‘What has been added to philosophy, or about “Simply blunt use of words” (bloβer dumpfe Wortgebrauch). Part II

Review of the translation into Russian: Heidegger, M. (2020) Beiträge zur Sache der Philosophie (Vom Ereignis). Translator E. N. Sagetdinov. Moscow: Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy Publ., 640 p.

Abstract

This review provides a detailed analysis of the key translation principles used in the translation of Martin Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis). The peer-reviewed translation to Russian was carried out by E. N. Sagetdinov and published under the title Towards Philosophy. About the event. It was published by the Gaidar Institute publishing house in Moscow, 2020 (ISBN 978-5-93255-589-7). The German text by Martin Heidegger Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) is similar by its semantic complexity to his other seminal work Sein und Zeit completely translated to Russian by V. V. Bibikhin. However, unlike Bibikhin’s translation, the peer-reviewed translation by Sagetdinov does not meet the standards of accuracy in conveying the original meaning. He fails to meet the key principle of translation, i. e., the preservation of the text’s integrity, while calling the result “a deliberately arbitrary collection of notes”. His failure to understand the general conceptual framework of the writing distorts its general idea as well as specific key theses and concepts. This is, above all, induced through borrowing concepts from the Russian lexical and stylistic thesaurus and the conceptual field of Russian philosophical terminology. To provide evidence, the review discusses some fragments of the translation that most vividly demonstrate the distortion of the original meaning of the German text. The review is not limited to the comparison of the German text and its Russian language translation. It also compares the Russian translation and the translations of Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) to other European languages, namely, Italian, Spanish, and English. These translations were found to be much more accurate and correct in relation to the original text.