Translating and Transforming Literary Genres: From the German Ballad to Žukovskij's Russian «Ballada»

Zukovskij was undeniably one of the most subjective and original poets of the age, despite the fact that, as the literary historian Dimitrij Mirskij points out, he was mainly a «translator». In the first decade of the 19th century Zukovskij was in the vanguard of Russian literary development, a kind of «Columbus» of Russian Romanticism, as the Russian critic Belinskij defined him. In particular his translations of Burger's celebrated ballad "Lenore" and of other famous German poets, such as Schiller and Goethe, contributed to the rise of Romanticism in Russia and to the renewal of the genre system in its literature, where the ballad took a prominent place for more than two decades. Zukovskij effectively interweaves a series of different trends and traditions: from Sentimentalism to English and German Romanticism and the interest in newly rediscovered expressions of local folklore. This article focuses on Zukovsky's translations and original interpretations of Burger's ballad "Lenore" against the background of the contemporary development of Romanticism in Russia and of the discussions on the aims and modalities of poetic translation.