Folk Terminology of the Balkan and Slavic Christian Orthodox Feasts: the Danger of Translation

Abstract

The article combines methods of ethnolinguistics, Balkan studies, and translatory studies with the aim to analyze the translations of the folk Christian terms of feasts and other facts of the traditional culture. The study of the ways the East-Slavonic calendric term Vtoroj (Second) Spas ʻTransfi guration’ from the Boris Pasternak’s poem August is translated into seven Balkan and South Slavic languages (compared to two English translations) is supported by research of the terminology and corresponding feasts in Balkan and Slavonic traditions. The translations of the poem August investigated in the article are given in the Appendix.