Chukovsky: An Introduction. A Guide to Korney Chukovsky Memorial House and Beyond. Tatyana Knyazeva
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(even if a short one) of its creator.
DINING ROOM. Antique table and armchairs
DINING ROOM. Phone table
In between the two Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 Korney Chukovsky kept his columnist and reporter activities at the forefront of his schedule, having written scores of essays on different subjects, mostly art (and no longer politics!), but his enthusiasm for English life and letters by no means faded in the years to come.
World War I provided Chukovsky with yet another topic. In 1915 he published a book called The Silent Have Spoken: Tommy Atkins at War, having assembled and analyzed the letters of British soldiers, meaning to evoke sympathy and support for Great Britain – Russia’s ally – and its military efforts.
Next year he returned to London – on this occasion as a member of the official Russian delegation of journalists and writers, invited for the joined talks on war propaganda. The programme included touring shipyards and airports, as part of publicity routine, culminating with an audience with the King George V, who personally congratulated Chukovsky on his Tommy Atkins book. For Chukovsky himself the main result of the trip was another British-related book, full of his impressions, – England on the Eve of Victory.
Later on the journalist side of his career was taken over by his other pursuits, and yet even though Chukovsky wrote for periodicals less and less frequently, he never quite abandoned the role. In a multitude of newspapers and magazines of the Soviet era one could find his reflections and deliberations on a variety of issues, from certain aspects of education system to the shortage of books in libraries to the life of children in different regions of the Soviet Union.
During his evacuation months in Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan Republic, in 1941—42, Chukovsky had to pen articles for the local paper – affiliation with the press was also a means to provide for himself and his family in times of irregular personal income, although he was not prone to sacrifice his professional integrity to financial concerns.
DINING ROOM. Washing set
DINING ROOM. Antique table, fragment
“Aircrafts on the March grass look smart and festive. Beside them – their proud, very handsome aviators. <…>
“Is there any chance I could fly?”
“You are welcome.”
During the short hassle they put on me a bulky coat, yellow leather trousers and a warm hat with earmuffs.
I am happy. I want to sing and behave like a child. I have never flown before. I am deadly afraid of heights. <…> So how come I feel so courageous and brave in this fragile tin box? There is delight and rapture in the clatter of a propeller and presence of some kind of freedom which we incessantly long for.” [England on the Eve of Victory, 1917]
***
“A portly woman went hastily to the school and inquired, appealing to no one in particular:
“Do they hand out children here?”
As if children were grapes or soap.
It was a month ago. I liked her impatience. It was obvious that she was in urgent need of a child – not tomorrow, but today, now! She even got angry when she was told that here, at school, there were no children for her – she should have applied to certain institution to process certain documents first, then visit the orphanage and still wait until tomorrow.
“I cannot,” she said, “The water in the tub is cooling down.” (Obviously, it had been already prepared for the child).” [Uzbekistan – to Children, 1942]
***
“Within an hour I was in the Chapel. It seemed that not a street block, but a thousand years separated me from the heart of London. One can find poverty in the central quarters too, but there it is veiled, silent, hidden. It lurks in the dark corners and is hesitantly afraid to break with its moan the merry vanity of the red-cheeked, confident, broad-shouldered men, who can work, love themselves and laugh so well.” [White Chapel, 1904]
The Translator
STUDY. Italian marionette knight
Literary translation constituted an essential element of Korney Chukovsky’s career from the beginning. A life-long student of language, he devoted much of his time and energy both developing a conceptual framework for a professional translator and demonstrating its effectiveness by his own efforts, earning himself a firm standing in the field.
Despite originally being bilingual, with Russian and Ukrainian as his native languages, Chukovsky made English his principal area of expertise. According to his own account, as a boy he taught himself just from a battered textbook and subsequent chance reading.
Scattered in periodicals, his translations started to appear in 1904, when he was barely twenty-two years of age. For the most part it was from British and American poets, such as, among others, Robert Browning, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Keats, Henry Longfellow and Thomas Moore. The first book-publication of his translations presented, however, the work of his one favourite author – Walt Whitman. From the original edition of 1907 to the last (during his life-time) of 1969 the book went through no less than a dozen substantial revisions.
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