tercet, Sumarokov adheres closely to Fleming's original. Where Fleming (line 12) has "Nim itzo diss Sonnet," however, Sumarokov has simply "Primi sii stikh," perhaps reflecting as much the eighteenth-century loss of interest in the sonnet, as metrical exigencies. The remaining lines, "Komm ich mit Glucke wieder / || So wil ich deinen Preiss erhohn durch starckre Leider / || Da deiner Wollgen Schall auch horen soil mein Rhein," are metrically and lexically faithfully rendered as "Kogda ia voz-vrashchusia, || Dostoino slavu ia tvoiu vospet' potshchusia || I Volgu pokhvaloi promchu do Reinskikh vod."

Fleming's "An den Fluss Mosskaw / als er schiede" repeats the sentiments of the previous poem in new and varied form. Although the thematic point of departure is the Moscow River, Fleming uses the fluidity of the river to allude to the city and the positive images it calls forth in the poet's mind. In the first strophe alone, Fleming indirectly refers to the city four times. The reader can picture the city in the distance and imagine the silvery thread of the river as the poet's last tangible connection to the Russian capital which draws his thoughts like a magnet. The motion of the opening lines is underscored in several ways, not the least being the use of the repeated imperative "Fleuss." The motion of the river between the poet and the city as well as the incipient journey of the poet to unknown lands is thereby stressed and anticipated. The poet openly refers to this visit as his second stay in Moscow ("Die nun das andermahl sich uns so gut erweiste") and to the ruler of that city by whose grace the legation is proceeding to the East. The peaceful fluid movement is further highlighted by the liquid consonants and the liquidity of the vowels of the first quatrain. The second quatrain of the sonnet brings once again the promise of more fame and high reputation, should the poet be allowed to return. Here one notices, however, the compression of themes from the previous sonnet. Poetic expression of these themes (image of the city, return of the poet, promise of further poems) is condensed into the octave. The poetic space gained thereby in the tercets is reserved for the articulation of new and related themes--comparison of the Mulde and the Moscow River, and the sudden decision to fulfill the poetic promise of more praise for the city of the Russians. The reference to his native German topography invites the point of comparison. Fleming is so taken by the new lands and experiences that he is a "half-prodigal son." The poet admits that other impressions occupy his thoughts at present and that his own river, personified, would have little cause to be happy with him, "weil ich fast nicht denck helm / ein halb-verlohrner Sohn." Where the first sonnet about the city of Moscow promises much in the way of future poetry, this sonnet about the Moscow River reflects the fulness with which the poet has experienced the Russian capital. This abundance of impressions outweighs his mature plans, and poetic inspiration overcomes the itinerant poet. Fleming calls on Erato, the muse of love poetry, as he rushes to fulfill his promise. As in the first sonnet, acoustic impressions dominate the last lines (including the word play on Violen), the highly musical quality of the verses resounding long after the actual close of the poem.

Each of the quatrains and tercets of this sonnet is a complete syntactical unit without the enjambement of the earlier example. There are, nonetheless, striking parallels which present themselves in the new formulation of the poet's feelings about Moscow. If one compares the basic themes of the two sonnets, the following points can be cited: "An die Stadt..." "An den Fluss ..." I a. Gunst, Aufgang I a. Urlaub, Aufgang I b. Wicderkunfft Bildnuss / I b. komm ich wieder heim das keine Zeit Zertrennt nicht kommen aus dem Sinn II a. Wollgen / Rhein II a. dich [den Fluss Moskaw] / Mulde II b. Nimm ietzo diss Sonnet II b. Nim diese Hand voll Klee

This compression of poetic articulation can also be observed on the basis of this sketch. One might also note Fleming's concept of the tercets as a sestet by the repeated use of an unusual rhyme scheme, here abba abba ccd ede. This rhyme technique highlights the inherent structure of Fleming's sonnets as consisting of two strophes, of the octave and the sestet, not of two quatrains and two tercets.

Both sonnets--"An die grosse Stadt Mosskaw ..." and "An den Fluss Mosskaw ..."--belong to Fleming's second book of sonnets "Allerhand Gluckwunschungen" and should be viewed as the joyous poetic articulation of an impression so deep, so great that the poet gave voice to it in variant forms. Even though the thematic point of departure of the second sonnet is the Moscow River, the real subject of the poem is the city, and by implication the Russian ruler and his subjects. One should also note that Fleming calls upon the Muse of love poetry to fetch the zither with which she will accompany his love sonnet to the great city and its river.

Sumarokov's translation of "An den Fluss Mosskaw / als er schiede" ("Moskve-reke") follows the original even more closely than the first. Since Fleming concludes a thought in line 4, Sumarokov has no difficulty in organizing the octave into two quatrains, and he smoothly achieves a line-by-line correspondence. "Fleuss sanffte / wie du thust / in deinen Ufern hin" without friction becomes "Vsegda ty v tishine teki v svoikh bregakh." "Fleuss deine Stadt vorbey / die grosse / die gepreiste" is even sharpened and focused; the two adjectives are fused into one, which is intensified ("velikolepna"), and instead of simply flowing past the city, the river is ordered to bathe its walls: "I grada omyvai velikolepna steny." Fleming's "Die nun das andermahl sich uns so gut erweiste" is also intensified (it must be borne in mind that the translator--as is by definition almost always the case is here an "insider," while the original author is an "outsider"; thus the point of view is inevitably reversed); Sumarokov's "My v nikh [i.e., the city walls, not mentioned by Fleming] v drugoi uzh raz zrim lasku bez premeny" introduces "unceasing kindness" only hinted at in Fleming's line. The meaning of Fleming's "Durch welcher Urlaub wir nun in den Aufgang ziehn" is precisely transmitted in Sumarokov's "Kotoroi [i.e., through Moscow's kindness] chaem my v vostochnykh byt' stranakh," where Sumarokov correctly understands "Aufgang," but the harshness of the official granting of permission to travel through Russian provinces is softened to kindness and generosity.

Fleming's matter-of-fact lines 5 and 6, "Verbleib' ich so gesund / als wie ich itzo bin || Und komm' ich wieder heim / als wie ich abverreiste," are at first glance precisely rendered: "Kol' vozvrashchusia zdrav, kak byl v strane ia sei || Kakov ot beregov tvoikh ia otluchaius'." Upon close examination, however, several small but significant changes appear. Sumarokov brings the active verb "komm' ... wieder" from line 6 up into line 5, thus energizing the first line in his quatrain. Interestingly, Sumarokov subtly alters the psychological impact of these lines by transposing Fleming's verbal tenses in the two lines: "als wie ich itzo bin" (line 5) becomes the past tense "kak byl," while "abverreiste" in line 6 becomes the present tense "otluchaius'." In the first line Sumarokov more clearly separates the act of taking leave from Moscow and its fiver from that of arriving somewhere (as Sumarokov mistakenly evidently believes) in or closer to Fleming's homeland, and in the second Sumarokov, by using the present tense, seems to emphasize his narrator's reluctance to leave Moscow. This impression is deepened by Sumarokov's omission of Fleming's "heim" altogether, and his double introduction of his own homeland (neither mention of which is present in Fleming's original): "v strane ... sei" and--even more pointedly, by addressing the river directly--in "ot beregov tvoikh." Once again, Sumarokov--perhaps half unconsciously--has reversed the narrator's point of view. Fleming's lines 7 and 8 are almost perfectly reflected in Sumarokov's: "So sey dirs zugesagt mit Mund und gantzem Geiste/|| Du solt mir nimmermehr nicht kolnmen aus dem Sinn'"--"Ustami ia tebe i serdtsem obeshchaius', || Chto ty ne vyidesh' vvek iz pamiati moei."

The first line of Fleming's first tercet--"'Ich wil dich so bekand / als meine Mulde machen"--Sumarokov expands to fill two lines: "Vospet' khvalu tvoim struiam ia ne ostavliu. || Kak Mul'da slavitsia, tak ia tebia proslavliu," demonstrating that he does not always tone down Fleming's more exuberant expression, but is indeed himself capable of deepening Fleming's enthusiasm. Sumarokov's expansion allows him to become more specific and more lyrical, addressing the river more personally. On the other hand, Fleming's second line, "Die itzund uber mir nicht allzusehr wird lachen," has in the process been deliberately omitted in its entirety, and its motivation by the third line, "Weil ich fast nicht denck heim / ein halb-verlohrner Sohn," has been eliminated; Sumarokov's third line then becomes self-contained in an independent clause: "No tamo ia uzhe ne chaiu bol'she byt'." The indefiniteness and indecision in Fleming's "fast nicht denck" and "half-verlohner" are abolished with Sumarokov's incisive "uzhe ne chaiu bol'she byt'," and Sumarokov's tercet ends on a clear, fatalistically resigned note.

Fleming's opening line of the final tercet--"Nim diese Hand voll Klee / im Mangel der Violen'--is changed in tone in Sumarokov's version, while the meaning, on the other hand, is carefully preserved--"Primi sei malyi trud...." The omission of the bouquet has been singled out by Slobodskaia as supporting her assertion that Sumarokov habitually made a point of omitting Fleming's metaphors. Sumarokov, however, was evidently not motivated so ranch by a predetermined program of a particular poetic mode as by a highly skilled translator's impulse to make each translated unit as clear and as crisply elegant as possible. For reasons stemming from his personal sense of esthetics, he must have felt that this line was better in his own simply expressed half line, in which the poet's modesty appears more sincere: "Accept this small work." But he then has to expand Fleming's next hemistich, "[Nim ...] Zu treuen Gunsten an," to fill one and a half lines: "... Po vremeni ia miru || Potshchusia o tebe gromchae vozglasit'," thus correctly interpreting and at the same time crystallizing Fleming's meaning, making it more definite and unmistakable. Sumarokov then continues to clarify and solidify the rather diffuse and misty meaning in Fleming's final one and a half lines (Sumarokov's single concluding line): "Ich dichte schon den Thon. || Lauf / Erato / alsbald / die Zyther her zu holen"--"Net, budu pet' teper'! podai, Erata, liru!" The poet's sudden change of mind, only suggested by Fleming, is made abrupt and urgent by Sumarokov with his emphatic "net" and his use of exclamation marks. The Russian Erato is ordered to hand the poet his lyre directly, not simply to go and fetch it. Incidentally, Sumarokov understandably chose to call for a Russian "lira" rather than a "tsitra" as being more in keeping with European poetic tradition. The Russian sonnet thus concludes on an emphatic, decisive note missing from the German original.

Whereas the two sonnets discussed up to this point both originate from Fleming's second departure from Moscow on the eve of the journey to Persia, the third poem to be discussed here presents the second arrival of the poet in the Russian capital. Again the reader can note the similarity in Fleming's treatment of poetic sentiment. Whereas the wish for a successful conclusion of the travels and a safe return (not just from Persia, but also to his Gentian home) dominates the sonnets already discussed, the last sonnet "Er redet die Stadt Mosskaw an / Als er ihre verguldeten Thurme von fernen sahe" presents the poetic manipulation of a past journey, of his extended stay in the Baltic city of Reval and the thoughts of his beloved Elsabe there. Although Fleming uses the golden spires of Moscow for a Petrarchan flight of fancy alluding to his beloved "Basilene," this example from his third book of sonnets, "Liebesgedichte," is more than superficially related to the other two sonnets. All three poems reflect a love affair with Moscow which gives rise to various forms of poetic expression about the greatness of the city and the poet's experiences there.

The poetic premise of this sonnet is an innovative variation of the Petrarchan topos of an inner monologue or address to an object or idea associated with the beloved (cf., for example, the poem immediately preceding this one in Fleming's published works, "An den Westwind. Dass Er Sie zu Ihm bringe"). Here in the first quatrain Fleming expresses the golden qualities of the city worthy of the imperial theme initiated in the first hemistich. The series of adjectives in the second line, "Gross / herrlich / Schone / reich," evokes the treatment of the adjectives in the epitaph which the poet later wrote for himself; one feels here the same confidence and assurance in both expression and form. The transition in the poetic sentiment is broached in the third line where the poet states that the golden spires remind him of something else whose superlative qualities surpass those of the city's turrets. The steeples have served their purpose as a point of poetic departure, and the poet rapidly shifts the reader's attention to the next quatrain: "... so kommt mir in den Sinn [parallel] Was guldners noch als Gold / nach dem ich mich muss sehnen." The opening lines of the second quatrain compare the soaring height of the towers with the high virtue of his "Basilene." The beloved's beauty is a physical manifestation of her inner virtue. Her sterling qualities have captivated the poet completely, a condition which is expressed by the adept play with the pronoun "sic" in the seventh line of the sonnet. From the context "sie" clearly refers to the poet's loved one, but it could also indirectly refer to "die Stadt." He proclaims the beloved as "Gantz ich," "meine All," and "meine Herrscherin." The latter sentiment neatly balances the opening line of the poem "Du edle Kayserin ..." and lends a symmetry of structure and theme to the octave. The outstanding qualities culminate in the eighth line with the double superlative: [Sie] "hat bey mir allen Preiss der schonsten unter schonen."

The first tercet returns to the theme of the city, and offers Fleming's justifications of his high praise; Moscow is the center of its world, there is no earthly comparison to its divine features, and it is home to thousands of Russians. Again we hear phrases anticipating his other sonnets to Moscow: e.g., his "du Hauptstadt deiner Welt" compares with the "PRinzessin deines Reichs" of "An die grosse Stadt Mosskaw." Similarly, the intensification of human and earthly to divine attributes occurs also in this sonnet: "Mehr aber ruhm ich dich /weil / was dich himmlisch preist / [parallel] Mich an ein Gottlichs Mensch bey dir gedencken heist." Therewith the last tercet has closed the circle by returning to the woman: "In welcher alles ist / was treflich wird geheissen." The graceful alternation between the city and the woman is preserved in the transition from the octave to the sestet. The parallels in structure are not static, however, but rather grow in intensity from one strophe to the next. The human qualities of the city and the woman are the point of focus in the octave, while the supernatural or divine aspects of both become the central theme of the sestet. The poetic intensification also progresses within the sestet when the poet heightens the "ich ruhme" of the first tercet to the "Mehr aber ruhm' ich" of the second tercet. The great qualities of the city are merely a foil to the even more remarkable qualities of the beloved woman. It is significant that Fleming chose to see his fiancee in the golden towers of Moscow, and that he did not choose some other point of departure for his reminiscence of Elsabe.

Slobodskaia bases her remarks concerning Sumarokov's translation of this sonnet, entitled simply "Moskve" ("To Moscow"), on the fact that (1) his poet-narrator, unlike Fleming's, is leaving, not approaching, the city, and that (2) his poet's beloved is in Moscow itself, while Fleming's is in a distant city. She has interpreted these divergences, whether resulting from Sumarokov's deliberate misreading or not, as a conscious and rather drastic adaptation of the content of the original. However, a close reading of the original parallel with the translation leads to the conclusion that nowhere in Fleming's poem are these two points made clear--one has to know Fleming's biography from other sources to be aware of them. Given this fact, Sumarokov's translation of this sonnet proves to be basically as conscientionsly faithful to the original as are the other two.

The meaning of Fleming's opening line, "Due Edle Kayserinn der Stadte der Ruthenen," is quite accurately given in Sumarokov's "Grad, russkikh gorodov vladychitsa prekhval'na," but at the same time the city is subtly exalted a degree higher and the praise is intensified. Fleming's next half-line, "Gross / herrlich / schone / reich," while semantically shortened to three descriptive words--rather than adjectives, Sumarokov uses nouns dependent on the adjective at the end of the previous line, thereby achieving a greater degree of emphasis and depth--is metrically lengthened to fill an entire line: "Velikolepiem, bogatstvom, shirotoi!" Fleming's next two hemistichs, "seh' ich auf dich dorthin / [parallel] Auff dein verguldtes Haupt," setting up the somewhat laboured Petrarchan transition from the gilded church spires to the golden hair of his beloved, which very probably evoked a feeling of discomfort, perhaps even of embarrassment, in Sumarokov--as indeed it may in a modern reader--are reduced simply to "Ia bashen zlato zriu," and the emphasis is transferred from the "gilded head" of the city to the "gold of the towers." Not only is the strained poetic commonplace forestalled, but the-adjective is converted to a noun, inhibiting further extensions of its meaning. This done, Sumarokov can return, for the moment, to following more closely Fleming's original lines, "so kommt mir in den Sinn [parallel was guldners noch als Gold / nach dem ich mich muss sehen": "no zlato predo mnoi [parallel] Deshevle, nezhel' to, chem mysl' moia pechal'na." But it must be noted that here, too, Sumarokov, while maintaining Fleming's metrics perfectly, brings Fleming's flight nearer to earth; Sumarokov adheres to the use of the noun "gold" rather than the adjective, and works in the reverse direction from Fleming. Instead of making the object of his yearning more golden than gold, Sumarokov makes gold less precious than this object.

At this point (line 5) Sumarokov uses his customary metric separation of the octave into quatrains to put more distance between his translation and Fleming's golden towers/golden hair preoccupation. While Fleming hammers home his metaphor with "Es ist das hohe Haar der schonen Basilenen," using a conventionalized name (an anagram of the name of his beloved, Elsabe), Sumarokov continues to address the city, as both poets had done in line 1: "Mnoi zrish'sia ty eshche v svoem prekrasnei tsvete," a line of his own invention. The troublesome passage safely by-passed, Sumarokov can once again gradually merge his translation with the original, still, however, under the understandable impression that the beloved is in Moscow. Fleming, singing the praises of his beloved, continues (line 6), "Durch welcher Trefflichkeit ich eingenommen bin," and Sumarokov, drawing closer to the original, has "V tebe [i.e., in the city] ostavil ia chto mne miliai vsego," which begins to combine Fleming's lines 6 and 7. Fleming's line 7 then extravagantly proclaims, "Sie / Gantz ich / Sic mein All / Sic / mein Herrscherinn," which is more soberly rendered as "Kto rune liubeznee i serdtsa moego." Fleming's line 8, "Hat bey mir allen Preiss der schonsten unter schonen" is reflected by Sumarokov's equivalent use of the superlative "V tebe ostalasia prekrasneishaia v svete." The translation and the original are again on exact parallel courses.

In the first following tercet, Sumarokov neatly rearranges some of Fleming's half-lines, but concludes with Fleming's final hemistich. Fleming's opening half-line "Ich ruhme billich" becomes Sumarokov's second line, "Dostoino ia khvaliu tebia, velikii grad"; the rest of Fleming's first line, "du Haupt-Stadt deiner Welt," is then made specific and expanded to take up the entire first line, with the Russian nationality being picked up from Fleming's third line: "Izvbrannye mesta Rossii glavnykh chad." Fleming's second line ("weil deiner Gottlichkeit hier nichts die Wage halt") is, on the other hand, compressed into the first hemistich of Sumarokov's third line: "Tebe primera net," while Fleming's entire third line, "Und du der Ausszug bist von tausenden der Reussen" is distilled into Sumarokov's final hemistich, "v premnogom sem narode!" with a poetic raising of the power of the number of Russians ("Tausenden") to indefiniteness, if not infinity ("premnogom"). (The Soviets did not invent either the Russian preoccupation with the "narod" or the tendency to elevate their own numbers into the mystical.)

Fleming's final tercet is faithfully rendered, from Sumarokov's point of view--he continues, logically, to believe that Fleming's beloved is in Moscow, as is evident in his second line, "Chto ty [i.e., Moscow] zhilishche, grad, vozliublennoi moei," which accords perfectly well with Fleming's corresponding line, "Mich an ein Gottlichs Mensch bey dir gedencken heist." Fleming's first line--"Mehr aber ruhm ich dich / weil / was dich himmlisch priest"--is almost literally rendered: "No khvalen bol'she ty eshchce prichinoi sei," as is the final line: "In welcher alles ist / was treflich wird geheissen"--"V kotoroi vse to est' chto luchshee v prirode."

Sumarokov's translation of Fleming's "Er redet die Stadt Mosskaw an," then, actually proves to be as accurate and polished a work as the other two sonnet translations; Slobodskaia in her reservations concerning it has failed to see the logic and almost the inevitability of Sumarokov's misunderstanding of the location of Fleming's beloved. It was not a deliberate recasting of the contents of Fleming's original; Sumarokov was surely confident that he was adhering to Fleming's meaning. Moreover, Sumarokov's translation, if indeed not the first, is certainly a very early Russian example of the standard European poem written to a city, place, or geographical landmark, and Sumarokov is important as a pioneer in transmitting a significant poetic subgenre into Russian literature.

Fleming's three sonnets about Moscow are important poetic works for several reasons. First and foremost, these are the earliest German poems about the Russian capital composed by a first-hand observer. (33) Fleming clearly sees himself on an important political and economic mission; alter all his trip was not merely a typical cavalier's tour, and his duties involved highly responsible and delicate offices. Moreover, his poetic expression of the experiences of the legation do, in fact, anticipate the events described by Olearius in his travelogue. To cite just a few examples, we return briefly to the first sonnet, "An die grosse Stadt Mosskaw / als er schiede." Fleming states in the first quatrain, "Du wahre Freundinn du / durch welcher Gunst wir wagen / [parallel] Was Fursten ward versagt / und Kongen abgeschlagen / [parallel] den Weg nach Aufgang zu." Cf. Olearius's portrayal of a later stage (October 3, 1636) of the journey outside Astrachan: "Was Kaysern ward versagt / was Pabsten abgeschlagen / [parallel] Was Konigen verwehrt / steht uns nun frey zu wagen." (34) A similar instance can be cited in the use of familial terms to refer to Russia and therewith the czar. On several occasions, Olearius reports Friedrich III's greeting to the Russian emperor as "Michael Feedorowitz, Unsern freundlich geliebten Herrn Oheimb und Schwager." (35) Lappenberg reflects the strict interpretation of familial terms characteristic of his own time when he states "Verkehrter ware nichts als eine angebliche Schwagerschaft zwischen dem damaligen Czaren aus dem Haus Romanow und dem Herzog Friedrich III...." (36) The term here is used loosely to refer to Friedrich III's uncle, Duke Hans (brother to King Christian IV of Denmark and to Friedrich's mother Augusta) who died outside Moscow in 1602 enroute to his wedding to the daughter of Czar Boris Godunov. A representative of the czar actually refers to this inaccuracy in the form of address which was used reciprocally by the czar to Friedrich III's representative. This, in turn, was also reported by Olearius. (37) Thus one can see, on the basis of a few examples, that Fleming's copious poems from this period are indeed a poetic description of the actual travels to Moscow and Persia. Only fifteen of Fleming's poems were collated into Olearius's description, nine of them sonnets. (38) The remaining poetic output from his journeys, including the Moscow sonnets, was not included in Olearius's travel description. These poems occupy a special place in Fleming's oeuvre as independent poetic works and as commentaries on the travels and experiences of Duke Friedrich III's legation.

Olearius's editorial work on behalf of his deceased friend Fleming, in addition to his own travel description, earned him the sobriquet "Der Vielbemuhte" in the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft in 1651. He was clearly considered a valuable addition to the court circle in Gottort, a fact attested by his appointment as court mathematician in 1639 and elevation to librarian and curator of the Kunstkammer in 1649. (39) Were it not for the efforts of Olearius and the financial backing of Heinrich Niehus, the editions of Fleming's works, including specifically the Moscow sonnets, would never have existed to attract the attention of a Russian man of letters in the eighteenth century. (40)

In his translations of Fleming's sonnets, Sumarokov proved himself a superlatively accurate and faithful translator. Slobodskaia to the contrary, he was not primarily and consciously shaping Fleming's German Baroque mode to that of Russian Classicism; he was doing what any superior translator has always done--he was making literary works accessible in another language in a form as close to that of their original as possible. Moreover--as is usually the case--he was making them accessible in another place, and--as is frequently the case--in another time. If he at times reduced Fleming's Baroque mannerisms and shifted emphases, it was natural and inevitable. It was never the result of consciously and programmatically attempting to improve on the original. With the instincts of a good poet and a good translator, however, Sumarokov did indeed at times produce a result superior to Fleming's original, and this in no way detracts from Fleming's own achievement. Sumarokov had the ability to sharpen and focus Fleming's images and to make more concrete Fleming's sometimes hazy concepts--a potential perhaps somehow inherent in the Russian language itself, since it also was to characterize the work of Russia's greatest poet-translator, Vasilii Andreevich Zhukovskii (1783-1852).

Slobodskaia is correct in concluding that Sumarokov's translations of Fleming's sonnets form an important contribution to the history of Russo-German literary relations, (41) although she arrived at this result through sometimes incorrect or irrelevant assumptions. Sumarokov was translating Fleming's sonnets as a part of his campaign to prove that the Russian language was capable of producing any literary form possible in the Western European languages, but this was by no means his entire motivation; his translations were not meant as an academic exercise. He published them in the first Russian scholarly journal, Ezhemesiachnye Sochineniia, a journal that was intended to be as "popular" as the limited reading public of the time would allow, so Fleming's poems reached the largest number of Russian readers possible--a small but significant fact in any attempt at developing a history of the reception of German Baroque literature abroad. Fleming's three sonnets in Russian received the best possible treatment in all respects; their fate in Russian could form a fruitful starting point for a comprehensive study of the reception of German Baroque literature in Russia.

Appendix An die grosse Stadt Mosskaw / als er schiede PRinzessin deines Reichs / die Hollstein Muhme nennet / Du wahre Freundinn du / durch welcher Gunst wit wagen / Was Fursten ward versagt / und Kongen abgeschlagen / Den Weg nach Aufgang zu. Wir haben nun erkennt / Wie sehr dein freundlichs Hertz in unsrer Liebe brennt / Die Treue wollen wir mit uns nach Osten tragen / Und bey der Wiederkunfft in unsern Landen sagen / das Bildnuss ist gemacht / das keine Zeit zertrennt. Dess frommen Himmels-Gunst die musse dich erfreuen / Und alles / was du thust /nach Wunsche dir gedeyen. Kein Mars und kein Vulkan dir uberlastig seyn. Nim itzo diss Sonnet. Komm ich mit Glucke wieder/ So will ich deinen Preiss erhohn durch starckre Lieder / Dass deiner Wollgen Schall auch horen soil mein Rhein. Velikomu gradu Moskve O ty, soiuznitsa Golshtinskiia strany, V rossiiskikh gorodakh pod imenem tsaritsy. Ty otverzaesh' ham dalekie granitsy K puti, v kotoryi my teper' ustremleny. My rek tvoikh struei k pristanishchu techem, I druzhestvo tvoe my vozvestim Vosloku; Tvoiu k tvoim druz'iam shchedrotu prevysoku Po vozvrashchenii na Zapade rechem. Dai, nebo, chtoby ty byla blagopoluchna, Bezbranna, s tishinoi svoeju nerazluchna, Chtob tvoi v spokoistvii blazhennyi zhil narod! Primi sii stikhi. Kogda ia vozvrashchusia, Dostoino slavu ia tvoiu vospet' potshchusia I Volgu pokhvaloi promchu do Reinskikh vod. An den Fluss Mosskaw / Als er schiede. Fleuss sanffte / wie du thust / in deinen Ufern hin / Fleuss deine Stadt vorbey / die grosse / die gepreiste / Die nun das andermahl sich uns so gut erweiste / Dutch welcher Urlaub wir nun in den Aufgang ziehn. Verbleib' ich so gesund / als wie ich itzo bin / Und komm ich wieder heim / als wie ich abverreiste / So sey dirs zugesagt mit Mund und gantzem Geiste / Du solt mir nimmermehr nicht kommen aus dem Sinn. Ich wil dich so bekand / als meine Mulde machen / Die itzund uber mir nicht allzusehr wird lachen / Weil ich fast nicht denek heim / ein halb-verlohrner Sohn. Nim diese Hand voll Klee / im Mangel der Violen / Zu treuen Gunsten an. Ich dichte schon den Thon. Lauf / Erato / alsbald / die Zyther her zu holen. Moskve-reke Vsegda ty v tishine teki v svoikh bregakh I grada omyvai velikolepna steny: My v nikh v drugoi uzh raz zrim lasku bez premeny, Kotoroi chaem my v vostochnykh byt' stranakh. Kol' vozvrashchusia zdrav, kak byl v strane ia sei, Kakov ot beregov tvoikh ia otluchaius', Ustami ia tebe i serdtsem obeshchaius', Chto ty ne vyidesh' vvek iz pamiati moei. Vospet' khvalu tvoim struiam ia ne ostavliu. Kak Mul'da slavitsia, tak ia tebia proslavliu, No tamo ia uzhe ne chaiu bol'she byt'. Primi sei malyi trud. Po vremeni ia miru Potshchusia o tebe gromchae yozglasit'. Net, budu pet' teper'! podai, Erata, liru! Er redet die Stadt Mosskaw an / Als er ihre verguldeten Thurme von fernen sahe. Du Edle Kayserinn der Stadte der Ruthenen / Gross / herrlich / schone / reich; seh ich auf dich dorthin / Auff dein verguldtes Haupt / so kommt mir in den Sinn Was guldners noch als Gold / nach dem ich mich muss sehnen. Es ist das hohe Haar der schonen Basilenen / Durch welcher Trefflichkeit ich eingenommen bin. Sie / Gantz ich / Sie mein All / Sie / meine Herrscherin / Hat bey mir allen Preiss der schonsten unter schonen. Ich ruhme billich dich / du Haupt-Stadt deiner Welt / Well deiner Gottlichkeit hier nichts die Wage halt / Und du der Ausgang bist von tausenden der Reussen. Mehr aber ruhm ich dich / weil / was dich himmlisch preist / Mich an ein Gottlichs Mensch bey dir gedencken heist / In welcher alles ist / was treflich wird geheissen. Moskve Grad, russkikh gorodov valdychitsa prekhval'na Velikolepiem, bogatstvom, shirotoi! la bashen zlato zriu, no zlato predo mnoi Deshevle, nezhel' to, chem mysl' moia pechal'na. Mnoi zrish'sia ty eshche v svoem prekrasnei tsvete; V tebe ostavil ia chto mne miliai vsego, Kto mne liubeznee i serdtsa moego, V tebe ostalasia prekrasneishaia v svete. Izbrannye mesta Rossii glavnykh chad, Dostoino ia khvaliu tebia, velikii grad, Tebe primera net v premnogom sem narode! No khvalen bol'she ty eshche prichinoi sei, Chto ty zhilishchee, grad, vozliublennoi moei, V kotoroi vse to est', chto luchshce v prirode.

KENNETH H. OBER and MARA R. WADE

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Notes

(1) This article appears with kind permission of the editors of Germano-Slavica, where it first appeared in Germano-Slavica, 6 (1990): 259-284.

(2) Michael Henry Heim, "Two Approaches to Translation: Sumarokov vs. Trediakovskii," Mnemozina: Studia Litteraria russica in honorem Vsevolod Setchkarev, eds. Joachim T. Baer and Norman W. Ingham (Munich: Fink, 1974), p. 185.

(3) Harold B. Segel, "Baroque and Rococo in Eighteenth-Century Russian Literature," Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes 15 (1973), 557.

(4) In his article on Sumarokov in Victor Terras' Handbook of Russian Literature (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 453. This Handbook is the standard reference work in the field.

(5) For example, William Edward Brown, A History of 18th Century Russian Literature (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1980), p. 143, considers that the fact that "Sumarokov admired and translated some seventeenth-century German verse, e.g., of Paul Fleming (1609-40) during the 50's, when many of his 'songs' were written, makes German influence probable."

(6) (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1962), Vol. 1, p. 370. "Oni byli perevedeny A.

Sumarokovym, kotoryi prekrasno znal poeziiu Fleminga i vysoko ee stavil" ("They [the sonnets] were translated by A. Sumarokov, who knew Fleming's poetry very well and esteemed it highly").

(7) Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957), p. 117.

(8) "Dannoe proizvedenie Sumarokova predstavliaet pervyi russkii, khotia i ochen' kratkii, biograficheskii slovar' russkikh i inostrannykh pisatelei" (ibid., p. 529.)

(9) "Ginter, nemetskii stikhotvorets poslednego vremeni, kotorogo tshchatel'no sostavelennye i vychishchennye im stikhi, khotia takovykh gorazdo men'she, nezheli drugikh, prevelikoi pokhvaly dostoiny" (ibid., p. 126.)

(10) See the Entsiklopedicheskii slovar', ed. F. A. Brokgauz and I. A. Efron, Vol. 22 (St. Petersburg: Efron, 1894), p. 564.

(11) Polnoe sobranie vsekh sochinenii v stikhakh i proze ... Aleksanda Petrovicha Sumarokova, 2nd ed. (Moskow: Novikov, 1787), Vol. 9, p. 103. The three sonnets are found on pp. 103-105. ("Sei i sleduiushche dva Soneta sochineny Pavlom Flemingom, znatnym Nemetskim Stikhotvortsem, kotoroi byl v Moskve, v 1634 i v 1636 godakh, pri Golshtinskom Posol'stve, a v Rossiiskie stikhi prelozheny g. Sumarokovym.")

(12) Adam Olearius, Offt begehrte Beschreibung \ Der Newen ORIENTALISCHEN REJSE ... (Schleswig: Jacob zur Glocken, 1647). Olearius revised and supplemented the work for republication in 1656. See Gerhard Dunnhaupt, "Adam Olearius," Bibliographisches Handbuch der Deutschen Barockliteratur (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1981), Vol. 2, pp. 1302-21, items 18 and 18a. See also F. Ratsel, "Adam Olearius," Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (1887; Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1970), Vol. 24, pp. 269-76. The text cited here is Adam Olcarius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung Der Muscowitischen vnd Persischen Reyse, ed. Dieter Lohmeier (1656: Tubingen: Neimeyer, 1971). Hereafter cited as "Olearius."

(13) Dieter Lohmeier, "Paul Flemings poetische Bekenntnisse zu Moskau und Russland," Russland und Russen aus deutscher Sicht, ed. Mechthild Keller (Miinchen: Finck, 1985), pp. 341-70.

(14) Secondary literature abounds in the mistaken assertion that Fleming was in Moscow only two times. Fleming was actually in Moscow three times: August 14-December 24, 1634, late March-late June 1636, and January 2-March 15, 1639. See Olearius, pp. 27, 50, 127, 333, and 758-60.

(15) See ibid., pp. 127-334.

(16) We cite from Paul Fleming, Geist-- trod Weltliche POEMATA ... (Jena: Muller, 1660). These poems are included in Lappenberg, but his edition rearranges the books of sonnets and numbers the poems differently. In Lappenberg's edition poems 32 and 44 appear as items 27 and 28 in book three of the sonnets; poem 26 occurs as item 77 in the fourth book of sonnets. Lappenberg preserves the author's dedications. Because of textual differences in Fleming's poem 27 (Bildnuss, line 8), we have chosen to quote a seventeenth-century edition rather than Lappenberg (Bundniss, line 8). All modern editions follow Lappenberg's edition. J[oseph] M[artin] Lappenberg, Paul Flemings Deutsche Gedichte, Bibliothek des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, Vols. 82 and 83 (Stuttgart: Bibliothek des litterarischen Vereins, 1865).

(17) The second book of sonnets is dedicated to "Otto von Rostitz auff Naundorff und Kaltwasser."

(18) The third book of sonnets is dedicated to Diederich von dem Werder. These are Fleming's dedications.

(19) See Lappenberg, Vol. 83, pp. 773, 774, and 790. See also note 16.

(20) D. Paul Flemings \ POetischer Gedichten ... PRODROMUS (Hamburg: Gutwasser. 1641). This was followed by a second edition by Olearius, D. Paul Flemings Teutsche Poemata (Lubeck: Jauch, 1646). See Gerhard Dunnhaupt, "Paul Fleming," Bibliographisches Handbuch der Deutschen Barockliteratur (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1980), Vol. 1, pp. 611-27, items 50 and 51.

(21) See note 12.

(22) See Olearius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung, ed. Dieter Lohmeier, p. *30.

(23) Geist-- und Weltliche POEMATA, "Vorrede" (Jena: Muller, 1660, sig.)([vj.sup.B]-)([vij.sup.A].

(24) Willi Flemming, "Paul Flem[m]ing," Neue Deutsche Biographie (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1961), Vol. 5, pp. 238-39.

(25) Geist-- und Weltliche POEMATA, "Vorrede,'" sig.)([vij.sup.A]-)([vij.sub.B].

(26) See Olearius, p. xx.

(27) Monika Hueck, " 'Der Wilde Muskowit.' Zum Bild Russlands und der Russen in der deutschen Literatur des 17. Jahrhunderts," Russen und Russland aus deutscher Sicht, ed. Mechthild Keller (Munchen: Fink, 1985), pp. 289-340.

(28) His travel companion Olearius was not always so generous: Kirchen/ Bilder / Creutze / Glocken / Weiber /die geschminckt als Docken / Huren / Knoblauch / Brantewein / Seynd in Musscow sehr gemein. Auff dem Marckte mussig gehen / Vor dem Bad entblosset stehen. Mittags schlafen / Vollerey / Rultzen / fartzen / ohne scheu. Zancken / pcitschen / stehlen / morden / Jst auch so gemeine worden Dass sich niemand mehr dran kehrt / weil mans taglich siht und hort.

See Olearius, pp. 209-210.

(29) One of the earliest examples of such poetry is Martin Optiz's "Vom Wolffsbrunnen bey Heidelberg" which also employs the sonnet to elevate the lyrical sentiment about a geographical place to a higher level of poetic meaning. See Ulrich Mache and Volker Meid, eds., Gedichte des Barock (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1980), pp. 25-26.

(30) For this study we employ the poetic formulation used in all seventeenth-century editions of Fleming's German poems and not the reading suggested by Lappenberg (Bundnis = Bildnuss) and subsequently used by others, including the most accessible version of all three poems in the anthology, Paul Fleming. Dentsche Gedichte, ed. Volker Meid (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1986).

(31) In his commentary to Olearius, Lohmeier remarks that despite Lappenberg's complaint that Olearius handled Fleming's poetry poorly in his edition was refuted by Albert Bornemann in his dissertation, "Die Uberlieferung der deutschen Gedichte Paul Flemings" (Greifswald, 1882). He demonstrated that Olearius followed the author's manuscript very carefully. See Olearius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung, ed. Dieter Lohmeier, p. *30.

(32) Volker Meid, Barocklyrik (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1986), pp. 60-62, discusses the seventeenth century debate over whether the sonnet was to be considered a musical or epigrammatic form and the resultant treatment of the constituent parts. The musical quality of Fleming's poetic language--on both lexical and semantic levels--in these three examples indicates this poet's understanding of the sonnet as a musical form.

(33) Dieter Lohmeier, "Paul Flemings poetische Bekenntnisse zu Moskau und Russland," Russland und Russen aus deutscher Sicht, ed. Mechthild Keller (Munchen: Finck, 1985), pp. 341-70. Lohmeier briefly discusses Fleming's three sonnets to Moscow (pp. 357-60) and mentions this point, "sich in Moskau nicht unter wilden Skythen zu finden," p. 359.

(34) See Olearius, p. 85. Whether the cited lines reflect an earlier version of Fleming's sonnet must remain moot.

(35) See Olearius, pp. 85-86, 130, 131, etc. Noted by Lappenberg, Vol. 83, p. 887.

(36) Lappenberg, Vol. 83, p. 774.

(37) See Olearius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung, ed. Dieter Lohmeier, p. * 189.

(38) Eleven poems deal with geographical locations and storms; two each are dedicated to Hartman Grahmann and John Rudolf Stadeler, members of the entourage. See Olearius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung, ed. Dieter Lohmeier, p. * 98.

(39) See ibid., p. * 28-* 33.

(40) Fleming's sonnets about Moscow encouraged immediate imitation by Johann Klaj in his sonnet, "An die Stadt Nurnberg." The first lines suffice to demonstrate that Klaj knew Fleming's sonnets about Moscow: "Du schone Kaiserin /der Ausbund Teutschen Erden [parallel] Printzessin dieses Landes...." The manner in which Klaj's sonnet is imbedded into the prose text of the eclogue with its invocation "in was Betrachtung er seine Augen erstlich ergetzen solte /der Hohenkirchenturme und der neulich erbaueten Rahthauses verguldete Spitzen" also merits our attention. See Georg Philipp Harsdorffer, Sigmund von Birken, and Johann Klaj, Pegnesisches Schafergedicht, ed. Klaus Garber (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1966), p. 8. Fleming's influence on later German poetry, especially that by Johann Christian Gunther and Goethe, has been noted elsewhere. See Meid, Barocklyrik, pp. 129-31.

(41) Slobodskaia, p. 150 ("sushchestvennyi vklad Sumarokova v istorii russko-nemetskikh kul'turnykh sviazei VIII veka").